Diana Kupershmit, EMMA'S LAUGH: The Gift of Second Chances - A Memoir

[1:05]Zibby Owens: This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a New Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. Listeners, if you enjoy this podcast, I promise you will love my new audiobook for moms don't have time to a quarantine anthology. It's not about quarantine, but a lot of the essays were written during that time about other things that moms don't have time to do or other busy people, things like reading, eating, working out, breathing, having sex. And 60 bestselling and notable authors wrote essays. All those authors have been on this very podcast. So if you like to listen to my conversations, if you want to get to know these authors better, I read the audiobook myself. Check it out on Audible, Moms Don't Have Time To, a quarantine anthology. Again, Audible audiobook. Go listen to it. It's like sixty minute podcasts. I hope you enjoy. Diana Cooper Schmidt is the author of Emma's Laughed, The Gift of Second Chances, a memoir. Diana holds a Masters of Social Work degree and works for the Department of Health in the Early Intervention Program, a federal entitlement program servicing children from birth to three with developmental delays and disabilities. Her published essays have appeared in the Huffington Post, Mother Magazine, Manifestation, Still Standing Magazine, Motherwell, and others. On the weekends, she indulges her creative passion working as a photographer specializing in newborn, family, and maternity photography. She resides in New York City with her family. Welcome, Diana. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Emma's Laugh, The Gift of Second Chances, your memoir. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Diana, I know that we met at Zivvy's Ritual Book Club, and I got to know you that way. And your book was so beautifully written. I mean, it was just, I'm so glad that we connected. Your, the way you wrote your poignant, beautiful story. It was just amazing. So I don't know, bravo to you. Well done. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I know there was a lot of pain involved and a lot of emotion and the story of your beautiful daughter, Emma, and how you took care of her and all of the stuff in her 18 years. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for your loss. And just I am Thank you. I'm just bowled over by this book. So thank you. Oh,

[3:54]Diana Kupershmit: thank you. I'm so I'm so I'm happy it touched you. And, you know, I didn't set out to write the book. Obviously, I didn't aspire to write a book about losing a child, but I found myself in the wake of her passing, starting to write as a way of processing the grief and the loss and making sense and meaning of what happened and of the last eighteen years. And I realized that I was grieving her for the second time, but in a bigger way and in a much more devastating way. Because when she was first born, I grieved her birth because she was born with a rare genetic condition that left her physically and intellect ually disabled with myriad medical conditions. And I unraveled, I grieved the loss of the dream of a healthy child. And I grieved the life that she would never have and the life that we wouldn't have with her. And so I was not dealing well with the information. And here I am a social worker myself, having worked with special needs kids, yet I did not think that I could do right by her, that I could give her the life that she deserved. And so when the hospital social worker broached the subject of alternatives to bringing her home, I did not storm out of the room. I stayed and we listened. And she offered that there are families that are willing to adopt special needs kids like Emma. And I was so overwhelmed with guilt and shame because I thought, well, if I don't think I can take care of my own child, like who would want that? Who would take that on themselves? And she said, some people have a calling in life. It's like the only way she could explain it. And we went home and we talked to my husband and talked about it and we decided that if we were to find a good home for her, that we would give her up for adoption. And that's exactly what happened. We found this beautiful Jewish Orthodox family, and they had three Down syndrome adopted children, and they wanted a fourth child. And we gave her up. She was about five months old. At that point, I was already pregnant with my son. And I told myself that this was a do over. And I wanted to do over and this new baby would be that, and I was going to get it right this time. And then things happened. I don't wanna give too much away, but I'm home, pregnant with this big belly thinking that I made a mistake, but not being able to do anything about it other than just talk to the adoptive family because we had an open adoption. So we could check-in and see how she was doing. She was never doing well. She was in the hospital with pneumonia and RSV. And just as I was just as I was thinking that we made a mistake and I think I broached the subject with my husband and he told me that he found some things out about the adoptive situation because he'd been visiting her behind my back and in the adoptive home and in the hospital. Then that sort of, that was a life raft that he gave me with that information. And we found out that the conditions no longer existed. So we were able to bring her home and she came home five months later and I had instant twins and just life took off after that. And yeah, so I don't know. I'm saying too much.

