Stop the Abuse
I’m no stranger to it. Join me and Blog Against Abuse this Thursday September 27th:
From the original email:
On Thursday, September 27th, post about any abuse topic you care about - child abuse, domestic abuse, animal abuse, drug abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, political abuse - and let the world know you stand united with thousands of bloggers as part of the Bloggers Unite “Blog Against Abuse” campaign. Depending on your topic, you can even link to local, regional, national, or international organizations that you care about or support. Every post will count!
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Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
12:55 am |
Brothers and Sisters
The other day commenter Red Anne Vane asked:
A question for other Motherless posters here: what kind of relationship do you have with your siblings? Because I have next to none with my two sisters; we all live several hundred miles distant and aside from commonplaces I have no idea what to say to either of them. It would be like old Gulag survivors getting together to talk about their days in prison, and who wants to relive that?
It’s different for everyone, I’m sure. My brother and I are close, always have been. We huddled together when my mother and step-father fought, hoping not to be caught in the crossfire, but he was always one step away from trying to intervene. He was only 7 when they married, and I think he wished he was bigger and stronger so he could save our mother from the fighting.
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Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
7:48 am |
Cold
Hi everyone! I was all set to come back with a post but I received a lovely email from a woman named Colleen who wrote her own Parentless story and I offered to let her use this space to share it with you. She accepted and I’m so glad she did. I know she isn’t alone in her feelings and I hope she finds the power and peace that often comes from sharing such a painful and raw story.Colleen’s honesty isn’t unlike my own and I’m pleased to share this space with her and all the others who are Parentless, Motherless, or Fatherless in any capacity, whether it be the result of death, abuse, estrangement or other situations.
Without further ado, here is Colleen’s story.
~ Karen
I’ve been reading all of the stories on your Parentless page. My heart breaks and breaks and breaks for you and all of those who have suffered abuse from the people who were meant to protect you. I’m sorry.
I feel like my own story is pretty tame after all of that. It’s just a different sort of loss and I wonder what others would make of it.
My mother is still alive. I see her sometimes. I see her because she’s my mom and I’m supposed to do that. She never really physically abused me (although I will remember THE STRAP for as long as I live) and I had everything I needed while I grew up. I was in therapy awhile ago and my therapist tried to find out about my childhood and my adolescence - I could hardly remember anything. She said that meant I was suppressing really bad memories or there was just nothing to remember.
Mostly there was nothing. Until I was diagnosed with clinical depression and my doctor told me that was usually hereditary, did anyone else in my family suffer from it? Knowing what I know now…yeah. My Mom. Big time. Can we say OCD? Our house was so clean you’d think no one lived in it. When I came from school there was a note on the fridge door listing what we could have for snack. There was to be no deviation from the list because my mom knew every single cheese slice that was in the fridge and had meals and snacks planned out until the end of time. There was no messing with the supplies. The only interactions with her that I can recall at all are very cold and clinical - discussions about how much rent I would pay once I got a job, fights about curfews…no early memories at all. No hugs, no sharing, no…contact.
When I was in my early 20’s my dad left her. It was as if all the emotion she’d never shown (except for anger) came out all at once. She compelled my participation by threatening suicide, she demanded that I choose her and reject my dad and rode the pity train to the end of the line.
This all stopped when she found God and her salvation through Jesus Christ. We never went to church or even talked about going when I was growing up. My dad’s parents had shoved that down his throat so hard he gagged it all up and and refused to have anything to do with it. My mom didn’t feel one way or the other about it.
These days, she tells me that I’m going to hell no matter what I do or don’t do because I wasn’t baptized. If I don’t accept Christ into my life I’m a goner. Same for my daughter, even if she’s only 11. My daughter just spent a hellish 5 days with her and her husband and has since told me that she will never go to stay with them again. I support this and I won’t make her do it. My girl is a budding pre-teen and a good kid but my mom made her feel like an alien and a loser and a bad girl.
I wanted to find a path to my mom when I found out about the depression and figured out what was wrong for all those years. I too found a path to god that is very personal and has nothing to do with organized religion. I’m still a heretic to my mom and I’d just better not mention clinical depression anywhere around her. You could use her lips for a ruler if I do. That’s the devil’s work and pills are not the answer - those are just more of satan’s tools.
