This is Part Two in a series by Susan D. You can read Part One here.
Alice was the first person with whom my dad had a serious relationship after Leila, my birth mother s, death. I found out much later that he met her in a group therapy session. She was (as I remember now, correctly or incorrectly) tall, slender, fair-skinned, frizzy-red-haired, and had a big nose that was also frequently drippy. She was one of those women who always had tissues - and snotrags and tissue lint - stuffed in her handbag. [Wow, where d that come from? Starting out nasty today!] She was much younger than my dad - I d say about 30 when they got together, whereas my dad would have been pushing 40 by that time. OK, maybe not that much younger, but again it seemed so at the time.
Alice joined the family when I was maybe 3. She moved in when I was four-ish. I easily moved to calling her mommy, and she seemed to like filling that role. She took me to school and picked me up at the end of the day. She bought me clothes and played with me and let me put her makeup on my face. She brought me into her family as well - her mother and father were for many years my Nana and Gonka; I played with her brother Don s kids Scooter and Patrick and Carlin. (Don s wife Marcy didn t like me.) I had early wonderful Christmases thanks to her family, which annoyed my Jewish aunts but which my dad was too passive to oppose. For awhile, all was well.
After several years, once I was maybe 7 or 8, she began to slip into instability. She got very into astrology (remember, this was the late 70’s). Then she became a born-again Christian. She began hanging out with born-again friends and I would hang with their kids, but I had nothing in common with them. She was sometimes moving a mile a minute, and other times lashing out in rage, and other times barely unable to peel herself out of bed. Looking back, it seems likely that she had some sort of bi-polar disorder. But she was still my mommy, and I loved her very much, and her emerging, one-sided battles with my father left me feeling sick and torn inside.
Something happened where she wound up in the hospital for a couple of days (she did something to her leg I think) and she had run out of her favorite perfume, and desperately needed a fresh bottle. She harassed my dad into picking up a bottle at the drugstore and taking me in a cab to the hospital (my dad has never learned to drive) and bringing it to her. (Honestly now - jonesing hard for perfume to wear in a hospital?!) As we got out of the cab, I jostled my dad s arm and the perfume in its box fell out of his hand, smashing on the ground. Glass slivers glistened underfoot and the overwhelming alcohol-y smell of Emeraude filled my sinuses. I had this horrible sinking feeling that now was when the awful thing would happen. Fortunately, I have no memory of what happened next.
[My memory has very helpfully obliterated most of the hurtful stuff that I know happened in the first 10 or so years of my life; unfortunately it left me with the memory of about 1/3 of the painful experiences of my teen years. I was a miserable teenager and would love to kiss those memories goodbye. ]
She moved out sometime not too long after that. Seeing her, seeing my mommy, became this erratic thing. Bear in mind, y all - she wasn t ACTUALLY my mother, and wasn t married to my dad; why should she come around? This was pretty painful for me, but at least I could pick up the phone and call her fairly often, hear her voice, hear her tell me she loved me a few evenings a week.
Then one day she came in and told me that she was moving to Chicago. She had gotten a job there. But she would call me, and visit, and send letters and presents. I was numb, but accepted her at her word.
She left.
Disappeared. Fell off the face of the earth.
I had no address to write, no phone number to get her.
That Christmas she called when I was out. She told my dad that she had sent me a present in the mail, and he conveyed the message to me.
I watched the mail every day until March before I gave up. She had lied to me, and strung me along.
I can t remember if I ever cried about being abandoned by my mommy, or at least, by the woman I called mommy. I wouldn t be surprised if I didn t. I don t cry much or easily, never have, and often can t find the tears when I know, just KNOW that I have to cry to heal/move on/feel better/let it go. But the hurt sank deep inside me and festered, a festering emotional pustule affecting all my relationships. The angriest I ever was at my husband, before we got married, was when I d be waiting for him to pick me up (usually from college classes) and he d be, maybe, 20 minutes late. The feelings of abandonment instantly swept me away on tides of fear and rage. I realized entirely on my own, one day, that those feelings were the direct result of Alice s abrupt departure. Instantly, the feelings became manageable, and haven t been a problem since. But still, ten years of abandonment issues was a lot to inflict on a then-12 year old.
Over the years, she would write to my dad, or I think even call him. I d hear bits and pieces about her life from him. She had become a minister in some culty-sounding regional offshoot of Christianity. She had become ill with lupus. She had found a new boyfriend and had lived with him for all this time. But I told him to tell her not to contact me, because I didn t want to hear from her anymore.
Fast forward to the early-to-mid 90’s. I would have been about 23 or so. I got a letter in the mail FROM HER. I was with my not-yet-husband at the house of his mom s then girlfriend (she s gay) who was a psychologist (duh, I m sure she still is.) She was letting us do some laundry in her machines. Future hubby (FH for short) stopped home and came back with the mail. He handed it to me and I just froze. Then, sitting right there in her kitchen, I opened the letter and read it.
