Simply Complex

A daughter’s reflection on love, resilience, and growing up with a mother living with schizophrenia.

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Simply Complex,
Life with my Schizophrenic Mother

My mother’s life was filled with hardship, tragedy, and, ultimately, a remarkable triumph of the human spirit. The woman I knew was brave, determined, resilient, and simply complex. She carried the scars of a painful past, but she also carried a strength, humor, and wisdom that came from surviving experiences few people could ever imagine

To truly understand her, one would first have to understand the world she was forced to endure. She was orphaned at the age of fourteen, left without siblings, without a family to lean on, and without anyone to protect or guide her. In the dead of World War II, in worn torn Poland, she was a young girl forced to navigate life completely on her own. She lived in poverty, surrounded by danger, uncertainty, and fear, never knowing what each day would bring. Survival was not a choice for her—it was a necessity.

During the war, she witnessed horrors no child should ever have to see. She watched her cousin get shot in the back by the Nazis while attempting to cross the town border. They were trying to reach their uncle’s farm, knowing that he always kept milk and eggs for them—basic necessities that had become rare and precious in a world where hunger and desperation were everywhere.

To survive, my mother endured situations that were both humiliating and terrifying. Every single time she tried to visit her uncle, she was forced to polish the boots of Nazi soldiers, the very people responsible for the suffering and destruction surrounding her. They took her pens and whatever small belongings she had, using their power to intimidate and control her. Yet even in those moments of fear and helplessness, she found ways to endure. She learned how to navigate danger, protect herself, and survive by leaving school at the age of 14 to work in a sewing factory.

But her story did not end there. I want to take you through her incredible journey of leaving Poland and making her way to Canada as a young woman, only to face another life-altering challenge when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

I want to share the story of how she found love, married, and became a mother.I want to share how, amid building a family and a life, she developed schizophrenia.And, I want to share how our family watched her struggle with her diagnosis, her medications, and her treatment.Her journey through mental illness was not easy. As a family, we experienced the fear, confusion, and heartbreak that comes with watching someone you love, battle an illness you do not fully understand. But we also witnessed her courage, her perseverance, and most importantly her healing on the other side.We watched as she found stability again and rediscovered love with the man who stood by her side through it all, remaining with her through her final years.Her story is truly fascinating. Her bravery as a young girl was extraordinary, and some of the stories from her life were surprisingly humorous. While writing this, I have laughed, I have cried, and I have uncovered emotions I had buried for years. Yet when I look back, I can see clearly that every experience she endured, every challenge she overcame, and every moment she fought to survive helped shape me into the person I am today.

My greatest hope by sharing her story is not just to honor her, but also in the hope that it may help other families who are living with a loved one affected by schizophrenia. Although we have come a long way in understanding and treating mental health conditions, we certainly have a long way to go. My mother’s life was a journey of survival, resilience, love, illness, healing, and hope. It was a life marked by unimaginable challenges, but also by incredible strength.

This is her story.

Stories, reflections, and lived experiences.

Where My Mother Ended and Her Sickness Began

There were many layers to telling the story of my mother’s life, and at times I struggled to put the pieces together in the right order.I do not want my mother to sound like a monster, because she was far from that. She was a woman who became very ill, and that distinction matters.Before fear, confusion, and the painful memories that would come later, there was love.My earliest years with my mother, especially my preschool years, were filled with warmth, comfort, and moments I will always cherish. Some of my happiest memories are of her love, her presence, and the feeling of safety I once knew as her child. She taught me so much, and all that she taught me, I carry with me to this day.But illness can slowly change a person, and for a young girl, it was difficult to understand where my mother ended and her sickness began.As I began putting together the story of her life, I realized that although this was my mother’s story, it was also mine to tell—because her illness shaped my childhood, my family, and the way I came to understand love, fear, and loss.So, I begin where my own memories first started to shift—when I was old enough to realize something may have been wrong.I was eight, maybe nine years old, when I remember saying to my father, “Dad, I think Mom is mental.” Of course, that’s not language anyone would use now, but I was a child and didn’t know any better.We lived on the West Island of Montreal, in the suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. From the outside, we should have looked like a normal suburban family. But by then, my mother was beginning to show unmistakable signs of psychosis.Even something as ordinary as grocery shopping could turn into a nightmare.As we moved up and down the aisles, my mother would suddenly target someone with her shopping cart, deliberately crashing into them. Then she would loudly accuse the startled stranger of hitting her first. She would call them Nazis, scream profanities, and curse at them with shocking vulgarity.I remember feeling utterly humiliated. I wanted to disappear, to crawl under a rock while everyone stared.But there was one incident, when I was about nine years old, that truly solidified the realization that our family was different.We were driving out of our suburb onto a main road where construction crews were working. A small backhoe was reversing nearby. I can’t remember every detail clearly now, but I think my mother should have stopped and waited. Instead, she kept driving forward.The backhoe clipped the side mirror of her car. My mother slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car, and erupted. She screamed hysterically at the driver, hurling obscenities at him in a rage that felt completely out of control.The driver looked horrified. He kept apologizing and backing away while my mother continued shouting at him.That was the moment I realized I might actually be afraid of my own mother.When my father came home from work that evening, I ran to him. I had to tell him what had happened. Again, I remember saying, “There’s something wrong with Mom. I think she has a mental illness.”I can’t clearly remember my father’s response, but I do remember his anger toward my mother. Looking back now, I don’t think his anger helped her — or any of us — considering the state she was already in.But as a frightened little girl, all I really wanted was reassurance. I wanted my father to tell me everything was going to be okay. I wanted him to protect us and to get my mother the help she so clearly needed.Those early days of my mother’s illness taught me to watch for every warning sign—to stay alert for what might come next. They also opened my eyes to my father’s shame, frustration, and helplessness. He didn’t know how to carry it all, and in many ways, that was the beginning of when I felt I had to.More to come......

