Charlie & Cordelia

Mum looks so tired and depressed in this photo, and it’s no wonder. Trying to maintain a string of lies and fictitious stories over the course of four years would make anyone look worn out.

Mum spoke often and fondly of Charlie when I was a child. They met in 1963 when I was about two and dated on and off for a couple of years.

I was compelled to find Charlie after Mum died in 2018. He was another man who lived in a shoebox of photos at the back of Mum’s closet.

Shortly after this photo was taken Mum took off for Manhattan.  I haven’t even begun to write this complicated chapter which includes Charlie, and another man named Armbruster and how Heinz came to rescue me and my Mum at a bus station in Buffalo.

In 2018 I was able to track down one of Charlie’s daughters who happily gave me Charlie’s phone number.

He literally sobbed at the start of our phone call, when I told him that Mum had recently died. He said he lost contact with my mother after 1965 and that she was his first love.

“Sandy you were such a sweet child, and I was absolutely smitten with your mother and wanted to marry her. She was so beautiful, smart and highly spirited, but she was also so complicated and kept disappearing.”

In July of 2018 I drove three hours to meet him. At 79 years his memory was sharp.

I leaned in hard. He filled my ears with several additions to particular situations that I already had knowledge of; where Mum was working when he met her, the car accident with the Corvair, and how I stood on the bench in a booth at the Black Forest restaurant and together we serenaded Mum with the song “More”.He knew about her time in Manhattan with Armbruster.  And astonishingly he knew who my real father was.

“And the goldfish, do you remember?  I bought you two goldfish.  You immediately said you wanted to name one Charlie; your mother named the other Cordelia.."

After Mum disappeared, Charlie met Gretta she became the love of his life. He began to weep again telling me that she had died 15 years ago.

What a blessing it was for both of us to reconnect. When I learned of Charlie’s passing earlier this year, I sobbed for days.

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I'm not surprised and find it quite fitting that Mum named the other goldfish Cordelia, after King Lear’s daughter. Mum was very bright, by the time she was 18 she had read everything from Hemingway to Tolkien and was a Shakespearean aficionado. It was clearly a representation of herself.  I can see the resemblance now; my mother definitely possessed a thymotic personality. Furthermore, my mother’s life could be considered a tragic waste similar to King Lear’s daughter and to the modern-day character of Cordelia Chase.

Read about Thumos and Thymotic Drive

Sandra Topper is a Semi-Retired Aromachologist & Perfumer

Working now on a Memoir: My Mum said. "You can Figure it out when I'm Dead"

Family Secrets & Generational Trauma

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