[7:14]Zibby Owens: You're not saying too much. And you're so open in the book about just your complicated feelings about raising Emma, putting her up for adoption, the fact that you were at St. Luke's and like trying to pretend like you weren't going to give her up for adoption. And yet here you were dealing with these super complicated medical issues and having doctors ask you, oh, like you must be in the medical field. And you're like, no, no, no, I just have had to learn all this and, and sort of the shame that you had when you admitted your feelings of, you know, A disappointment, B sort of incompetence, right? Because all of a sudden, you're asked, I mean, there were a lot of medical issues, right? Like feeding to gastroenterologists, like all the you know, I mean, was a lot. It's a lot of in anyway, I just your honesty and all the things and the self doubt and the your relationship with your husband and how you two dealt with it as a team. And like, it was just also real. And also, just wanted to maybe like read a few passages or a passage or two because your writing style is just so beautiful. I had so many that I dog eared here that now I can't decide which one to read. And now I'm wasting time. By the way, I wanted to know what happened with your sister because that was like a big thing in the beginning of the book. And I feel like maybe I missed it, but I don't remember what happened at the end. How is she now? Like what's the deal with that? She's great. Yeah, she's a mom of two. Yep, yep. Excellent. We're very close. Yeah. I think once you get older, sort of that age gap that it

[8:49]Diana Kupershmit: kind of corrects itself, right? So we're like friends and sisters now versus like mother daughter, which is not like a healthy relationship, but it worked for us at the time. And the reason I'm asking, you know, in the book, you described how you basically took her in, even though you were a sister to be like a parent to her. Anyway, I was wondering what happened to her. There's like themes of, you know, rejection and acceptance and forgiveness in the book and belonging, know, And there was a lot of that from the beginning, just in terms of me rejecting, accepting my sister, then rejecting her. Me, our country of origin, Soviet Ukraine, rejecting us as Jewish people, and then America accepting us, and then me rejecting Emma and then accept like this.

[9:32]Zibby Owens: You know, there's a lot of those things going on. So yeah. Wow. Well, here's just one. And this is at the end. But you wrote, Emma was the fulcrum upon which I teetered. She was my perfectly imperfect child, my teacher, my sage, and I loved her more for it. She elevated to the surface, my worst fears and perceived flaws, and shed light on them so that they no longer had the power to possess me to threaten my existence. By casting the focus on her care and well-being, Emma relieved me of the burden of self obsession to be perfect and lead a perfect life. I was less a prisoner to others judgment and no longer succumb to the anxieties that so mercilessly plagued my psyche in years past. It was as if by taking on my pain, she freed me of my existential wounds, just as I had wanted to do for her all those times she hurt. Oh, so beautiful. That sounds like who wrote that? That sounds so good when you read it. Aw. Thank you. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you No. No. No. It's it's fine. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. That's what Emma did for us. Well, for me, she Oh, I'm gonna keep one more sentence. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Because it's just so much. And that helps me navigate the tangled pathways of my heart and rearranged it from her I learned that sometimes you find beauty where you least expected. In her I found beauty and wisdom and grace. This little girl who in my youthful ignorance I believe was broken had healed me because it was me that was broken all along. Diana, this is like amazing. I'm about to cry myself.

[11:00]Diana Kupershmit: Thank you. I okay. My gosh. Oh my gosh, I didn't expect to get emotional again. You think you shed enough tears? Yeah, that's what she did for us. And I'd like to think that the book is a love letter to her, you know, because I made a mistake. I took a detour. And I was given the universe realigned and I was given this massive opportunity to make things right and to learn these important lessons. And to even though our story was very individual and personal, maybe somebody can glean some universal important message or value in it that they can benefit from. Because, everybody's lost, right? Everybody's grieved person, a relationship, something. And I think that if I can touch people universally, if people can be healed by my story, our story, they can find solace. If you're a special needs parent, raising a child with special needs, like I didn't seek out that community of parents. And I regret that. I used to say that, I had my village of family and friends and therapists and nurses, but I didn't want to belong to that community of special needs parents because I didn't want to live in the otherness. It struggled coming to America and belonging, assimilating into a new country and being accepted. I wanted to belong to the larger, typical world. And so I went about kind of creating a sense of normalcy for our life and our family. Everything had to be normal. We did the same things that everybody else did. And just going back you know, the reasons why I rejected her in the beginning, we were young, and I kind of felt like, how could I, know, I felt morally bankrupt, like, how could I give up my own child and a sick child for that? But then I realized that in those early stages, bought into, the narrative that society feeds us that people with disabilities live dark, tragic lives and they're to be pitied. And I just saw myself existing in that realm or in those margins with her. And I didn't want to be in that space. So I kind of excused myself and I thought somebody else can do a better job. But then when she came back, she gave us too short, but eighteen years of silently teaching me those lessons because she was nonverbal. But she taught me to find my voice in the advocating for her and then learning that it was okay to advocate for myself and ask for things that I needed. You know, she helped me find my voice in her very silent way. Today's