The Unthinkable Happened……..

Our family's life in Montreal was about to take a dramatic turn.The rise of the separatist FLQ movement— and the violence that accompanied them—was taking a growing toll on Anglophone businesses throughout Quebec. As uncertainty mounted, many companies were forced to make difficult decisions about their future.The American company my father worked for ultimately decided that the risks of staying in Montreal were too great. They felt closing that office, and transferring him back to Toronto, was best for everyone.In an instant, that decision changed the course of our lives, setting in motion a chain of events that none of us could have foreseen.The idea of leaving Montreal weighed heavily on my mother. She was very unhappy about the
move and struggled to accept the thought of starting over. It was difficult for my father to understand why she felt that way. From his perspective, returning to Ontario offered the opportunity for a fresh start. He believed that returning to Toronto would be beneficial for
her—that being back in Ontario, closer to familiar surroundings and support, might help her regain some sense of stability. My mother saw it very differently.My dad had very little time to find us a home in a decent neighbourhood where my mother — and the rest of us — could settle, while also trying to cope with her worsening mental health.Looking back, I am quite certain my father was panicking. He carried the weight of supporting our family, the responsibility for uprooting us and bringing us back to Toronto. I can only imagine the pressure he was under as he tried to do what he believed was best for all of us.Most weekends, he flew to Toronto to find us a house, leaving us behind in Montreal. We stayed
with my mother and hoped for the best, but things were spiraling. Her paranoia deepened, and she became convinced that my father’s employer was connected to the Nazis and was plotting to take her away from us.It is difficult to explain what that felt like at my age. I found myself trying to reassure my own mother that what she believed was not true. No child should have to carry that kind of stress.One memory from that time has stayed with me; when my father was away, the neighborhood
seemed to change. Parents grew hesitant to let their children come to our house to play. Even then, I understood why. Their uneasiness wasn’t aimed at me, but it still hurt. I felt the quiet isolation closing in around our family, and it left a lasting mark on me.Reflecting back to that time, the growing separatist movement in Quebec—and the violence that reached its peak in the October Crisis—added another layer of anxiety to our neighbourhood. Ours was a predominantly English-speaking community, and the kidnappings, the murders, left many families frightened and on edge. As the tension spread throughout the
province, it was an especially unsettling time for many Anglophone families in Quebec. As a child, I didn’t fully understand what was happening, I only sensed that something had shifted, and that the adults around me were more watchful and protective than before.All I knew was that I went to bed frightened, and I woke up frightened. My mother's incoherent
ramblings about the Nazis were confusing and, to a nine-year-old, terrifying. I was too young to
understand that her words were the product of a serious mental illness. At the time, they felt absolutely real.My father eventually found us a home in a new subdivision in Mississauga but the house was
still under construction, so we had to move into a rental home and wait for our new house to be completed.I have very little memory of the move itself. What I do remember is starting Grade 5 in a new
school, quietly hoping that my mother wouldn't create the kinds of public scenes that had become a regular part of our lives in Montreal. Like most children, all I wanted was to fit in. I desperately hoped that, somehow, this new beginning would be different.Unfortunately, our hope for a fresh start did not last.My mother found a job at Kmart, and we were genuinely excited for her. We hoped the purpose and routine might help her begin to heal. It lasted only a week.One afternoon, she came home unexpectedly. She sped up the driveway, parked on the front
lawn, jumped out of the car, and began shouting profanities. Through her anger, she told us she
had been fired.To this day, I don't know the real reason she lost her job. I can only assume that the behavior we
had witnessed at home had begun to surface in the workplace as well.Living in that rental home with my mother, whose mental state had become profoundly unstable, was the hardest period of my childhood. There were daily outbursts, escalating violence, and a constant sense that we never knew what might happen next.She often drifted into conversations with herself, laughing for no apparent reason. I remember
asking, “Mom, what are you laughing about?” She would smile and simply reply, “Nothing, dear.
You wouldn’t understand.”At the time, I accepted her answer because I didn't know what else to do. Looking back, I realize those moments were another heartbreaking reminder of how deeply her illness had taken hold.Then something unthinkable happened.One night, I was jolted awake by screaming. I found my mother hitting my father with the steel
pipe from the vacuum cleaner. She screamed at him while he did everything he could to protect
himself and us from the chaos.I do not know how long it lasted. Time seemed to stand still. I remember feeling terrified and
helpless, unable to understand why it was happening.The next morning, I woke to find my father with a packed suitcase. Without saying much, he was preparing to leave. He looked at us quietly and said he could not do it anymore. He needed to go away and think.With those few words, he walked out the door, leaving us alone with a mother whose mental illness was growing more severe.As a child, I didn't understand the impossible position he was in. All I knew was that my father was gone, and the only parent I had left was slipping further and further away from us.I often think about how different things were then. There were no cell phones, no text messages, no way to know where my father was or when he might come back. There was simply silence.Each morning, we got up, got dressed, and went to school as though everything was normal. We smiled when we were expected to smile, answered our teachers' questions, and pretended that life was okay. But behind our front door, our world was falling apart.

This was the last birthday party I had. It was August of 1970. Although my mom was very unstable, she wanted me to have a party with my friends before we moved away. I was so grateful she did that for me.

