The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir

Turkle gets a part as Maria in a college production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Her mother, grandmother, and Aunt Mildred visit to see her. Mildred discreetly encourages her mother to take the trip despite her cancer treatments, knowing it might be one of her last. Suffering from the brain fog that is a side effect of the cancer treatments, Turkle’s mother asks for Turkle’s help in writing a paper on French cinema due for her teacher certification course. Turkle, still unaware of her mother’s illness, is frustrated by the request but complies after receiving a letter from Mildred pleading on her mother’s behalf.

In the summer of 1967, a year before Turkle’s mother’s death, Mildred and her mother travel to Bermuda. During the same summer, Turkle travels to Europe on a Harvard Student Agency trip, traveling to France and Israel. In Paris, she attends French lectures at the Sorbonne. She dates an Algerian French man named Matteo and visits his hometown of Drancy, which had been a Jewish internment camp during the war. Turkle is troubled by the French denial of their part in the Holocaust. She fears the Holocaust happening again and considers how Jewish silence keeps Gentiles comfortable. She decides to visit Israel, kissing the ground. Both she and her fellow students feel that their visit is a homecoming. When her Aunt Mildred visits, they discuss fascism and see contemporary theater pieces on the subject. Turkle reflects on how much her political conversations with Mildred have shaped her perspective.

In 1967, Turkle is elected to represent the students of her Radcliffe house, who are against the university hosting recruiters from a chemical company involved in developing napalm in the Vietnam War. Turkle discovers that the university is using tactics to defer the protestors and block any real policy changes. For Turkle, this disappointment serves as a lesson in political strategy.

In January 1968, Aunt Mildred calls Turkle to say that her mother is in the hospital. When Turkle arrives at the Brookyln Hospital, the doctor reveals that her mother only has weeks to live, surprised that Turkle is unaware of her mother’s breast cancer. Turkle is shocked at first but then realizes that she had known her mother was sick without being told. Turkle discovers that her mother had a mastectomy when Turkle was in fifth grade, which she had hidden by using padded bras. Her mother had hidden her illness for years. She chose not to reveal her illness to ensure Turkle stayed focused on college.

Over the next few weeks, Turkle goes to the hospital every day. She decides to take taxis to avoid taking the subway, where she was assaulted when she was 13. After her mother dies, her stepfather, Milton, insists on embalming the body for an open casket funeral, though this is contrary to Jewish tradition. This creates tension between himself and Turkle’s grandparents and aunt and eventually leads to their estrangement.

In grief, Turkle hunts through her mother’s letters and paperwork to better understand her mother’s experience of her illness. Turkle realizes that her mother had isolated herself from her family, only confiding her pain to a psychic in letters. Turkle feels guilty that she had ignored the signs but is grateful that her mother had lied to preserve her continuing education.

After the funeral, Milton demands that Turkle leave Radcliffe, replace her mother as the woman of the house, and look after Susan and Bruce. Turkle refuses, explaining that continuing her studies was her mother’s wish. Desperate and spiteful, Milton sabotages Turkle’s scholarship at Radcliffe, and she is forced to drop out in her senior year. Milton forcefully proposes to Turkle’s Aunt Mildred. The Bonowitzes are furious but are afraid to cut ties with Milton because they will lose their relationship with their young grandchildren.

To keep Turkle from Milton’s interference, the Bonowitzes decide that Turkle should go to France and look for a job there. Turkle plans to use her time there to conduct research for her thesis for when she returns to Radcliffe. Before she leaves, she visits her childhood beach jetty at Rockaway, feeling adrift and alone without her mother.