It was chatty! She opened with what was going on in her life before saying that she was sorry and knew that she must have hurt me and asked for my forgiveness. I just completely fucking lost it. Hysterically crying sitting at the kitchen island in my FH s mom s lesbian girlfriend s kitchen. She, bless her heart, drew me into her office and sat down and threw me an emergency session, gratis, allowing me the opportunity I needed to express the emotional pus that had burst forth from the pustule Alice s letter had pricked open. She and I didn t often get along [she was rather uncomfortable with my FH and his siblings being in her house and around her kids all the time], but her immediate presence and willingness to help at exactly the moment I needed help enabled me to experience the emotions quickly, face them down, and finally - FINALLY - move on from the hurt Alice inflicted on me.
I wrote Alice one letter, very long, telling her exactly what I felt. That one I put in an envelope, stuck it somewhere, and never mailed it. I expect I ll find it someday when I go through all the boxes of my crap my dad s been storing in his basement for me.
Then I wrote another, shorter one, telling her much more briefly that there was no way she could comprehend the way that she had hurt me, and that if she wanted to really think about that for awhile and try apologizing again, I d be willing to consider it.
She wrote back almost write away, assuring me in breezy tones that she had indeed thought a lot about it, and wanted to try to have some sort of ongoing contact with me. I wrote back again, saying that seeing as she had written back right away, she clearly had not thought about it long and hard enough, and that she would have to do better if she was to have any contact at all with me.
I never heard from her, or about her, again.
That s OK. I m better off not knowing what the hell happened to this woman; whether the life she chose was better than the one she would have had if she had kept me in it.
I had a dream last night that I did 120 crunches and after getting up and showering off, I had flat abs.
If only it were that easy.
Cindy and I have decided to re-join our old gym. I’ve still been walking every day, eating healthier, and avoiding all things M&M’s. I won’t lie, it’s difficult. I took the Xenical for 2 weeks and then took a break from it because I had some stomach problems related to my cycle and the Xenical seemed to be making things worse. I’m back on it as of today. The motivation to eat low-fat while on Xenical is HUGE. If I cheat, even with a pat of butter, I pay dearly with stomach cramps and the like. Not fun.
I’ve lost 11 pounds. It was 11 pounds I had regained after quitting smoking (11 weeks ago!), but it’s a start. So Jenny, I met the challenge!
So because Cindy and I agree that our morning walk in the winter is erm, challenging, we have an appointment on the 22nd to go back to the old gym, and this time it will be easier because I won’t be juggling a newborn and his 73 demands. I get to drop Thomas at pre-school, and go! In a car! With a girlfriend! Without looking like a packhorse, saddling a gym bag, a baby and a diaper bag!
I can’t wait. I LOVE the gym. I know if I am at the gym, I will work harder.
Now, the trick is to make myself eat breakfast, and also to get through the holidays without gaining back any weight. Sigh. Maybe my cousins will walk with me once a day. Heck, having the kids with me is motivation enough to run from the family farm, screaming, no?
How are you going to get through the holidays without going overboard in the food department?
From a time when Oxy Zit Pads were GOLDEN PUFFY LOVE for my face.? My Papa used to say, “Put Preparation H on those things.? It shrinks the swelling.”? He loved me as much as I loved this song.? Link.
Last night the kids and I curled up on the couch to read from the Giant Book of Christmas Stories. You know the kind, where if your toddler leans on it, the weight of the book leaves a considerable indent in your leg, and you end up bruising? Yeah one of those.
We read this little story about a barn at Christmas, whereby the cow thought Christmas decorations should extend to the barn and stormed off in a huff while all the other animals were led by the pig into decorating a tree for the big whiny cow. Sorry if I ruined the ending for you. You’ll get over it.
Because I tend to chain-yawn through all stories read aloud, (much like chain smoking, without the carcinogens), I try to keep myself alert and amused by speaking in different accents for each character. Daren and Dylan where in stitches and Thomas smiled and bounced all over the book. My legs look like I’ve been flogged by miserable nuns.
The sulky cow had an East Indian accent, and the close-minded rooster sounded so backroads, he almost broke into Papazao. The pig, who led this entire decorating fiasco, sounded exactly like Britney, ya’lls. I even added the ya’lls to the story. The thing I didn’t know before I read the story, is that the rooster thinks everything the pig does is stupid, until the end when the cow is happy that the animals made him a tree that really is a snowman. Then the rooster, who sounds like Bobcat Goldthwait, is all “Oh I looove you pig!”
Barnyard animals are really stupid. That is why I don’t feel bad eating them.
Also, because I can’t possibly have only 4 members of our family in therapy, I recorded the continuation of Ruffy’s test of mental health:
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In other news, a bunch of The Mommyblogger Cult are raising money for MD Canada, in the name of Her Bad Mother’s Catherine Connors’ nephew, Tanner. Her Bad Auction starts today and runs until Sunday December 17th at Midnight. I donated a full blog design from Troll Baby Graphics, but if you already look all spiffy, there are a ton of other really awesome things to be auctioned off.
Let’s face it, no one is going to get you what you REALLY wanted for Christmas, you ought to treat yourself to something, my little fruitcake. Go on. You know you want to. That iPod Shuffle is calling your name. Or maybe Rockstar Mommy is, since she is sporting an adorable Dad Gone Mad t-shirt. Krystyn’s so smart, Krystyn’s SO special. Oh. You’re still here. Ahem.
