This article examines the effect of a pogrom on a survivor--my mother--including the impact on her personality, her life, her children, and our relationship with her. I describe how I perceived my mother when I was a child, how I view her now, and how I came to an understanding of her trauma. I also describe my view of myself as seen through the lens of her trauma and my view of how her traumatic experience expressed itself in her fear of attack, fear of loss, and inability to mourn the loss of the future she had planned, imagined, and expected for herself.