Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers by Stephanie Wellen Levine

Author:Stephanie Wellen Levine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2003-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

I just love talking to people, meeting people, getting to know them as well as I can, especially when I can help them. There was one girl there, I told her, “Listen, honey, I allow you one more year working in this sleazy place, and then that’s done. You’re a wonderful person, and you’re denying the world this beautiful person that you’re hiding.” I hope she listens. I like that about me, that I can make people fall in love with themselves and fall in love with me, and hopefully help them along the way.

The role of helper has been foisted on Chaya for most of her nineteen years. Her younger brother Shmuel was born with cerebral palsy. He is wheelchair-bound and unable to dress himself, use the bathroom alone, or write. Eating is a feat; the whole family celebrated when, at age twelve, he mastered the art of scooping soft food with a spoon and placing it in his mouth. Two people in the world understand Shmuel’s speech: his mother and Chaya. Chaya was six when her brother was born; he boosted the Jacobson household to its final count of eleven children. As the older siblings began growing up, going away to school, and marrying, more and more responsibility for Shmuel fell on Chaya, who has a talent for handling her brother. By the time she was in high school, she spent most of her free time caring for Shmuel and helping in the house.

Chaya has cultivated a special knack for bonding with her brother. Even so, Shmuel is tough. I can still picture Chaya struggling to deposit him in the car for a doctor’s appointment, a ritual repeated several times each month. He kicked and screeched. Shmuel is a lonely, angry boy who rails any way he can against his life within a body that can perform so few of the expected human duties and pleasures. Chaya cornered him and hoisted him into the backseat in a single, snapping motion somewhere between a wrestle and a hug. When she settled into the driver’s seat, she looked about ready to cry.

In such circumstances, the family’s emotional state is crucial; it can either soothe a seemingly insurmountable problem or cause tensions to escalate to the point of frenzy. This is a family of ballooning emotions. When you’re mad, you’re furious, and you let people have it with a good holler and a well-chosen barb. Periodically, Mrs. Jacobson lapses into physical abuse—pulling Chaya’s hair; slapping her face; once, in a fit of fury, throwing her down the stairs and then admonishing, “We need to go to your uncle’s now. You will brush yourself off and put a smile on your face for your uncle.” On the other hand, love for her children can overwhelm Mrs. Jacobson to tears. Life is, in a word, overwhelming.

The Jacobsons do get by in their grueling lives without collapsing. Their marriage endures; there have been no full-blown nervous breakdowns to date; they have helped Shmuel to

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