Speaking of Rockstar Mommy, she is kicking everyone’s butt at the Weblog Awards for Best Parenting Blog. Go vote. It’s a damn good thing she is a friend of mine, or I’d have to say bad things about her to get you to vote for me. Like she has something in her teeth in one of her pictures. (Which she totally doesn’t, but now she is gonna check her Flickr account for 3 hours and maybe I can get ahead of her. Pffft. Riiight.)
Here’s a challenge for you though. If you can get Troll Baby to win the Weblog Award for Best Parenting Blog by voting, I will donate 2 more designs to Her Bad Auction. I’ve seen the uprising of the MB Cult before, let’s see if we can do it again. How’s that for Un-Canadian-like vote whoring?
I wrote this last year following the horror’s Katrina visited upon New Orleans and the entire Gulf coast. It was the sight of all those trapped children that brought this to mind. My mother harbored a variety of mental illnesses. They had to come from somewhere. Abuse doesn t happen in a vacuum. My mother s childhood has its own demons demons she visited upon her own children. I may not forgive but I do understand.
My Mother was four years old when the Lusitania was torpedoed. I have seen her there in the documentaries a tiny girl with a big bow tightly gripping her older sister s hand. Her family lived nearby, in a village called Rushbrook so she d often stand on that hill above the harbor and watch the ships go by. From whalers to sleek White Star luxury cruisers everything passed by Queenstown and The Head of Kinsale on its way to America. So when the explosions happened, off she went, along with everyone else. No one expected another Titanic. Fire and water and the stench of burning oil she never got over that smell. Years later, she refused to get out of the car whenever my Father got gas.
They stacked the bodies in the town square like so much wood. There were so many, you see, and the rescuers were overwhelmed. Some - those less intact, or without clothing - were relegated to dirty little buildings near the docks. Queenstown was really no more than a fishing village back then. After Titanic, well the big ships still stopped; but Liverpool had taken over as the preferred port of call. Ireland was fast slipping into another wave of grinding poverty that would soon force more immigration this one to include my Mother and her family. So when the Lusitania went down it was a big thing. Everyone turned out to help and to see no one thought to protect the children.
My Mother was convinced people were buried alive. She heard the exhalations, you see; the final breath of the dead. Sometimes they would move as well, shifting under the weight of those piled on top; lips moving to expel water trapped in their lungs. I imagine Buckenvalt was like that, with bodies waiting for the ovens. Horrible, frightening my Mother tried to get adults to listen to her fears, but children back then were not to be heard. As a punishment, her sister locked her in one of the sheds near the wharf. Just a little girl, four years old, one hundred bodies bloated from the sea, and rats. Lots, and lots and lots of rats; black ones - grown fat from gorging on pale flesh. Do you know how big a wharf rat gets? About the size of a terrier. She screamed, of course the poor little thing was terrified. All it did was make the rats look in her direction, their red eyes glowing like twilight.
She took me back there, years; no eons ago - took me to stand with her on that hill. She was 60 and I barely 12. I remember the wind colored her face, and it was cold. There was no inflection in her voice, only a kind of bitterness, especially regarding her sister. I reached for her hand, but she wouldn t allow it. My Mother never liked to be touched. I cried for her. We visited the grave, that day where they put all those bodies. Mother wouldn t even enter that part of the cemetery. She waited near her family plot. Blessed soil. Irish soil. I stood near the largish square allotted to the Lusitania dead and marveled at how small it seemed to fit all those bodies. They must have dug deep, I thought. The memorial stone was discolored by lichen, weeds nearly masking the simple epitaph. It looked abandoned and forlorn. I stared back at my Mother, hands in front of her eyes so no one could see tears. I wondered who she was weeping for.
It twisted her, the terror of that week - warped her perceptions. Turned life into death; and all those fears, all that anger misdirected itself - right onto her children. Four, she had - four children - and only two of us survived to adulthood. Alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicide all this and more stalked my siblings into their graves. Only my sister and I were spared. I think of that, more often as I age, and I am at a loss to explain why. Perhaps it has to do with the relative flexibility of mind. Like all artists, I see life as Picasso did - all angles at once. My sister retreated into the bosom of religion, allowing her vision of God to buffer the shock. My Mother had none of my flexibility, and she didn t believe in God - not really. For her, the only way to exorcise those demons was to visit them upon others.
The sights and sounds inside the Superdome running gun battles, rape, mutilation of bodies - just how do you think the NOLA children will internalize such horrors? For those terrors were real, you know; despite recent revisionist efforts to ignore and erase them. Chaos, thirst and death from a child s eye view it would seem God had all but abandoned them. So will they be able to shed such memories? What about those left outside with the dead? Watching bodies eaten by those rats that survived the flooding of the sewers? Will they fear all rodents as my Mother did? The woman ran screaming from squirrels. Will they seek to expiate their fear and anger by acting out? What will they visit on their own children and the rest of society? Well, I guess we all will find that out in about 20 years.
