‘My mission to help motherless Jewish daughters like me’

“The way I describe it now is I dug a big hole under the bed, put this in, covered it in concrete, and have never gone there again.”

As time went on, the effect of losing her mother in such a tragic and shocking situation would carve itself on her way of being. She became an overprotective and anxious mother, particularly when it came to health.

“The risk of asthma was always my huge trigger,” she says of her three children, who are now aged 27, 30 and 33. “When they were little, I freaked out.”

One defining moment was when her youngest son needed life-saving surgery for a tumour in his middle ear at six years old, and Lynda could not stop crying. “All I could think of was I was so angry with my mum that she wasn’t there. I had never experienced that anger before. I had put it aside and dealt with it the only way I could deal with it: just getting on with life. It made me realise that actually it never goes away. If you don’t deal with it, it comes back.”

Forty-seven years later, and after a career in which she had worked for Jewish charities and brought up her children, Lynda went on course to train as a counsellor.

“I felt there was something missing within myself, that I needed to do something quite personal to give back.”

As she struggled to find her “niche” for her new venture as a counsellor, she had an epiphany. “I genuinely believe that my mum came to me, and said to me, ‘Why can you not see this? Your niche is that you lost your mother.

“It’s the one thing you can talk about consistently and help people if they’ve lost their mother.’ It was like a bolt out of the blue. I thought, ‘I’ve got to do it.’”

Inspired to just “throw it open and see what happens”, she posted on Jewish Facebook groups her intention to put a forum together to help motherless women, and asked if anyone out there would want to get involved. She was inundated with enthusiastic replies.

She ran the first session from her Radlett home in February, and 12 women came to share their stories of life without their mothers. “I’d never met these women, and they had never met each other. I was terrified, because I thought, ‘What am I doing? I’m not qualified to do this.’ Then they started to talk.”

The session was such a success that it started at 7.30pm and Lynda found herself “literally chucking people out” at 11pm.

“It just snowballed from there.” She has held a further three forums since, and is now preparing for a bigger event on September 22 – a kosher lunch – to which she’s invited the women who have previously attended her forums.

The event will raise funds for Grief Encounter, a charity based in Mill Hill that helps bereaved children, young people and their families. The stories shared at the sessions have been inspirational, Lynda says. They include: the person who has no memories of the mother she lost at a very young age, and who now works with adults bereaved as children; the woman in her 70s who had never spoken about losing her mother as a small child, and whose husband was delighted that she finally had a space in which she could open up.

“As she sat with these women and told her story, I was in tears, I felt so privileged to have been part of it, that she was able to talk about it after 70 years. It was unbelievable. So there is absolutely a need,” says Lynda. “I lost my mum when I was 15 and it changed me for ever. I have now come to that point in my life where I genuinely believe I can help other ladies young or older who have suffered the same loss, by bringing them together to share their experiences.”

Another woman came in and listened to everyone else before confiding in Lynda that she feels like “a real fool” because she disliked her mother and wondered why she had ever had children. She said, “I’m hearing all these stories about how you all loved your mothers, and I feel terrible saying it.” Lynda remembers it as one of the most powerful moments of the session.

Meanwhile, the woman whose mother died aged 98 felt “a fraud” joining in because she had her mother in her life until she was in her 70s.

“When you lose your mum, it’s tragic, whatever your age,” says Lynda. “I said to her, in a way it’s almost worse, because you had her in your life for so many years she became your best friend. My mum wasn’t my best friend.

“I was a difficult teenager, so that was very different.”

This week Lynda attended a seminar held by Hope Edelman, the American author of Motherless Daughters, the formative book exploring the irrevocable impact on a woman of losing her mother. Before it, she was contacted by the founder of Grief Encounter, who suggested doing something collaborative to bring this global brand to the Jewish community.

“That would be my ultimate goal,” says Lynda. “Judaism is all about the family. We do really pull together as a community when something like that happens.”

While she has kept her forum Jewish, she says that during her research, she has found nothing in the UK offering anything similar – other than Grief Encounter, which is why she intends to raise money for the charity – and nothing specifically for adults. It still saddens her that growing up in Newcastle where she attended a non-Jewish school, she didn’t have the support of such a group.

“I want people who didn’t have the benefit years ago to have it now, to be able to come out and talk, and for that to help them, because it’s helped me tremendously just to hear their stories. It’s an exclusive club, the ‘motherless daughter’ one – and many have no one to share their feelings with. I want to give them a forum. If I can help one person who is struggling like I did, I will be happy.”