After my daughter came home from her awful visit and told me ad nauseum about her experience she asked me “Do you love your Mom?”
I must have told her that of course I did but I’m honestly not sure what I said. I know the real answer though: No. I don’t. I can’t even remember missing it. I can’t remember feeling it. I can’t remember wanting or needing my mom, needing or getting comfort from her. I only remember things from the time I was able to get away from that cold house.
I’m not even very sorry about this. Because my mom is still alive and still in my life and she is the person I have to think of when I think of a mom…no, I don’t ‘miss’ her. There was a time when I had a lot of empathy for her and would have understood everything. In that time we could have built something and I would never have judged her or condemned her for being the way she was. I understood. I still understand. She chose something else and she tells me that it means more to her than her children do…it’s the greatest love you can have, that love of god. The day I finally see the light is the day we can come together. I do see a light but she doesn’t think it’s the right light and so we go along with this farce of family feeling.
I certainly don’t think god took my mom. My mom bailed out on me and my brother when we were young and then she took refuge in a book. She never sought strength from her family or her world or her own self. I think she’s actually pretty weak and that I - pitiful sinner that I am - am stronger than she is.
I don’t love my mom. I wish I felt sorrier about this.
~ Colleen
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
7:58 am |
Does Group Therapy Here Get You a Discounted Rate?
Hi there, Sara from Suburban Oblivion here. Most of you don t know me, and that s ok. Half of the time I feel like I don t know me, so we are even on that score.
When I sat down to do this post, I actually had a really funny piece planned out. It was all about being a guest in Vodkarella’s home, and poking my nose around while she was gone, exposing her dirty little secrets, like dust bunnies under the couch, and her hiding Jelly Bellys in a Tampax box in the bathroom so she wouldn t have to share. In preparation I started poking around in her archives to find things to reference, instead found the Parentless stories, and in an instant the entire focus of the post was shot to shit. If there is one thing Karen seems to understand, it s the need for women to tell the stories of losing their mothers. I am going to take advantage of her hospitality, and use this post to tell my own. It’s not something I’ve been able to write about like this before, but in the company of others I feel safe in a way I do not on my own site. Prying eyes of relatives will prevent me from promoting it there, but I hope you will forgive me that tiny transgression.
One of my earliest memories is of my mother and I living in a tiny little house in Florida. She d left my biological father due to his abuse, and so it was just us and a small monthly welfare check. I was somewhere between three and four years old, and on this particular day my mother s sister was visiting, instead of one of the random men who would so often sleep over. The two of them were asleep on opposite chairs in the middle of the day, and I wandered in, bored and looking for something to do. Ever the precocious child, I shook my mother awake, and told her Hey, someone is supposed to be watching me! She thought this was hilarious, and retold this story for as long as I can remember. As the mother of a four year old now, I cringe at the memory. The pot bags still left on the coffee table, god only knows what in the bottles in front of them, and a small child left to her own devices for hours on end.
The next few years are a random hodgepodge of scenes. My mother ranting after a truancy officer leaves; she works nights and we don t have an alarm clock, how do they expect her to get up and get me off to school? Me as a first grader getting up on my own, getting dressed and out the door to school after eating a bowl of cereal while she sleeps. My mom marrying the man who will go on to adopt me and things are so much better for awhile. We move into a house, my mother no longer has to work, and outside we look like a normal family.
Inside that house my mother s instability gets worse. She is edgy, yells often, says things no child should ever hear, and I am spanked or slapped for little things. Soon my dad s mom takes me for a while, and we visit my mom in a hospital where they tell me she is taking a break, because she was stressed and needs a vacation. Soon this will be added to her verbal arsenal. Are you trying to drive me crazy and put me back in that hospital? Is that what you want??
Once she is back home again the drug use escalates. As the years pass more and more pill bottles sit beside the bed she spends the better part of the day in, and she gets high on pot as many as 5 or 6 times a day. Anything is an excuse to pop a Xanax, and she swears she is a nicer person when she is high and that I should be thankful she does it. When I tell her I don t think its right, she tells me if I ever tell anyone CPS will come take me away and put me with people who won t love me. Then she tells me should I ever try to call them myself she will beat the shit out of me and make it worth their trip. Whether it was the guilt or the threat, it worked, and my silence was hers until I left home at 18. So many situations and so many more memories, but this is all I can take in one sitting.