The Long Bus Ride Home

Three long weeks passed before I saw my father again.One afternoon, he asked me to meet him at a McDonald's after school. As soon as classes ended, I hurried onto the bus, eager to see him. When I arrived, I sat alone on the restaurant patio, anxiously waiting for him. I must have looked like a frightened young girl, watching every car that pulled into the parking lot, hoping it would be him.Those three weeks had felt like an eternity. I didn’t know where he had been or when I would see him again. I only knew how much I missed him.Then I saw his car pull in.The instant he stepped out and smiled, I felt the weight I had been carrying begin to lift. His face lit up when he saw me, and for the first time since he had walked out our front door, I felt a sense of safety and relief.In that simple moment, sitting outside on that patio, I knew I hadn’t been forgotten.It felt so good just to sit with my dad again. I couldn’t wait to tell him everything that had happened over the past 3 weeks. I told stories about school, the friends I had made, and how much I was enjoying middle school. English had quickly become my favourite subject, and music class gave me something to look forward to each day.I shared with him how excited I was about the neighbours across the street. They had three boys and they welcomed me into their home. Their father had built a Volkswagen dune buggy and taught all of us how to drive the standard motor. Driving that dune buggy was a thrill for the tomboy that I was. Looking back, that family was a saving grace, offering me a brief escape from the chaos at home to be a kid.I then asked my dad how he was doing, and he told me he was working a lot to keep himself occupied because he missed us very much. He said he was staying in a motel not far from home, which brought me a sense of relief.Beyond that, he shared very little about what he was going through. The only other thing he did state, was the fact that he had to try to figure things out.For a little while, it almost felt normal to be together again. Then the conversation turned to my mother.My father asked how she was doing and, more importantly, what life at home had been like since he had left.Something inside me changed. I remember beginning to feel angry. How could he ask me that? Had he forgotten that I had witnessed my mother beating him with a steel pipe in the middle of the night? Did he ever stop to think about what it was like for me after he left? Did he realize he was leaving me alone with the very person who had attacked him?As a child, I lived with a fear I could barely put into words. If she could turn on my father so violently, what was to stop her from turning on me next? Every day after he left, that fear lingered in the background. I never knew what we were coming home to or what might trigger another frightening episode. Home no longer felt like a place of safety—it felt unpredictable, and I was left to navigate it alone.Everyday, it became more painful to watch my mother unravel. It was heartbreaking to see the woman I loved slowly disappear into her illness.My father had left me alone with a woman who was becoming increasingly withdrawn and emotionally unreachable. My mother rarely spoke anymore. She struggled with even the simplest household tasks. Home was no longer a place of comfort—it had become a place where I simply tried to cope each day.I chose not to be angry and told him everything I could. I described how distant she had become, how difficult life at home was, and how frightened and confused I often felt. I was hoping he would have answers—that he would tell me what to do, or that somehow, he would make things better.But he didn’t.There were no suggestions, no plan, and no words of reassurance. Looking back, I realize he was probably overwhelmed himself and had no idea how to deal with my mother’s illness. But as a young girl sitting across from her father, all I knew was that I needed him to tell me everything was going to be okay.He couldn’t.As our visit came to an end, my father quietly told me he wasn't quite ready to come home. It was those words that crushed me.
I remember pleading with him, telling him that we really needed him home. I needed him home. Our family was falling apart, and I didn't know how much longer we could survive without him. I hoped that if he could just hear the desperation in my voice, he would change his mind.He didn't.As I reflect on those years, I can see beneath my mother’s erratic behavior. She was a woman, deeply afraid. She didn’t know how she was going to function, how to manage the relentless voices she was hearing, or how she could continue caring for her family when she was fighting a battle within her own mind every single day.

As he watched me climb onto the bus, he waved goodbye. I waved back, knowing I was returning to a home that no longer felt safe or predictable. As the bus pulled away, I watched him disappear from my view, and with him went the only sense of security I had felt in weeks. The brief comfort of being with my father was over, and once again I was going back to face the uncertainty that had become my everyday life.I realized then; it was the beginning of a profound role reversal. Instead of being cared for by my mother, I slowly became her caregiver. I found myself watching over her, worrying about her, and trying to hold our home together in ways no child ever should. Piece by piece, my childhood was replaced by responsibility.

More to come………

The Motherland

Well, my father came back home after a couple of weeks, much to my relief. What happened during that time is a blur. I can't remember whether my mother saw a doctor or whether she was simply so relieved to have my father home that, for a while, it eased her anxiety and quieted the turmoil in her mind.Whatever the reason, she did her very best to be what I called "normal." She became more talkative, more engaged, and more attentive to our family. She started cooking meals again, and I was incredibly grateful. After weeks of living on box after box of macaroni, sitting down to a home-cooked meal felt like a small miracle.

She even started doing the laundry again, something I was especially thankful for because I had begun wearing the same clothes repeatedly. Some readers might wonder why I didn't simply do the laundry myself. The truth is that I wasn't allowed to. My mother was convinced that if I touched the washing machine, I would somehow break it. Looking back, I understand that this was another manifestation of the fear and distorted thinking that accompanied her illness. At the time, though, I simply accepted it as one more rule in our unpredictable home.

