Shoshanna’s Tale

Ellie Ezzati

Shoshanna was 14 when she was married to Yousef. He was an Accountant educated in France and was about 20 years old at the time. She was a beautiful girl but compared to her six sisters who were married at age eight and nine, Shoshanna was late in getting married. The reason being when Shoshanna was about seven or eight years old she was carrying a pot of boiling water when accidentally she tripped and ended up pouring the scalding water on herself and burning one third of her body. As a result of this tragic accident, Shoshanna had a difficult time finding a suitor. After the customary inspection of her body by the groom’s side of the family she was usually turned down because people believed that the burns on her body would prevent her from bearing children.

But Yousef was an intelligent man; an accountant educated in France knew that the superficial burns on the body had nothing to do with her ability to conceive. So he had willingly and joyfully taken her hand in marriage. Shoshanna and her family were delighted that she was finally getting married.

Because Yousef had felt that at the time of their marriage Shoshanna was still too young to bear children, he had decided to put off any physical relations with her until she was old enough to be a mother. As a result, he and Shoshanna were sleeping in different beds.

Six months, into their marriage, Shoshanna’s mother noticing that her belly was not getting any bigger was concerned and decided to have a talk with her. So one day Shoshanna’s mother and sisters went to see her. Upon arriving her mother asked, “Shoshanna, is everything o.k. between you and Yousef?” With out hesitation Shoshanna replied, “Yes, everything is fine.” Her mother then asked, “Any problems at all between you and Yousef?” Shoshanna thought harder for another second and said, “No, none!” Her mother proceeded to ask again, “Any problems in the bedroom between you and Yousef?” Shoshanna thinking even harder said that there were no problems in the bedroom either. With great dismay, Shoshanna’s mother let out a deep sigh of anguish and said they were going to have to go and see the neighborhood doctor.

For the next six months, Shoshanna was taken to every doctor, medic, herbalist, quack and charlatan in the town and was given every medicine, potion, herb and prayer to help her conceive…all to no avail. Shoshanna was not pregnant.

Finally, one day out of sheer despair, Shoshanna was sitting in the back yard by herself sobbing when Yousef happened to find her sitting there. Concerned, he went to her and asked what was wrong. Shoshanna broke down crying and with great sadness told Yousef that she had seen every doctor and medic in the neighborhood and taken every herb and medicine they had given to her, but nothing was happening. She was not going to bear any children. When Yousef heard this, he let out a deep sigh of relief and realized that it was time to have a talk with Shoshana about the birds and the bees and how children are conceived. To further reassure Shoshana, he said that if she felt ready to have children, they could then begin working on having a family of their own.

Shoshanna was my grandmother and as a young girl I grew up hearing her retell this story numerous times. Of course, her intention behind telling the story was very different behind why I’m writing about it today. I believe her intention for retelling the story was to remind me of a wonderful grandfather whom I never got to know. He died of Parkinson’s disease at age fifty soon after my older brother was born. To her, he was the symbol of wisdom and kindness and while she became a widow at the age forty, she had never stopped thinking about him. She had bore four children, three sons and one daughter. She wanted me to find a husband just like him. Her usual words of praise and blessings to me were, “May God give you a good husband, three sons and a daughter.”

Each time I heard her tell the story I couldn’t help but think how my life was so different from hers. Though she was only two generations removed from me it might have been two hundred years of difference between us. To be married at age fourteen (which was considered late for her time), to have bore children as early as age sixteen, to have become a widow at forty and to have never remarried again is a life style unimaginable to a person raised and educated in this culture.

Shoshanna died on January 14th, 2000. I wasn’t there when she passed away. Her progressively worsening condition with senility and Alzheimer’s disease began creating barriers between us. Towards the end of her life she had become totally deaf and senile. It had become too difficult for me to be around her and finally at one point I just stopped visiting her. Today, some years after her passing I feel that the breaking off of my relationship with her was not all because of her mental illness but also due to the lack communication, understanding and true intimacy between us.

My grandmother never learned of my moving out of my parent’s home as a young adult and living on my own. Had she known this, I would have been ostracized from her home. Where she came from a proper young woman would go from her father’s home to her husband’s home. On the same token, she never got to know that while she was never given the opportunity to go to school and had remained illiterate, her grand daughter had managed to become the only woman in the family to go to college and become a college instructor.

During times of reflection when I recall Shoshanna’s tale, my feelings vacillate between great sadness and deep gratitude. My sadness stems from the fact that my grandmother like so many other women of her generation lived such lives of quiet desperation, never having the chance to experience, explore nor achieve more in life. On the other hand, the immense gratitude I feel is in the knowing that my grandmother’s life and legacy is exactly what has given me the permission as well as the courage to be who I am today.

This is for you grandma…I love you always…your Ellie…

Ellie Ezzati is a psychology instructor at Santa Monica College.