She had an affair and left my dad right before my daughter s second birthday. For whatever reason that became the straw that broke the camels back for me. I finally said enough and cut ties as I should have done years before. It s been 7 years and every year she sends me a birthday card I won t open. After the affair dumped her, she moved back in with my father. He can t forgive her, but hates confrontation, so they live like roommates in a trailer. She in one room, he in another, splitting the bills and saying hello as they pass each other in the living room. He doesn t hate her, and a part of me hates him for being so weak. A bigger part of me hates her for robbing me of the mother I should have had. I was lucky enough to have women who cared about me, I honestly think if it weren t for my best friend s mom I wouldn t have had a chance of becoming a half decent mom myself. I am amazed on a daily basis that I did not turn out just like mine.
So many have lost their mothers to death, and I feel for them, but in this case I think it would be easier if she had gone that way. I don t mourn the loss of her in my life; I mourn the mother I wish I d had and never did.
Sara
Suburban Oblivion
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
1:10 am |
Meals on Wheels and Apprehension
Granny’s shoulder is out again and Papa still needs her to help take care of him, so I’m heading up there Tuesday morning with the boys to help out for a day or two, stopping at my oldest cousins’ Tuesday night to cook approximately 8 tonnes of freeze-ahead meals as a gift to my grandparents for their birthdays. I know it’s kinda funny to say “Here! You don’t have to cook for a few weeks! Happy Birthday!” but really, they have everything they need otherwise, so why not?
Today I scoured the internet for diabetes-friendly recipes to cook, made 3 lists: things to bring, things to forage from our garden, and things to buy. Then I shopped for one of the recipes because it was a crock-pot jobbie: Chicken Noodle Soup with Crimini Mushrooms and Baby Spinach. The smells from that dish alone had me drooling. So there’s 8 individual servings frozen and labeled and ready for transport.
As much as I’m excited to see my grandparents, I know the next week is going to be extremely tough mentally, physically, and emotionally. Not because of them so much, but driving 1/2 day with two kids, shopping for 8 recipes and cooking for hours will be interesting. On top of that, I transferred all my current client files to Matilda (the laptop) in hopes of miracles time to work. Today I have to write all my posts for Drool for the next week, because when I get back, it’ll be finally time to put the damn house on the damn market.
All of that is not what is worrying me though.
My grandmother on my father’s side is in the hospital with an infection. She too has diabetes and her foot is turning black. Granny said today that she might lose it, and truthfully, I don’t know enough about diabetes to know how feet are related, just that they are. It’s pretty scary and I’m very worried about Grandma.
My Grandma and I had a special relationship growing up. She always made me laugh, hugged me tight, made me feel comfortable when she could sense my nervousness. I think she tried to diffuse the war between my parents and knew I was just caught in the middle. With her, I could just be me. I didn’t have to think about what she would want to hear.
When I was 10, she took me to the CNE. Being the excited kid I was, I took off and rode every ride I could, all by myself. She was frantic, of course, and when I got to the horse building and heard my name over the loudspeakers, I realized the ramifications of what I must have done to her: Grandmother of a 10 year old girl, alone in a major theme park, in Toronto. Not very smart, was I? To this day I feel rotten about that, although she laughs and says things like, “You little shit, you took 10 years off my life!”
Even though my brother Joel has a different father, my Grandma always included him when he wanted to come along on visits. She treated him equally as she did me, and still asks about him nowadays. I’ll never forget the time she took us out to dinner at Mother’s Pizza (all you Toronto kids will remember that place) and when the staff gathered ’round to sing Happy Birthday to Joel, he turned to my Grandma, eyes wide, and squealed, “You got me!” She adored him too.
When I stayed at Grandma’s place, we would drink tea with honey in big mugs, and eat chopped red and green peppers. I think of her every single time I chop bell peppers. She had a couple of little sayings on her fridge, alongside the pinwheel I made for her and pictures held with magnets: “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” was one, and the other was my favorite: “My house is clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy.”