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[16:02]Zibby Owens: So how do you now like pick up and just like wake up each morning without this big, like I felt that she had become, she had like overtaken, not overtaken, that's the wrong word, but like, so there was so much focus. And of course, you had so much focus on your other two kids as well. But on making sure things were okay. And always, you know, for a while, she was very stable, right? Her health got much more stable aside from little bouts with pneumonia and all these things like, but just like even the cuddling of her and like, you know, helping her through and like getting all of her many of the services, everything taken care of. And now obviously poured yourself into this book, which is an amazing way to sort of cope and keep her memory alive, to be honest. What happens like when you wake up in the morning? Like, is it the first thing you think about? Like, tell me about that. Well, it's been six years since she passed,

[16:56]Diana Kupershmit: but she's with me every moment of every she's on my screensaver. She's everywhere, you know, and I feel her presence. And I write in the book that I was able to spiritually connect with her because I went to a medium a month after she passed and there were so many signs. I just, I felt I, my husband and I, we were in different spectrums, end of the spectrum in terms of belief. He's, I say, a devout scientist and I'm a spiritual person. Believe that this can't be everything. This is not it, right? We are spiritual beings, having physical human existence. And when I connected with Emma with this medium, I just felt like, had I not connected with her? I would have thought that this is the end of the story, like this is it. But then I realized that it's not the end of the story, and I had to write the story. So in the writing of it is when I came to terms with the fact that this is there's a story to be told that maybe somebody can benefit from. So the last six years, you know, I've been learning to be a better writer, to be a writer. This is not my background. I'm like, you know, I don't have a background in writing. I had to learn the craft, but I was that voracious kid, the teenager walking down the street from high school with a book in my hand reading like, and then when I started writing, realized I had to learn the craft. So that's what I've been doing for the last five and a half years. And so she's always with me because I'm always talking about her or talking about the book. Now that the book is out, like I'm getting a lot of wonderful feedback. And it's so nice to see that her story, our story touches people. That, in fact, what I started doing for selfish reasons, which was writing is the form of grieving and making sense became something selfless, that somebody can benefit from. Think, like Susan Shapiro tells her writing students, you take your worst experience and you make something beautiful out of it? And I hope that I did that without aspiring to do it. I'm always making excuses and disclaimers and saying, I'm not a writer. I've just been playing one for the last six years, but you know, people point out that, you know, you are what you do. And I wrote a lot of words.

[19:11]Zibby Owens: Yes. You wrote a lot of words. You are a beautiful writer and you're absolutely a writer. And it doesn't matter when you start. I mean, I actually think there are like a lot of non practicing writers out there. I mean, like, because I feel like that's, you know, I feel like there were many years I didn't write a word, but I always like, that's how I process things. That's how I, you know, I feel like, and I want to, I feel like now I want to do some sort of study on like, what is it that makes some people writers and other people not? Because it's not the quality. It's not the quantity. It's just some sort of part of your personality that sees and records and wants to share it. Audio,

[19:52]Diana Kupershmit: like written, I don't know. But you are a 100% a writer and Oh, thank you. Just amazing. I think it helps to be a reader, I think, in the writing process because I'm such a perfectionist. And I'm like, if I'm gonna write like, even in high school and college, in my dark days when I would write be going through some existential angst, I would, like, keep a journal for a second, but I'd be still critical if I was writing in my journal. Like, as if somebody is gonna read it and like check my grammar. So when I started writing the book, I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I have to do this right. So I took one workshop, then I took 10 workshops and I had a lot of people, a lot of eyes on my work and a lot of feedback, lot of words in my ear. And it is a compilation of many people's efforts. So it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to write a book. And I'm so grateful for that, for that opportunity.

[20:47]Zibby Owens: So 10, literally 10 workshops? Or are you just saying that?

[20:51]Diana Kupershmit: I'm not just saying that. Wow. I'm telling you. Okay. Yes. And I've read many, many, many were many memoirs. Like, that was like five years of reading memoir and writing on the train and writing on the, you know, reading on the StairMaster. And I think I read somewhere, there's a study that says like, you know, when you're active, when you're moving, it sort of like sparks, you know, thought. And so I found that as I was on the StairMaster, I was reading, I would get an idea and I would jot it down. And on the train, the same thing, like something about the movement of the train, the motion, I would get inspired and I would read and write.