During those weeks, my mother also managed to take me to Bi-Way, the discount store, to buy a few new clothes. I was genuinely happy to have something clean and new to wear.Still, as a girl on the verge of turning 12, I couldn't help but notice the difference. All my friends were wearing Levi's jeans, while I showed up to school in polyester pants. It may seem like a small thing, but at that age, fitting in felt incredibly important. I was thankful for what I had, yet quietly wished I could look like everyone else.For a brief time, life seemed almost ordinary again, and I desperately wanted to believe that the worst was behind us.But back to my mother. She was on her best behaviour and seemed genuinely happy to have my father home again. My parents spent more time talking, and for the first time in weeks, they both took an interest in my school and in what was happening in my life.Our home felt calmer. For the first time in weeks, it seemed I could exhale. The constant tension that had filled every room seemed to lift, if only for a little while.

My mother still had her moments. She would slip into conversations with herself or suddenly laugh for no apparent reason. Those episodes hadn't disappeared, but they became less frequent. She seemed more in control, and as a child, that was enough for me to believe that things were finally getting better.It was during this period of renewed hope that my parents began talking about taking a trip to Poland after the school year ended. I was thrilled. I had always wanted to see the country where my mother was born, to walk the streets she had known as a little girl and catch a glimpse of the life she had lived before she came to Canada. While reflecting back, I think returning to her homeland was something my mother needed very much, and for the first time in a very long while, we had something wonderful to look forward to.As excited as I was to see Poland for the first time, I now realize the trip meant far more to my mother than simply introducing me to her motherland.She had been forced to leave Poland in the chaos of war, leaving behind not only her childhood home but also a lifetime of unimaginable loss. Her two infant brothers had died of tuberculosis and were buried without gravestones. I know now how important it was for her to return and honour their memory.Reminiscing, it feels as though my mother had unfinished business in Poland. She needed to reconnect with the place where her life began, to grieve the family she had lost, and perhaps to find some measure of peace.When I think about her life now, I am struck by her resilience. She survived the Second World War, lost her parents, became an orphan at the age of fourteen with no brothers or sisters to lean on, and somehow found the strength to build a new life in Canada. It is almost impossible to fathom the depth of loss and hardship she endured before she ever became my mother.

The weeks leading up to our trip were busy ones in our household. My mother threw herself into the preparations. She sewed several outfits for me and carefully shopped for new clothes so that we would look our best when we arrived in Poland. It was important to her that we make a good impression on our relatives.There were aunts, uncles, and cousins I had never met, and my mother made sure to buy gifts for every one of them. Our suitcases were packed to the brim, filled not only with clothes but with thoughtfully chosen gifts. We would be away for several weeks, and every inch of luggage space was used.The excitement in our home grew with each passing day. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was laughter, anticipation, and something that had been missing for a very long time—hope.
But on the day of our departure, my excitement suddenly gave way to fear.My father wasn't coming with us.
He would be staying behind in Canada while my mother and I travelled to Poland alone. As much as I wanted to see my mother's homeland, the thought of leaving my father behind unsettled me. After everything our family had been through, I wasn't sure I wanted to be separated from him again.The flight to Poland was long. I don't remember whether I slept. What I do remember was the feeling that an incredible adventure had finally begun. When we landed in Warsaw, one of my mother's cousins was waiting to meet us. We somehow crammed ourselves and our mountain of luggage into a tiny Fiat, I can still picture the drive, we were packed in like sardines.My mother's cousin was a stern man who worked for the government. At the time, I didn't fully understand that we were visiting a socialist country or what that meant. Those realities would become clearer as the weeks unfolded. We stayed with him, his wife, and their young son in their small apartment.

To my childhood eyes, it felt incredibly cramped. Despite the crowded quarters, none of that mattered to me. I could hardly believe I was seeing my mother's homeland, the country she had spoken about throughout my childhood and the place where so much of her story had begun.
My uncle's wife was not particularly warm or welcoming. As a child, I found her distant and difficult to warm up to. I sensed that the many gifts my mother had carefully packed and brought from Canada were expected rather than appreciated.I could see the disappointment in my mother's eyes. She had spent weeks shopping for thoughtful gifts for every relative and carefully packing each suitcase with love and anticipation. To see her generosity met with such little appreciation was upsetting. It was during this time that I truly noticed how emotionally fragile my mother was.These were family members she hadn't seen in many, many years. She had returned to Poland hoping to reconnect with them, longing for the warmth, love, and sense of belonging she had been denied for so long.Nevertheless, we settled in that first night, and the next day our adventures in Warsaw began. We wandered through the city, visiting many of its historic landmarks. It was my first glimpse of my mother’s homeland, and I was mesmerised by its history and captivated by its beauty.One fascinating experience was visiting the black market, where I began to understand that we were in a communist country. Many of the things I had always taken for granted in Canada were difficult to obtain and considered a luxury. We shopped for what we though of as normal treats.One thing that shocked me, though, was the number of buildings still riddled with bullet holes. My mother explained that they had been left by the war. I couldn't believe that, nearly thirty years later, the evidence of so much destruction was still all around us. It was the first time history felt real to me—not something in a book, but something I could see with my own eyes.That stayed with me. Her scars ran deep. I was beginning to understand that my mother's emotional trauma wasn't something she could simply leave behind. Returning to Poland meant returning to memories that had never truly disappeared. For the first time, I began to grasp the trauma she carried for so many years.We lasted only a week at Uncle Lolek's. One day, while I was outside playing with the new friends I had made, an argument broke out inside the apartment. I never learned exactly what had happened. However, at times, I caught small glimpses of my mother’s illness, subtle signs that the struggles were still there. Just like that, we were hurriedly packing our suitcases and leaving for the home of another relative.As a young girl, only one question ran through my mind: What did my mother do?