When I called her at the hospital the other day, she was high on morphine and happy as a lark. She drilled her usual, “Make sure you take a vitamin every day, and drink your orange juice!” then, “You better be making those boys say their prayers!”
“Yes Grandma,” I answered, knowing she didn’t need to know the truth. It makes her happy to think I follow her faith. Let’s go with that.
I haven’t seen Grandma in a couple of years. She lives even further away than the rest of my family, so Thursday morning, I’ll drive the kids to the hospital and see her, and then we’ll come home.
The hospital visit means my father might be there. He hasn’t seen Dylan since Dylan was 2, and he has never met Thomas. The last communication between him and I was nasty and over email. I really have nothing to say to him and I hope he will leave the room so I can visit with Grandma.
Further to the possibility of him being there, is the possibility of his brother being there. He’s a nasty bastard who yells and swears at anyone who pisses him off, including my Grandma. I can take whatever these two can dish out, but I do not want a scene in front of my kids, and especially not in front of Grandma. I really just want to take a few minutes with my Grandma to let her know we love her.
This is going to be so damn hard in the first place. I just hope I can get in and out of there without confrontation.
More photos are here on Flickr, if you like red jumpers and Cabbage Patch Dolls.
EDIT: I just reviewed When Parents Hurt over at Troll Baby Reviews. The post has links to the podcast from last week. I might just hand that book to my Dad if I see him. Because I’m an idiot and liked getting burned. Oh I have reached out many times. I don’t know. Maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie.
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
1:35 am |
The Lady of Shalott
A Gift From My Mother
The last couple of days have been bad pain days for me and that means extra pain meds which often trigger memories. My dreams become much more vivid too. Drawers inside my head open and I never know what s going to pop out. Lately all those dreams have centered around my mother I couldn t tell you why; maybe because I d like her to be proud of me. Something marvelous happens and I cast about, wishing I had family to call. Oh there are friends, of course the sisters and brothers of my heart; but it s not quite the same. So here we come round again the child I was, still searching for something. I m not sure I will ever come to terms with it but that doesn t mean I won t always try.
I don t have very many gifts from my mother tangible or intangible. When you peruse the eclectic collection of oddities and knick-knacks that decorate my sideboard you will not find anything ever touched by her hand. Its not that I disposed of such things they simply never existed. What hereditary jewelry I have consists of a single scrimshaw broach that once belonged to her mother and my dead sister s watch taken from her wrist prior to burial. I remember receiving that watch. It was unceremoniously dumped on my bed along with a tarnished brass compact. I had only recently confronted my mother regarding my sister, you see. She had been dead years only no one had bothered to tell me about it. Here my mother said These were Pats . The glass in the compact was cracked and there were only vestiges of any powder left. I imagined my sisters face looking out at me. I wondered if she lived inside the mirror. There had been an episode of Lost in Space where Penny was able to communicate with a boy in her mirror. I hoped it was true but then I d often wish that fantasies I saw on television were true. There was a Twilight Zone once about children who found an adult-free paradise accessed through the deep end of their pool. I cannot tell you how many times I nearly drowned in a cornucopia of pools desperate to find that entrance. I still call it to mind every time I swim. So the watch I wore, and the compact I kept hidden in the very back of a closet drawer. I d stare into the slivered glass, whispering to it. Pat Pat - are you there? Please come get me. I m still waiting.
I have no photographs either. My surviving sister took them all upon my parent s deaths. So really, there is nothing linking me to anyone. I m like Venus on the half-shell rising up out of the foam deposited whole upon the world no before, only after. I do have some important documents though - including my sister s burial certificate. I found it hidden away in the bottom of our piano bench along with some old music bearing her name. I removed it - secreting it away where no one could get at it. It was the only evidence I had showing Pat had ever really lived. Did you have a treasure trove as a child? One that you kept secret from anyone? I did. In an old cigar box. It s where I kept my evidence of love letters from a pen pal, a small Haitian doll my father s brother gave me, marbles I had dug up in the back yard and imagined playing with, rocks from a nearby neighbor s that I thought looked like jade. Pats compact was there too along with the certificate. I would take it out very late at night just to touch it. I remember petting it like a cat smelling what I imagined was faint perfume lilac. I seem to remember Pat smelled of lilac. That smell gave me hope more evidence that Pat was real. So - when other children would taunt me for my parents being old and not having any siblings (at least none that ever came around) I would tell them that I d once had a beautiful red-headed sister who d loved me to distraction. That secret piece of paper was my proof. I remember one particularly nasty child actually going up to my mother and asking outright if I d ever had a sister who died. My mother looked us both straight in the eye and denied it denied her own daughter said that Patricia never existed that I was making it all up. I almost believed her, you know; gave up my dream of love but I had a compact, a watch and a creased sheet of paper that said otherwise. Patricia had lived and if she had lived then she had loved me I knew it.