[21:30]Zibby Owens: Yeah. I always read on the elliptical machine when I actually, like, drag myself downstairs to the gym. But yeah. Right. Same. Like, you know, I I love doing that. And it's true. It does it does sometimes spark ideas. But that's, you know, I would also love by the way, I don't know if you've even kept a list, but I love memoirs. And I would love to see your list of what you read the last few, like when you did a deep dive into memoir because Yeah. It can be useful for other aspiring memoirists. Like, I'm trying to write a memoir right now, and I'm like, how did you learn your how did you teach us? Do this. You know, you're like I heard.

[22:02]Diana Kupershmit: Good. Questions. Yeah. Yeah. Just I read I have a list. I have a whole list. I I mean, I can I have I could write up a list, but it must have been like, I don't I mean, 50 is exaggerating? I I read a good 30, I would say in the last few years. Maybe you can

[22:21]Zibby Owens: write a piece for moms who don't have time to write about how you talk about to write a memoir and then put the list in the article so that other people I will do that. I will do that. I did a little I did a little

[22:34]Diana Kupershmit: I did a little reel on Instagram about, you know, like a thirty second reel, like, so you wanna write a memoir? What do you need to do? Yeah. You need to read. You need to write a workshop, you know, take a workshop and Yeah.

[22:46]Zibby Owens: Oh, I love that. I know. I just cannot master these reels. I feel like I I just cannot get good at reels. I I can't, like, go back and forwards and I'm like, what did I already put? I don't know. I'm having I have trouble with reels. But anyway, I

[22:59]Diana Kupershmit: hats off. Can figure it out. I'm I'm not tech I'm not technically very challenged.

[23:04]Zibby Owens: If I'm able to figure it out, you can too. Takes a little bit. Not as intuitive. No, I can like build entire websites and I can do lots of stuff. This one seems to be eluding me. But anyway, I'll try again. So are you still writing now? Like what's your, now that you have the skill?

[23:20]Diana Kupershmit: I'm writing essays here and there. You know, I just got a Huffington Post piece out, which I'm very proud of. It's like my my first big byline, but I feel so depleted at this point, you know, because I've been like sort of talking about the book, talking it up, marketing it, it feels like a very dirty kind of business. The subject matter that I'm talking about is difficult, is a difficult one. So I'm looking forward to the day where I could just like put it down and just not write anything for a while, like not even a greeting card or a happy birthday card. It's like you're opening a vein when you're writing. But I'm sure I will write something in the way of maybe essays or shorter pieces and not a book. I don't think I have a book in me. I think this will be my one hit wonder if it's a hit, and it's a wonder. And I'm just happy to have it out in the world. And I just want to see people touched by it, you know, and that would be the greatest gift of Emma's story. So yeah, yeah. Amazing.

[24:26]Zibby Owens: Well, it's just so beautiful. And I really encourage everybody to read it. And to get to know your daughter and your words. And yeah, it's very moving. And I have so much respect for you and all that you've been through in life and the way you've just kept going and sort of lived to tell the story and help other people. And, you know, I know at the end, you had a debate of you should how many kids should you say that you have and that you'll always say you have three kids. And I just think that is the most beautiful sort of way to close the book and

[25:01]Diana Kupershmit: the whole thing is just, you know, my heart like goes out to you and I wish I could like give you a hug, not that you need it, but it's just amazing. Maybe someday. We're neighbors, you know, so maybe virtual hug now, but we can cross I'm on the West I'm on the West Side. You're on the East. Oh, no. One day. Yes. Yeah. I hate delivering my art to you, actually. So funny. You? I'm so much fun. That's amazing. No. No. No. To your to your to to the doorman.

[25:25]Zibby Owens: Oh, shoot. I wish I had met you. Well, I'm out of town now, but let's get together for sure. I would love to meet you in person. Same. Same. Absolutely. That's great. Yes. In person hug. Thank you.

[25:37]Diana Kupershmit: Yeah. Thank you so much, Debbie. Well, thank you for coming to thank that book club and introducing yourself and all of that and making sure I didn't miss this special book. Thank you so much. Thank you for your support. I am just so honored to talk to you. This was lovely. Thank you. Okay. Have a great day. You too. Thanks. Bye bye. Bye.

[25:57]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and momsdonthavetimetoreadbooks. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.