Reclaiming What she Lost

Żyrardów was where I truly began to understand my mother’s early life. We found that my mother’s childhood home was still standing, a small farmhouse with a thatched roof and animals moving through the property. For me, it was like stepping into another time.But what stayed with me was not the setting itself, but what it revealed. As I watched the tenants go about their daily lives, I began to understand how little my generation truly grasped what our parents had endured—especially my mother. The war and its aftermath were no longer distant stories. I was standing in the very place where her life had been shaped.This was also the place where my mother’s father had died. It was where she was forced to leave school as a young girl to work in a sewing factory. And it was where, night after night, she walked home alone while Nazi soldiers occupied and surrounded the town.Standing there, it was impossible not to see her differently. The carefree childhood that most children take for granted had been stolen from her. In its place were responsibility, fear, and a determination to survive.Only years later, through my own research, did I learn that my mother wasn’t forced to leave school solely because she needed the income. It was also the result of Nazi policy.In the fall of 1939, the massive textile factory in Żyrardów was seized by the Nazi Military. Like so many young girls, my mother’s education ended abruptly, and she was forced to work in that factory instead.

Under the Nazi occupation, Poles were viewed largely as a source of manual labour, and my mother became one of those workers. Forced to leave school, she went to work in the textile factory in Żyrardów, where she endured gruelling twelve-hour days.She was still so young, yet the life she should have been living—going to school, being cared for, and simply being a girl—had been replaced by long days of exhausting factory work and the daily struggle to survive a country under occupation. For my mother, there was no real choice. She worked because survival demanded it.Each day she laboured in a place controlled by the occupiers, and each night she made the lonely walk home through a town living under constant fear.Standing there decades later, I finally understood that my mother’s childhood had not simply been interrupted—it had been taken from her.My mother, meanwhile, was focused on something deeper. She was determined to find the deed to her childhood home and reclaim what had once belonged to her family. It was never just about land.

I was very proud of my mother while we were in her hometown. None of our relatives owned cars, so we had to find our way around town by bus. Back home in Canada, my mother relied so heavily on my father that I had never really understood just how independent she could still be.But here, in the town where she had grown up, I saw a different side of her. She knew where she wanted to go and somehow figured out how to get us there. There were confidence and perseverance in her that I hadn’t seen in a long time. In some ways, it felt as though being back in familiar surroundings had awakened a part of the woman she had once been—the young girl who had learned very early in life how to survive on her own.And she had a purpose. My mother was determined to take back her family home. To her, it wasn’t simply a piece of property. It was the place where her family had once been together, the place where her father had died, and one of the few tangible pieces of her childhood that remained. It was about recovering a part of her life that had been taken from her long before.Watching her navigate the town with such determination made me see her differently. Beneath all the fear and dependence, I had witnessed back home, was still that fiercely independent woman—a survivor who, when something mattered deeply enough to her, refused to give up.My mother was able to locate the deed in the city records, proof that the property had once belonged to her family. With that document in hand, she began the difficult process of trying to reclaim her family home.But it proved to be an impossible battle. Under Poland’s communist regime, properties deemed abandoned during or after the war could be taken over by the state. Because my mother had been forced to leave Poland, her family home had fallen into that category and was now considered state-owned property.The bitter irony was that my mother had never truly abandoned her home. War, loss, and circumstance had forced her to leave it behind. Now, after all those years, she had returned with the deed in her hands, only to discover that proving it had belonged to her family did not mean she could have it back.

By then, he was older than time itself. He had outlived two wives and seemed almost larger than life to me. Watching my mother with him, I understood that this visit was about much more than seeing an elderly relative. She was standing before one of the few people still alive who remembered the frightened young girl she had once been—and who had reached out a hand when she desperately needed one.I watched as they became deeply engrossed in conversation when suddenly I noticed a change in my mother. Her body seemed to tighten, and I could see tears beginning to well in her eyes. Whatever they were talking about had touched something painful inside her.She wanted no part of the conversation. Without saying much, she stood up and quickly walked out of the room. I immediately ran after her, worried and wanting to know what was wrong.I soon learned they had been talking about her cousin, who had died during the war. He had been with my mother when she was trying to visit her uncle—the same uncle who had helped her survive when food was scarce.Many years later, I learned the full story. That cousin had been shot in the back by the Nazis while trying to bypass the town border on their way to visit their uncle.My great uncle was still deeply troubled by what had happened. Even after all those years, he could not understand why his nephew had chosen to go around the border instead of passing through it with my mother. As they sat together that day, he was trying to piece together those final moments, asking my mother what had happened and why her cousin had made that decision.

Stirring Up Painful Memories

My mother loved being with her uncle, and as the days passed, I could see a sense of peace beginning to wash over her. There was something about being with him, surrounded by the simplicity of the farm, that seemed to settle her.However, the conversation with my great-uncle about my mother’s cousin continued to linger in her mind. She had carried that burden for far too long. Somewhere inside her, I think she still wondered whether she could have done something differently—whether she could have tried harder to convince her cousin to go with her that day.A couple of days later, my mother brought up the subject of her cousin again. I believe she had spent those days thinking deeply about what her uncle had said and revisiting memories she had carried with her for so many years. This time, though, something seemed different. She wasn’t trying to escape the conversation or push the memory away.She confessed that she still had nightmares about that day. They didn’t come as often anymore, but after all those years, they had never completely disappeared, and they tortured her. Her memories of what happened had become somewhat foggy with time, and I believe she needed to piece together the details with her uncle—to understand what she remembered, what he remembered, and perhaps finally make some sense of it all.Although he had reassured her that what happened was not her fault, I could sense that his words, as comforting as they were, could not undo decades of guilt. My mother’s uncle wanted her to understand that she was not responsible for the choice her cousin made or for the tragedy that followed. But guilt that has lived inside someone for decades does not simply disappear because another person tells you to let it go.Her uncle took her hands in his and comforted her. Whatever questions he still had about that terrible day; he wanted my mother to understand that her cousin’s death was not her responsibility. She had been a young girl trying to survive a war. She could not have known what was going to happen, and she could not have saved everyone she loved.I think she needed to hear that from him. Perhaps, after carrying that burden for so many years, my mother finally gave herself permission to put a small part of it behind her.