Funny, isn t it how lines of thought can splinter off and assume lives of their own? I began this intending to write about the only gift I ever received from my mother and here I am obsessing over my sister Pat. The two subjects are inextricably linked, though Pat and my mother gifts and love; both my dead sister s last, unwitting gift to me and a perfume bottle my mother bought many years ago. Along with that yellowed scrimshaw broach there is nothing else in my possession that speaks to family or lines of connection. The watch I no longer wear. It needs attention from someone qualified to properly fix it. The perfume bottle sits on my bathroom counter. It is egg shaped and very, very heavy thick, clear glass swirled round and round with stripes of deep blue and magenta. Not something I would select for myself not my particular style, if you will. I can t say whether or not it was my mother s style, because she never really had one that remained consistent. The bottle she chose has a permanence about it, though. It s where I store YSL s Opium my favorite scent. There s honey colored residue clinging to the bottom from being filled and allowed to empty many, many times. My mother purchased that decorative parfumerie for me right after the Loma Prieta quake. It is one of the very few things she ever gave me and thus I treasure it. I know, I know how could I ever want anything to remind me of that woman. But there was a very short period of time when my mother s doctor tricked her into taking medication to treat her mental illness. For those few, all too brief months I had a glimpse of what might have been. The medication curbed my mother s extreme, violent mood shifts, evened out her temperament. I saw her smile for the very first time out of pleasure rather than a harbinger of viciousness. Of course eventually she caught on and stopped taking the pills but there was a definite honeymoon period. It was then she bought me the art glass perfume bottle. When I look at it I think of Capitola and its fabulous boutiques and my mother smiling up into the sun.
I don t remember why I had flown out that particular time. I know it was after the quake because I purchased one of those I Survived tee-shirts. Mother had been downright affable on the phone; unheard of up until that point. She mentioned that her doctor had her on some new wonder medicine. I asked her what it was but she couldn t recall. I immediately suspected one of the then new and much touted mood modifiers. I called her doctor to confirm. His and my relationship had gotten off to a very rocky start. You see - my mother would tell all and sundry terrible tales of how her horrible ungrateful children constantly and consistently abused her. Like most sociopaths my mother was capable of extreme charm for short periods of time. Unsustainable but beguiling nonetheless. I learned my acting from her. I had school-mates who d tell me how wonderful they thought she was. My cousin once referred to her as a delight . Mother s history with physicians was a checkered one. As soon as the doctor caught on that she was lying she d dump him (always a him my mother hated other women and that included women doctors). This current doctor had been her physician for a number of years. This longevity was due to a certain amount of duplicity on his part. Once he realized that my mother was telling wee porkie pies he began keeping my older sister and I apprised of her medical condition. Of course that took a couple of years. Initially I had to endure his either hanging up on me or outright accusing me of elder abuse. How I was supposed to manage that from 3000 miles away I don t know. Eventually he figured out that any bruises my mother sported were at the hands of my alcoholic, dangerously violent brother not my sister or myself mothers claims to the contrary.
His epiphany continued as regards her physical health. My mother was, outside of the mental issues, as healthy as a horse. To listen to her, however - you d think she was about to keel over from any number of serious ailments the most of which were sheer (though rather creative) fantasy. If, however, she wasn t given a pill for that ailment the doctor in question went the way of the Dodo. Victorian ladies had nothing on mom - she lived on her couch in a perpetual state of swoon. I can still see her there 1960 s snap-up housecoat askew, eyes permanently at half moon (sunken and smudged with purple), mouth open as she dozed - knocked out from any of the three valium prescriptions regularly carried in her purse. Valium never improved her mood just exacerbated the irritableness. Coming home to unconscious mom was just as bad as manic mom . Unconscious mom meant no food. She was too stoned to cook and my father usually ignored me preferring to drink his dinner. As I wasn t allowed to consume any unauthorized food that meant on my mothers unconscious days I could expect to go hungry. Manic mom on the other hand always found fault; so though dinner would be on the table eating it was a supreme test of endurance. Imagine someone criticizing every forkful of food going into your mouth how fat it was going to make you, how ugly you looked chewing it. By the end of the meal I usually was in tears with terrible indigestion.
