My mother's bathroom is one of those bathrooms with lots of doilies and plates and chachkies. In between her two sinks, there's a platter with little porcelain figurines that open up into containers. There's one that's a little cat laying in a basket, with a handle made out of sterling and a little bell on top. That's the one she keeps my teeth in. 
     "My, what big teeth we have here," my childhood orthodontist used to say cheerfully, every time he peered into my braced mouth. I often wondered if Dr. Gordon was legitimately shocked every time he saw my mouth, or if he thought he was making fun conversation. If I were him, I would write in my chart "HUGE TEETH—ALREADY DID BIT". 
     It became obvious to Dr. Gordon that I couldn't live an aesthetically pleasing life with all my teeth, no matter how excellent of an orthodontist he was. So, he sent me on my way to the dentist to have eight of my molars removed, so that my huge teeth could live more comfortably in my averaged sized mouth. These molars are the most impressive of Deb's set, with full roots. The baby teeth pale in comparison, but are nonetheless important to the collection. 
     It's hard for me to imagine that storing my teeth inside a ceramic cat was my idea. It does strike me as plausible that the assortment was curated by my mother. In addition to ceramic containers and teeth, my mother collects: children's books, puppets, wooden baskets, Holocaust novels, dolls, playbills, and travel size shampoo. 
     Lorna, the family therapist I see with my mother, attributes many of our behaviors to be a consequence of the Holocaust. She is not only a family therapist, but a Jewish woman, so can be considered a figure of authority on the subject.
      Lorna says the reason I sleep ten hours a night is because I'm intergenerationally exhausted from the Holocaust. I'm anxious because my cells are afraid of roundups. I was confused as to why my mother is so cold and judgmental of me, before I learned it was because of the Holocaust. Turns out, scarcity, starvation, and murder of your ancestors can result in a variety of behaviors— including, but not limited to hoarding. One could interpret my mother's collection of teeth as just another consequence of the Holocaust. 
     As far as I know, all of my direct family members left Europe long before World War II, which is a detail that I have reminded Lorna of, more than once. Somehow, this doesn't seem to matter.
     "You think mothers had time for ego validation in Auschwitz?" Lorna once asked me in session, after a particularly difficult share about a cold interaction with my mother. "I'll tell you what they had time for. Making sure their children weren't murdered." 
      A more grounded person may have realized that challenging this sentiment may not have been the best use of time. I, however, found it relevant to note that neither my mother, nor her mother, nor her mother's mother, had found themselves needing to protect their child from a gas chamber. 
     An air of disappointment, or maybe disgust, crossed Lorna's face before my mom chimed in. "You know, it's really interesting," Deb said, "but I feel really attached to the Kindertransport. I mean, sometimes I really think I was there. I dream about it, too." 
     Lorna's face changed, suddenly intrigued and possibly delighted. "Really? Tell me more about that!"
     She did tell more, much more. About the difficult decision her parents must have made to send a little girl far away all alone on a train and the perils of growing up away from her heritage. 
     Deb momentarily appeared timid. "I imagine I was scared, you know?" 
     "That's not hard to believe," said Lorna. 
     I tried not to roll my eyes. 
     "To be so young, and so alone." Tears began to well in her eyes. Her voice had a strange timbre. I couldn't tell if she was yelling or whispering. All I could hear was her desperation.
     "I don't know if it was selfish or selfless, that they sent me away," my mother said. "On the one hand, sending me away meant I might live—but they might not ever know what happened to me. On the other hand, if they hadn't sent me away, we all most likely would have perished in the camps. But, there's beauty in all dying together. Being together, until the end."
     I felt my blood boil. I did not find the idea of dying with my mother in a concentration camp romantic. 
     Lorna added, "Being all alone in a new country and having to learn a new language must have been hard." 
     "You know, I do love London though!" Deb laughed. "That can't be a coincidence!" My mom only speaks English.
     The rest of the session, Lorna, the professional therapist, helped my mom explore her Kindertransport experience in painful detail, while I imagined pulling my remaining teeth out with pliers. Maybe my mom would put them in the cat with the others. 