Even as a young girl, I understood that the turmoil my mother carried inside her was deeply connected to the war and the devastating losses she had endured. I may not have fully understood the depth of her suffering then, but I knew that much of what troubled her had begun long before I was born.All I wanted to do was protect my mother from any more pain. She had already endured so much, and somehow, I felt a need to shield her from whatever might hurt her next. We still had so much to see, but beneath that excitement was a growing sense of unease. With every place we visited, I wondered—would it bring her joy or reopen another wound?I was heartbroken when it was time to leave my great-uncle’s farm. We had stayed with him and his third wife for a few days, simply enjoying the quiet rhythm and simplicity of farm life. I loved every minute of it.For a young girl who had never experienced anything quite like farm life before, those few days felt magical. There was something so uncomplicated about being there, and I didn’t want to leave.

Somewhere along the way, I even made friends with a chicken. For reasons I’ll never understand, that chicken took a liking to me and followed me everywhere I went. I would walk across the yard, and there she was, right behind me. I thought it was hilarious.As our time on the farm came to an end and we prepared for our next adventure, I could see how much my mother struggled with the thought of leaving her uncle. He was quite old by then, and I think she knew in her heart that this would be the last time she would ever see him.When would she have the chance to return? It had taken her so many years to make this journey back to Poland and having the opportunity to bring me with her and introduce me to a man who had meant so much to her made the visit even more precious.Saying goodbye was not easy. There were tears, long embraces, and an unspoken understanding that this farewell might truly be their last. After everything they had shared—the war, the losses, and the memories that had remained between them for all those years—walking away from him must have felt like saying goodbye to another piece of her past.

We crammed ourselves into yet another tiny car and set off for our next destination. Back home in Canada, we had a station wagon, which suddenly seemed like a boat compared to the little cars we travelled in throughout Poland. I honestly don’t remember who was driving us. I simply remember a man whom I assumed was a relative, and that he would be taking us on the long journey toward Kraków and the Zakopane Mountains.We had been travelling for several hours when it became apparent that we weren’t going to make it to our destination that day. Our long, emotional goodbye with my great-uncle had put us well behind schedule, but no one had wanted to rush those final moments with him.By then, we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The countryside stretched around us, and I had no idea where we were. Eventually, we came across a small roadside inn where we could spend the night. It was rustic and distinctly European, unlike anywhere I had ever stayed in Canada. To a young girl already caught up in the adventure of discovering her mother’s homeland, even an unexpected overnight stop felt like another experience waiting to unfold.We settled into our little room, which had two single beds, and what happened next was completely unexpected. After being crammed in that tiny car for hours, all I wanted to do was stretch out. I flopped backward across one of the beds, completely unaware that there was a solid cast-iron radiator running alongside it.The back of my head hit that radiator so hard I literally saw stars. And did it hurt? Oh, yes, it hurt.My mother immediately grabbed hold of me and quickly realized I was bleeding. I had managed to split open the back of my head, leaving a decent-sized gash.The trouble was, we were in the middle of nowhere, without a hospital anywhere close to us. My mother did what mothers do—she improvised. She cleaned the wound as best she could, pressed a towel against the back of my head to slow the bleeding, and wrapped it securely around me.But what she did next, I will never forget.The towel wouldn’t stay in place, so my mother came up with a solution that could only have made sense in that moment. She grabbed a pair of my underwear and pulled them over my head to hold the towel in place.I was somewhere in the Polish countryside, with my head throbbing, looking ridiculous. My mother, however, couldn’t have cared less. Her daughter was hurt, there was no doctor nearby, and she had a problem to solve.
And solve it she did.Her solution for the pain was vodka. She poured me a shot, which I somehow managed to get down. Apparently deciding that one wasn’t enough, she poured me another. That one didn’t stay down for long.So, there I sat on the edge of the bed with a gash in the back of my head, a towel wrapped around it, my underwear holding the whole thing together, feeling dizzy, incredibly queasy, and slightly drunk.Looking back, I must admit that some of my mother’s remedies were ingenious. She could turn a towel, a pair of underwear, and a little vodka into a treatment of sorts—nothing conventional, but her way of taking care of me.I sometimes wonder whether that resourcefulness came from her wartime experiences. Later during the war, she volunteered as a Red Cross nurse, and perhaps those years taught her to stay calm, improvise, and make do. Whatever the reason, that night in the Polish countryside, she didn’t hesitate. She simply cared for her daughter the best way she knew how.With the events of the night before behind us, we got up the next morning ready to continue our travels. Despite the little hiccup the night before, I was feeling surprisingly well and ready to carry on.Our next stop was Częstochowa, where my mother wanted to visit the Black Madonna at the Jasna Góra Shrine. This was not simply another stop along our journey. Seeing the Black Madonna was deeply important to her, and I could sense that this visit held a meaning I didn’t yet fully understand.My mother explained to me that the Black Madonna was one of Poland’s most cherished spiritual symbols. During the war, when so much had been taken from the Polish people, she represented faith, strength, and hope in the face of oppression.For my mother, though, it was much more personal. She told me that during some of the most frightening moments of the war, when she was scared and uncertain of what would happen next, she clung to her faith and to what the Black Madonna represented.Standing there with her all those years later, I began to understand that this was more than a pilgrimage. My mother was returning to something that had once given her hope when there was very little hope to be found.