Anyway I don t remember exactly what her doctor had put her on but the change was radical. Instead of conversations filled with suicide threats, vitriolic attacks and tearful recriminations mother spoke of how beautiful the ocean looked, or how she had treated herself out to a nice lunch. I was flabbergasted. It was like talking to a whole other person. She even had good things to say about my father a first, considering how much she hated him. I flew out curious for the first time in memory not expecting the worst. I wasn t disappointed. She actually hugged me hello (??!!) and said she was glad to see me. No what an ugly sweater or Christ, you ve gotten really fat . I found myself staring. Even her face seemed lighter no deeply etched heavy frown lines. Instead of constantly looking at the ground and muttering when she walked mother looked around, pausing to cup one of the roses growing near her front door. With a shock I realized that my mother had been and still was exceptionally beautiful. Of course I d seen pictures blue-black hair, cobalt eyes. But she d never been smiling. Her face always seemed scrunched as if she was sucking on a lemon. Now the corners of her mouth turned up not down. There was a liveliness, humor a bounce in her step. Who was this woman?
It was, understatedly, a delightful visit. I had never, ever seen my mother happy. It was spring, right around the time of my birthday. Northern California shines in the spring especially near the sea. Warm days and cool nights do more than produce good wine they are the perfect recipe for happiness as well. And I was happy happy enough to begin making plans; especially if this whole new mom thing continued. Maybe she and I could actually form some kind of bond (and maybe pigs could fly). Up until then I had looked upon my familial relationships as punishment. Existentialist hell. An eternity of listening to my mother recite John Donne s Death be Not Proud or The Lady of Shallot whilst weeping copiously. I used to think the word maudlin had been coined especially with her in mind. Happy, bappy mom was a whole new breed of cat. I decided to make the most of it. We had a day of shopping. Not at all like shopping used to be, which consisted of dragging me all over hell and gone while my mother obsessively either bought everything in a frenzy or complained bitterly about her lack of choice. If she bought the next day she hated it, guaranteed and the returns always fell to me. Certain shop clerks literally hid whenever we entered their stores. Either way - weekends sucked once I got my drivers license. I was informed that I was to serve as in-house chauffeur. I hated it. That and she would make me try on clothes with her clothes in her size. My mother was 5 foot 2 or 3 inches tall and weighed at any given time between 78 and 93 pounds. They barely made sizes for her back then. I am five foot ten and as a teenager I weighed anywhere between 125 and 140. To my mother that was unconscionably fat something she pointed out loudly and in public every chance she got. When we d shop she would shove clothes at me (teeny, tiny pants and too small blouses) insisting I try them on for her approval. Refusal on my part usually led to some kind of embarrassing scene. How is it narcissistic people know that about the rest of us? That we will do almost anything to avoid a public spectacle? So the thought of shopping with my mother and it not being a traumatic experience was, to say the least, novel.