     The thing about listening to my mom describe her Kindertransport experience while having the knowledge that she wasn't actually there, is that it is precisely why I am, at thirty-two, in therapy with her. I've spent a lot of time wondering how we got here. I do know it most certainly was not by train. 
     Deb has been obsessed with the Holocaust for as long as I can remember. I have been obsessed with her for as long as I can remember. In many ways, they are one and the same. That's right, I said it. My mother is my Holocaust. To clarify, the Holocaust is also the Holocaust. 
     When I was younger, I assumed that talking about the Holocaust was simply my mom's favorite pastime; a passion, if you will. 
 Over the years, I started noticing the absurdity of her timing. Once, my mom, my younger sister, my brother-in-law, and I were driving home from Arizona. We were packed into a sedan having just spent the week dehydrating ourselves in the desert. Whether it was the sun, the fact that my sister was screaming along to the Hamilton soundtrack, or simply that I was sardined in the car with my family—I began to develop a nauseous headache. 
     With four Yids in a car, someone is bound to get sick. In my family, that person is usually me, and is never my sister.  Being the second born comes with some perks, including, but not limited to being able to sit in the backseat and not having to do therapy with your mom as an adult.
     "I think I need to switch into the front seat." I said. "I'm not feeling so good." 
      My mom rolled her eyes, so my sister rolled her eyes, so my brother-in-law rolled his eyes before pulling over so that Deb and I could switch spots. I turned down the music, blasted the AC, and requested a little bit of quiet while I nursed my emergent migraine. 
     Not two minutes had passed before my mom took off her seat belt, and, at 70 miles per hour, positioned her torso over the center console.        
     "Did you guys know that they did a survey in public elementary schools and 70 percent of the students could not name one concentration camp? Not one! Not even Auschwitz!" 
     "Wow...that's sad," my brother-in-law offered limply after a pause. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and dug my fingernails into my palms. 
     In that moment, not even nausea could save me from the Holocaust. 
When I upped the ante and had lung surgery, I thought I might have better luck. I had the procedure in my hometown and it made the most sense to recuperate at her place. Neither of us much enjoyed each other's presence during those two weeks. I spent most of the time on her couch, high on Percocet, watching A Knight's Tale on loop. 
     "You should really get up and walk around the block every few hours," she said to me. "You could get pneumonia just laying there." 
     "I don't want to get up and walk," I replied. "I just had lung surgery. I don't have the energy."
     She paused for a moment before sharing, "Did you know that people in Auschwitz had to take their fork with them everywhere they went? If they didn't, somebody would steal it."
     I put my shoes on to walk around the block. 
     While it is unusual to bring up the Holocaust when feeling relationally anxious, it is hard to ignore the trend that when my mother is worried, she starts talking about the Holocaust. I once heard a therapist say that all coping mechanisms are brilliant solutions to whatever problem is at hand. Find the company of your own mind intolerable? Substance abuse is a brilliant solution to that! Do you feel out of control? Have you tried obsession, compulsion, or an eating disorder? Worried about a fraught and fragile relationship with your daughter? Change the subject to something more depressing. How about the murder of six million Jews? That should do the trick. 
     It's hard to stay there—in your mind that feels like bad company, or in the spin out, or with a person you love and don't know how to be around. How brilliant we are to escape, and in my mother's case, it's on a train for children escaping the Holocaust. 
     My mother found herself the only remaining family member in San Diego after my sister moved away during the pandemic. I thought of the pain she must be feeling—the loneliness and the isolation. 
     When I picked up the phone to call her, I imagined all the things I'd like to say. How I know how hard it is to live alone, how sad it must feel to have an empty nest, how I know I haven't called enough. 
     She answered the phone with a soft hello. A small silence lingered between us. 
     "Did you know," I said, "that the Nazis ripped out people's gold teeth and put them in big glass jars?" 
     "Of course I know that," she replied. "I watched three Holocaust things today". 

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This story germinated out of an exercise in my writing group attempting to emulate David Sedaris, and then took its own form.  The absurdity, well, that's all my mother.