Sonia Weitz - In Memory of My Mother

In Memory to My Mother by Sonia Weitz

 This poem was one of the two amoung three poems that appealed to me. The other poem that got my interest was Victory. Somehow, I ended up with this one, In Memory to My Mother. I annotated quite abit, although at first it took some time to get the meaning out of it. The first thing that approached my mind was sadness. Sadness and misery. Sorrowful and mournful. Hopelessness and despair. It was merely filled to the brim with grief. Sonia Weitz did a wonderful job expressing her feelings, especially when this is a true story, and she's been there herself. This poem is about the death of her mother and her feelings and scars that the horrible event left her with. It starts off with some very touching questions that introduces the whole picture and mood of the poem. The author uses many phrases that adds to the feeling of misery, such as "that rainy autumn day". Throughout the poem, the author used many similes and metaphors, as well as many phrases that emphasized on the mood. There were 2 parts that I felt were my favourites. The first is "You tell the world, my child." This was a sentence spoken by her mother before she died. This simple sentence here, six words, has a mixture of resentment, and indignation, but at the same time, love and desperation. "You tell the world" to me, is a bit similar to saying "avenge us". When "my child" is added to the phrase, it now carries the sense of desperation and love as well. Sonia's mother is putting all her hope and dreams onto her daughter, whom she loves so much. This feeling is repeated again in the second part of the poem where it says "I promised I would tell the world". Only that this time, it's shown through the daughter, Sonia Weitz herself, not her mother. The second part I favored was the phrase "It pierced my heart, and squeezed it dry." This is another example of how the author really expresses the feeling in the poem. "Squeezed it dry" is describing how the Holocaust had left a severe damage in her, and how it took everything away from her, even the ones whe loved most. I can't really make connections with this Sonia's experience since it was no where near anything I have ever experienced, or will ever experience at all. But my worst moments I remember were when my grandparents passed away. It's the feeling that you're losing someone so important, someone that you care, but have never really had the chance to spend much time with them. The death that affected me most was probably my grandfather (father's side) which was pretty recently, last year on the 5th of October. I guess it was because I was grown up enough to understand love, and what it meant. My grandmother (mother's side) passed away when I was about 5 -6 years old, and at that time it didn't affect me as much, until now I really start to miss her. Sonia Weitz's poem was emotional, and I believe only her and her fellow friends that went through it with her could explain it this well.