The shrine seemed to be another place of calm for my mother, and strangely, it had the same effect on me. The underlying fear I had grown so accustomed to seeing in her seemed to be gradually subsiding. Watching her that day changed something in me as well. For so much of my young life, I had measured my own sense of security by my mother’s state of mind. But standing beside her at the shrine, I felt something different.Perhaps, without realizing it at the time, I was beginning to see my mother differently. This journey had shown me pieces of her life that I had never fully understood—the losses she had endured, the fear she had lived through, and the memories she had carried with her for so many years. I was beginning to understand that there was a reason behind so much of what I had witnessed growing up.It didn’t erase the difficult moments between us, nor did it make her illness disappear. But it softened something in me. I was no longer only seeing the mother whose behaviour could frighten or confuse me. I was beginning to see the frightened young girl she had once been, and the woman who had somehow survived it all.In that sense, Poland was changing our relationship. Somewhere along the way, I began to understand her not only as my mother, but as a person with a story of her own. And with that understanding came a compassion I would carry with me long after.When my mother decided it was time to move on, we packed ourselves back into the little car and set off again, this time for the two-hour drive to Kraków. Every time we got back on the road, I knew another adventure was waiting for us, and I was completely enchanted by it all. There was always something new to see, another place connected to my mother’s past, and another piece of her life for me to discover.When we arrived in Kraków, we quickly checked into our hotel, but my mother had no intention of lingering for long. She was anxious to get out and explore the city, especially its famous market square.

She wanted us to shop, wander among the stalls, and take in everything the market had to offer. But what seemed to excite my mother the most was the idea of sitting together at one of the cafés in the middle of the square. After so much travelling and so many emotional reunions, this felt different. There was no difficult past to confront that afternoon, no family history to unravel. We could simply sit together, surrounded by the bustle of Kraków, and enjoy being mother and daughter.We got back to our hotel at the end of the day, both of us exhausted from shopping and exploring the city. After hours of walking the busy streets of Kraków, we were more than ready to settle in for the night. My mother wanted us to get a good night’s sleep because we had another big day ahead of us.

She told me we were going on a tour of some historic buildings connected to the war. At the time, I thought of it as simply another day of sightseeing, another opportunity to see places I had only heard about. I didn’t yet understand how closely some of what we were about to see was connected to the world my mother had survived.The next morning, we hurried through breakfast, knowing we had a tour bus to catch. By then, I had learned that travelling with my mother meant never knowing quite what the next day would bring. I simply climbed aboard the bus, settled into my seat, and waited to see where our next adventure would take us.When we arrived at Auschwitz, I still didn’t fully comprehend what we were about to see. I knew it had something to do with the war, and I knew from my mother’s stories that terrible things had happened during those years, but I was still young. I could not possibly understand the magnitude of the place we were about to enter.As we stepped off the bus, I remember looking around, taking everything in without truly knowing what any of it meant. I had no idea that I was about to walk through a place that represented some of the darkest moments in human history.
I certainly wasn’t prepared for what being there would stir in my mother, and I wasn’t prepared for how Auschwitz would make me feel.

Seeing those endless piles of shoes and suitcases was overwhelming. Each one had belonged to a person—to someone who had arrived carrying their belongings, not knowing what was waiting for them. Even at my young age, I understood enough to be deeply affected by what I was seeing.My mother and I were both so emotional, but I think for very different reasons. For her, the war was something she had lived through. For me, until that moment, it had mostly been something I had heard about through her stories.
Auschwitz changed that.For the first time, I began to understand the enormity of what the Nazis had done in Poland and the terror under which my mother had lived. The bullet holes I had seen in Warsaw, the stories of her cousin being shot, the long hours she had been forced to work in the textile factory—all of it suddenly took on a different meaning.As I walked through Auschwitz beside her, I could only imagine the fear my poor mother must have carried as a young girl. She had lived knowing that if she failed to do what the Nazis demanded of her, resisted them, or simply found herself on the wrong side of their brutality, she too could have been taken away.

That realization affected me profoundly. I had always known that my mother had survived the war. At Auschwitz, I began to understand what the word survived really meant. I have carried that feeling with me ever since.

