Debut author Lena Fein was raised in madness by a violent and controlling mother, obsessed with household cleanliness and the beauty of her porcelain dolls. To survive, Lena perfected the art of dissociation, racing through school with straight A’s, becoming a top producer at a high-tech company, and clicking through two marriages without ever slowing down long enough to fully experience life.
At fifty-one, Lena looks into the eyes of her dying mother, and her warped mirror finally shatters. She begins to experience life in a new way. She learns to feel and forgive, shedding her armor and embracing life.
‘Shattering the Mirror’ is a memoir about one woman’s quest to confront her life and see through the distortions of her traumatic past. Her story is a testament that healing is possible at any age — and that wholeness is priceless. Her story continues to touch and make women feel seen.
Below is an excerpt from the book, the Prologue to ‘Shattering the Mirror’, published here with permission.
When I learned that my mother had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, I was paralyzed with fear. It wasn’t a dread of losing her. No, far from it. I was afraid of feeling nothing when she died. I tried to conjure a positive memory that might inspire a kinder, more appropriate response. Like a mantra, I repeated “Be loving, be loving, be loving…” But all I retrieved was her cruelty:
You! Look at you! You’re fat. Your hair is a mess. What a slob! And you’re selfish. I feel sorry for the man you marry!
Overwhelmed, I felt myself returning to the emotional detachment I had perfected since childhood, since the days when my mother, wearing baggy pajamas, with her hair mangy and her black eyes wild, would spit poison at me, often while yanking my hair or digging her nails into my flesh. My detachment enabled me to hide from the truth that terrified me most:
I wanted her dead.
Ten days after her initial diagnosis, my mother lay in the ICU with a breathing tube down her throat. She was dying, but her eyes were strangely alert. She stared right at me, a smile on her cracked lips. There was nowhere else to go except to stare back, to fall into her eyes. Grasping the cold bed rail with sweaty palms, heart pounding, I saw something in her gaze I had never seen before: a kind soul shining through.
Her eyes had always looked cold and black to me, but now they were warm and brown. As gentle as the smallest kiss, they seemed to whisper, “I love you.”
Rather than receive the message, I wanted to run from her as I had done all my adult life. I realized with a shock that in protecting myself from her cruelty, I had also shielded myself from love, not just hers, but anyone’s. For fifty-one years, I had raced through life — a master’s degree in engineering, over thirty years in high-tech, two marriages, two kids — without exposing myself to the terrible vulnerability of tenderness and trust.
I did not flee this time.
Instead, I held her gaze until she fell asleep.
Later, I stared at my face in the mirror. I’d always believed that my eyes were sparkling blue, but examining them more closely now, I saw that they were a somber blue green, like the sea reflecting an overcast sky.
What else had I missed all these years?
The next morning, my mother died.
Trembling at her bedside, I realized that I was only just beginning to understand what it meant to be fully alive. What parts of myself had I hidden in the shadows to escape from pain? And what about my mother? What buried pain had lain beneath her madness and fury?
Who was she? Who was I? What had we both been too afraid to see and feel?
Lena Fein is an author, retired engineer, and philanthropist based in San Francisco. A graduate of Engineering at UC Berkeley, Lena spent decades as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at a successful high tech company. When Lena was fifty-one, her mother died which propelled Lena on a path of healing from childhood abuse and trauma. Her debut memoir, ‘Shattering the Mirror’, explores her transformative journey to wholeness. Lena believes it is never too late to reclaim your freedom and truth. Now in her late sixties, Lena can often be found taking long walks by the San Francisco Bay and hugging her grandchildren.
