I distinctly remember the time my mother used a spray can to temporarily dye her hair red. I was six years old, sitting right next to her on our family couch. As soon as she did it, I instantly scooted the other way. She aggressively pushed her finger against the can, and her hair started changing before my eyes. Her dark brown hair was replaced with a faded red color, the texture of sandpaper. She made me feel her red sandpaper, and I did not like it. I had Selective Mutism and would not talk to anyone after they changed their hair style. I spent the rest of that day not speaking to anyone. I cried and cried and cried. My mom was the only person I could speak to, and now I was forced to remain silent. She had betrayed me. I constantly looked at her that day. We used to be mirror images of one another, and all of a sudden we were different: she had red hair, and I had brown hair. I couldn’t believe my mom would do something like this to me. We were best friends. She was one of the only people in my life that I could speak to. Now I couldn’t even speak to her. I was alone.
I never understood why I had Selective Mutism. I didn't understand why all of the other kids could talk so easily when words were stuck in my brain. I didn't get it. I always asked my mom questions about her life growing up. I always wondered if it was similar to mine. Did she not speak like I did? We seemed to be so similar; I thought this fact had to be true. After hearing countless stories of her childhood, I think I have finally been able to piece the facts together. And no, she did not have Selective Mutism.
My mother’s father, Richard Eisner, grew up in a very quiet household. He would come home from school every day to find his mother sleeping while his father was still working late at night. The only person he felt he had in his life was his sister, Jane. In 1958 Richard was asked if he wanted to go on a date with a blond or a brunette. The brunette turned out to be the love of his life, Carole Eisner, my grandmother. Due to his lonely childhood, Richard insisted on raising a very chaotic household. He wanted Carole to “keep having children until she couldn't have any more.” After having four children, Carole decided that one child more would be enough.
On February 22, 1969, their fifth child, my mother, Hallie Eisner, was able to finally complete their family. When she was born, her siblings were ages seven and five, along with twins who were three. There was always so much going on, and as my grandfather says, “a whole lot of crying.” Despite this, Hallie learned to live with the chaos. She had no choice; she was born into it. She once told me, “You are lucky to be the oldest. When you are the youngest, everyone goes on with their life without waiting for you. But as the oldest, everyone waits for you.”
When she was two, her family moved to a spacious apartment to allow all the kids to have their own rooms. Unfortunately, she was stuck on the bottom floor. She often complained to her parents that it was unfair to put the youngest child alone and isolated from the rest of the family. She felt lonely and scared, and most nights she ended up going upstairs to her parents’ room. I often did the same when I was younger, even though my room is only two doors down from my parents’. When I couldn't sleep or had a bad dream, my parents’ room was always a few feet away. But that all changed when my parents forbade me from going into their room and installed a gate. I never understood why my mother forced me to disconnect myself from her. I loved communicating with her, and she stopped that.
Along with five children, the Eisners also always had plenty of dogs. When Hallie’s siblings weren't around to play with her, she had her dogs who were often more fun and much nicer than her siblings. She always tells my siblings and me the story of when her dog Ashley, who was a schnauzer, had six puppies. She fell in love with these dogs and wanted to keep them all but unfortunately was only allowed to keep one, Katie. She definitely passed on her love for dogs to me. My two dogs, Isabel and Maggie, are my best friends, and most of my texts with my mom consist of pictures of our dogs.
My mother started going to the Dalton School when she was four. By the time she reached middle school, she walked to school every day with her brother Doug. This is how they became super close and developed a lifelong relationship. They even made a secret handshake that they still do every time they see each other today. She tells me often that her relationship with Doug is very similar to the relationship I have with my younger brother, Justin. Justin and I could spend hours talking about sports together, and I really value our relationship. Plus, we also have a secret handshake.
While in middle school, Hallie and her sister Susie were in The Nutcracker at the New York City Ballet together. Hallie said that she never got any recognition for her work because Susie was “Miss Perfect.” Susie was the star of the show, playing Clara. Hallie had less of a part, playing a soldier and an angel. She often dismisses her dancing experience due to the fact that she always was compared to her sister. I often feel the same way when compared to my brother, who has never received a B in his life. Along with dancing, Hallie also grew up with a passion for sports. When she wanted to play soccer in high school but realized her school only had a boys team, she and a friend pushed Dalton to create a girls varsity soccer team. She was the captain of both the soccer and tennis teams her senior year. She also played, and still plays, a lot of tennis with her father. They would often hit together when the rest of her siblings were already in college. She still is a great tennis player today. She definitely passed on her athleticism to me because I also love sports. We always watch Yankees games on TV together. We also have softball catches and hit on the tennis court together. She always wins tennis games, but the time I spend with her is a win for me.
After high school, Hallie went on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She never seems to rave about her college experience, as she always says this university was too big a school for her. The most memorable experience for her in college was her junior year when she spent the year in Florence, Italy. She, along with another American college student, lived with an Italian family of three. She said the weirdest part about this whole experience was the family’s twenty-eight-year-old son, Alessandro. He was still living with his parents, and she distinctly remembers his mother bringing him breakfast in bed every morning. She said that when she came home from college she tried to get her mother to do the same—but was unsuccessful. After her time in Italy, she was completely fluent in Italian, which is the reason I chose to take Italian as my language when I was younger. I wanted to be just like her.
After graduating from college, Hallie worked in the marketing department at her father’s firm, Richard Eisner & Co. After two years she realized that marketing was not her thing, so she decided that she wanted to become a vet. After growing up with dogs her whole life, she realized that working with animals would be something that really came from her heart. She began to take pre-vet classes and work as a vet tech at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. Through her experiences working, she became even more passionate about animals than she ever was before. She applied to Cornell Vet School the following year, but unfortunately was not accepted. She was devastated. All her siblings had gotten into their first- choice graduate schools, and she didn't understand why it didn’t work out for her. However, the letter said she was encouraged to apply again the following year. A few months later, Hallie was sitting at a restaurant called Crossroads with some friends. It was there where she met Mark, my father. Later that year, they moved in together, and for her, the last thing she was thinking about then was going to school in Ithaca, New York. Vet school was all of a sudden out of the picture for her. She often tells my siblings and me this story because she says she also regrets this decision. She loved, and still loves, Mark; they have been married twenty-one years. But once they met, she forgot about how badly she wanted to go to vet school. She instead went to the Columbia School of Public Health.
After graduating, my mother worked in the medical education division of a healthcare advertising agency. The highlight of her life between ending graduate school and having children was when she got her dog, Indi. A homeless man in the city was holding a black, fluffy puppy, and she asked, “What are you doing with that dog?” He responded, “I’m selling it. It is $20.” Immediately, she ran to the bank to get $20 and took Indi home. Indi lived for thirteen years and even made her television debut. She was on a 20/20 segment called “Obese Animals.”
After learning about my mother’s history and where she came from, I realized that I was not alone when she dyed her hair red. Ironically, the person I had by my side was my mother. She was doing it to save me. She had a whole plan worked out, and she was successful. My voice was often stuck inside me, and she forced me to get it out. If I didn’t speak to her, I didn’t speak to anybody. I eventually realized I had no choice. Even though I hated her for it in that moment, now I could not be more thankful for what she did. This was the turning point in my recovery from Selective Mutism. Before that day, the list of people I spoke to continued to get shorter and shorter. My mom was the one person who always remained on the “talking list.” When she disappeared from the list that day, I realized I had no one, and I couldn’t live that way. I needed my mother back. Three hours and several tears later, I discreetly tapped my mom on her back and whispered, “The Yankees are playing, let’s go watch.”