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For more details about the lunch on September 22, email: lyndadullop@icloud.com

[Missing Credit]

Katie Matalon, Borehamwood

My mum died of breast cancer when I was eight and my dad died the year before. Because I was so young a child bereavement charity was involved, but I didn’t really process their deaths until I was much older. I’ve got the BRCA mutation, and I went along to Lynda’s group after my first surgery, and quite soon before my second. It was nice to meet other people who have had similar experiences, or who at least understand what you might be feeling. One turned out to be my neighbour – it’s such a small Jewish world.

I’m lucky because I have a sister so we always have each other, but not everyone does so I think that’s what made me want to attend the group. I’m always happy to share my experience and I know it helps feeling part of a community, even though it’s not one to which you really want to belong.

I found it interesting that some people at the group hadn’t ever talked about what had happened and that others had blocked it out. Some had lost their mother recently, and other years ago.

Anna Kutock[Missing Credit]

Anna Kutock, Bushey

My mum passed away 25 years ago when I was 19. I saw something Lynda had put on a Jewish Facebook group and I went along. It felt really good to connect with other women who also didn’t have their mum around, to share our experiences, particularly those whose mums died when they were younger, at a similar age to myself. But ultimately it didn’t matter how long ago our mothers had passed away, we all had this connection.

I have two sons, now 12 and nine, and I feel mum’s absence now, of course, but when they were babies, it was [particularly] challenging.

I’ve always worked with children, as a teacher, and as a doula, and I have found that women who didn’t have their own mums have been drawn to me as a support, as a motherly figure. 

I recently trained as bereavement practitioner. As I got older, I found that I wanted to support people in the way that I was not supported in my younger years.

Jolanta Glaser[Missing Credit]

Jolanta Glaser, Ealing

My Warsaw-born mother died of breast cancer when I was six months old, after Hitler had marched into Poland. I spent part of the war hidden in a convent and it wasn’t until I was around ten that I realised, from snatches of conversation I had overheard, that the woman who I called mother, my father’s new wife, was actually my stepmother.

   Although I would surely have worked it out in time: she treated her actual daughter far, far better than me. As for my father, a Catholic, he was a monster.

In 1963, I met my mother’s wonderful sister, Miriam, in Israel (she had escaped Poland in 1933) and that was the first time I understood what it feels like to be wanted. Miriam didn’t bring me into the world but she loved me with a mother’s love. She was also the first person to show me precious photographs of my mum who, and I realise this might sound silly, I feel has been looking out for me my entire life. Even now, after all these years, I still have silent conversations with my beloved mother who I never knew.

Ali Van Straten[Missing Credit]

Ali Van Straten, Elstree

My mum died in August last year very suddenly. I was lying on my bed feeling sorry for myself and scrolling through Facebook, when a post about Lynda’s group popped up. I’m quite a private person, but when I saw it I immediately felt that I was meant to go.

That first meeting was so sweet and comforting: eight women of different ages and at different stages of grief and loss, together. It was so raw for me at the time, and in a way it was a bit scary that for these women the loss is still there, so many years later.

My mum was the epitome of a Jewish mother. There was not one day that she didn’t tell me she loved me and my children (37, 28 and 25), my nephews and nieces, and my brother. Whatever we did (I teach at my old school, Hasmonean, in Hendon) she was proud of my brother and I. Rosh Hashanah is fast approaching and I’ve got her honey cake recipe, but I don’t even know if I can bring myself to do make it. What I do know is that I can’t ever eat cholent again, because it won’t be like mum’s.

Esti Cukier, Borehamwood

My mum died suddenly when I was was on route to visit my parents to celebrate my 30th. It was a hospital error. They thought she had sleeping epilepsy, but it transpired that she had been suffering heart attacks.

I was the youngest of three, and very close to my mum. Her death broke me, and on top I was suddenly made responsible for my dad and ensuring he was OK. Getting through my wedding two years later was also hard, and then when I was pregnant, not having my mum around hit me afresh. Had she had morning sickness, I wanted to know. Maybe the worst thing was shopping in John Lewis for baby stuff and seeing pregnant and happy with their mums.

My mum was Sheila and I named my amazing daughter Shelley after her. But I sometimes wonder if I have burdened her.  I think my children realised early on that not having my mum has made me vulnerable. When I’m feeling emotional they have asked: oh, does that remind you of your mum?