We Found Them

Recovering from our visit to Auschwitz was difficult. By the time my mother and I returned to our hotel, we were emotionally exhausted. We had dinner there that evening, but neither of us had much to say. We sat quietly, each lost in our own thoughts, trying to process what we had witnessed.At some point, my mother apologized for taking me there. I remember thinking that she didn't need to. Even then, I appreciated that she had taken me, although I don't think I fully understood why until many years later.Looking back now, I realize how much courage it must have taken for her to walk through those gates. She wasn't simply visiting a historical site. She was confronting the darkest chapter of her own childhood—a time when fear, violence and death had surrounded her, and when the possibility of being taken away herself was very real.I believe taking me to Auschwitz may have been my mother's way of telling me something she didn't know how to put into words.She wanted me to see what the Nazis had done to Poland and its people, but I believe she also wanted me to understand her.Growing up, I had seen the fear, the paranoia and the emotional turmoil that would eventually become such a large part of our lives. As a child, I couldn't possibly know where all of it came from. I only knew how it affected our family and how frightening it could sometimes be.But Poland was slowly giving me pieces of her story.Auschwitz was perhaps the most painful piece of all.Maybe she needed me to see with my own eyes the world that had shaped her because words alone could never explain it. The frightened young girl she had once been had never completely disappeared. Some part of that girl had travelled with her through the rest of her life.As her daughter, I spent years struggling with the ways my mother's fears affected me. There were things I resented, things that frightened me and things I simply could not comprehend. It is easier, with the distance of time, to see that behind so much of what I experienced as a child was a woman carrying wounds I could not see.That realization doesn't erase the difficult parts of our life together. It doesn't change what happened or how it affected me. But it has changed the way I hold those memories.There is more tenderness in them now.Today, I am grateful she took me to Auschwitz. Not because I needed to see such horror, but because she trusted me enough to bring me into a part of herself that must have been terribly painful to revisit.That evening, sitting across from her in the hotel dining room, I saw that my mother was hurting, but I didn't yet have the words to ask her what she was feeling. I didn't know how to reach across the table and comfort her.If I could be face to face with her today, I think I would simply hug her the way she hugged me when I was upset.And I would tell her, “Mom, you never had to say sorry. I understand now.”We finished dinner exhausted, both emotionally and physically. There wasn't much left to say. We simply needed sleep.The next morning, we had one last sightseeing trip planned before continuing our journey. We were heading to Zakopane, a beautiful mountain town nestled at the base of the Tatra Mountains. It was only going to be a short visit—enough time to explore a little and have lunch in the heart of the village before heading on to our next destination, the famous salt mines.After the heaviness of the day before, arriving in Zakopane felt like stepping into another world.I remember being absolutely captivated by it. The mountains rising in the distance were breathtaking, and everywhere I looked there seemed to be something beautiful to take in. I loved the distinctive wooden buildings, the history and the character of the village. There was a warmth and charm to the place that immediately drew me in.For a young girl who had spent the previous day confronting something so dark and difficult to comprehend, Zakopane was a welcome change. For those few hours, I wasn't thinking about war or Nazis or trying to make sense of my mother's past.I was just a girl travelling through Poland with her mother, surrounded by mountains and discovering a place I thought was beautiful.I fell in love with Zakopane almost immediately.After lunch, we hopped back on the bus and headed for the salt mines. I really didn't know what to expect. A salt mine didn't sound particularly frightening to me—or particularly exciting, for that matter.I distinctly remember walking into the main building with my mother and watching her purchase our tickets. We then made our way toward the elevator that would take us underground.The moment I saw it, I had second thoughts.To my young eyes, it looked like the most primitive wooden elevator imaginable. I remember staring at it and wondering whether getting inside was really such a good idea. Nevertheless, I got in.Down we went, deeper into the earth. At least, that's how it felt to me. I was convinced that little wooden elevator was taking us miles beneath the surface, and with every passing moment, I became more terrified.Once we finally stepped out, we joined the tour and began making our way through the mine. I wish I could say I was fascinated by everything around me, but mostly I was thinking about one thing: eventually, I was going to have to get back into that elevator.The tour seemed to last an eternity.While everyone else was taking in the history and marveling at what had been created underground, I was counting the minutes until we could get back above ground.Finally, we returned to that dreaded elevator and began the journey back up.When we reached daylight again, I was enormously relieved to have my feet firmly planted on the surface of the earth.Looking back, I'm sure the salt mine was remarkable and probably deserved far more appreciation than I gave it at the time. But I was a young girl deep underground in Poland, riding in what I was convinced was a questionable wooden elevator.And I can say with absolute certainty that all these years later, I have never felt the slightest need to visit another mine.We boarded the bus back to the hotel, where we would spend our last night before getting on the train to Warsaw. Our sightseeing was coming to an end, but for my mother, the most important part of the journey was still ahead.She needed to find her family.Her father, her mother and her two little brothers had all been buried somewhere in Poland, but we didn't know exactly where. Finding them would require records, government offices and, as we would soon discover, a great deal of persistence.My mother's two little brothers were especially important to her. They had both died so young, and there were no gravestones marking their short lives. She told me that sometimes it felt as though they had never existed at all.Regardless of how brief their lives had been, they were her brothers. They had belonged to her family, and she believed they deserved to be acknowledged.

My mother was convinced that Warsaw would have the records she needed, so that was where the search began.I remember it as a frustrating time for her. There seemed to be one office after another, questions leading to more questions and records that were not nearly as easy to find as she had hoped.Eventually, however, she found them. There, recorded on paper, were her parents and her two little brothers.I remember the sense of relief that came with simply seeing their names. For my mother, especially when it came to her brothers, those records meant something. Their short lives had not simply disappeared with time.But the information also pointed us back to Żyrardów.

There was no time to waste. We knew which cemetery to visit, but not where within it my mother's family had been buried.And so, we began to walk.We walked for what seemed like hours, moving from row to row, reading names and searching gravestones. We decided to look for my grandmother first. Her grave was easier to find. She had died before the war, as had my mother's two little brothers, so the records were somewhat clearer.But finding her father was another matter entirely.He had died in 1940, during the first year of the German occupation of Poland. By then, everything had changed. The country was at war, normal life had been shattered, and records from that period were not nearly as straightforward.So, we kept walking. I watched my mother search every grave, every name, every possible clue.And then we found him. My mother's father. My grandfather.