But there we were happily exploring all the little boutique shoplettes Capitola had to offer. It was a new age wonderland of crystals, tarot cards, dragons and kitschy decorative arts. Clothing was late 80 s chic meets hot hippie chick with a rainbow tie-die fetish. Stevie Nicks starter kits were available on every other corner - yards of fringe and leather overlaid with black lace. Nothing says beach to me more than the aroma of incense released by hot summer sun. The light is its own character bright, comforting my skin felt alive. I freckle in the sun you can actually watch them form. Between one block and the next I looked more and more Irish. My hair darkens in winter; not sable black like my mothers but dark. Sunlight brings out the mahogany tones. That particular spring I was looking my best and it was noticed. Men smiled as I walked by some turning, a couple asking for my number. I felt pretty, powerful and very, very alive. And my mother was with me how strange was that? No denigrations, no calling me a whore for smiling back at all those men. I could hardly believe it. Eventually we made our way into this corner shop filled with one-of-a-kind perfume bottles. Now I love perfume always have. The first perfume I ever bought myself was called STYX and I adored it. The idea of a special bottle dedicated to the goddess of scent just tickled me pink. They weren t inexpensive unfortunately so regretfully I put down the one I wanted and mom and I walked out of the store. Lunch was had at a tiny upstairs bistro (French dip I still remember). I had some wine Mirassou Vineyards White Burgundy my favorite. By the time we were finished I was enveloped in a warm, rosy glow. Throughout, my mother and I chatted like I imagine all mothers and daughters do, but I d never experienced before. It felt odd and thrilling all at once. My imagination began to take flight. I pictured more intimate lunches perhaps even shared confidences. Maybe I could get her to tell me what it was like to be young and living in New York City during the 1920 s.
Before calling it a day, my mother asked me to wait while she took care of something. That was OK. It gave me a chance to walk out on the pier. It was crowded such a beautiful, clear day. From the edge of the pier you could see across the bay to Monterey. I used to fish off that pier often as a child. My father considered himself a fisherman and I would often go with. Flounder, mostly. That day it was packed gaily dressed tourists heading out for a day of shopping and fun at the beach. I eventually spied my mother standing by the car and headed over. She had a small package. Here. She put it in my hands with a smile - for your birthday. I recognized the shop label as I opened it. It was a perfume bottle. Not the one I d admired not one I d have chosen for myself at all but beautiful still. I was surprised beyond measure. My mother had given me a gift. Spontaneously even. Tears sprang to my eyes. I could hardly believe it. I hugged her and she didn t stiffen and pull away. The moment seemed surreal. There we were, surrounded by other people, hugging on the street like a normal family. Bizarre. And now this. I didn t know what to say.
The next day I took my leave and flew home. I just couldn t believe how friendly and accessible my mother had become. I began to dream what if it had always been like this? If she had always treated me with love and respect? How different would my life have been? So many things not just the personal either. I might have felt comfortable taking that TV show when I was a kid and who know where that would have led. Life choices are fueled by emotion. If you feel safe you can literally fly. I never felt safe as a child. Any wings I might have had were of my own construction and they never held up under the withering assault I endured day after day. But that was then. I was willing for there to be a now .
The following week I called her expecting to hear new mom s bright, sunny voice on the other end. That wasn t to be, unfortunately. The woman who answered was the same sour bitch I d grown up with my entire life. What happened? I asked Are you still taking your medication? Evidently not. Finally the connection had been made between my mother s elevated mood and those little pills she was taking. She had thought they were for her blood pressure. The very instant she found out the truth (from her doctor s nurse) she flushed them all down the toilet and no amount of persuasion from me, my sister or her doctor could persuade her otherwise. I tried everything reminding her of how good she had felt, how happy she had been. Emphasizing how much better for her health happiness was. I even spoke to her doctor before she traded him in on a newer model. Didn t matter. I was castigated for taking cruel advantage of her. I d tricked her into buying that perfume bottle with money better spent on my wastrel brother. She hated me all the more for having witnessed her transformation. That day may have stood out to me as wonderful; but to my mother it became anathema. Proof positive that I was the hateful, scheming daughter she always claimed she should have aborted. That effectively ended any hopes of a relationship so far as I was concerned. She chose chaos over health and believe me - it was a definite choice. No one forced her to stop taking that medication. Her doctor explained it to me. She had spent so many years wrapped up in bitterness and hate she just didn t want to let go of it. Hate and fear was how she controlled her family. That, and emotional blackmail. I cannot tell you how many times she told me my birth ruined her life the births of all her children, really. She d say similar things to my father how marrying him was the single worst choice she ever could have made. My mother hated everyone and every thing; and she was damned if it wasn t going to remain that way forever.
So that was that. I look at that perfume bottle now and remember that day in the sun. We had stopped once to watch a man fly a kite on the beach. My mother s personality was very like that of the kite many hued and barely controllable. In the end it just got away from her. Pity. I wonder if my mother ever read Kipling. Of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these: It might have been. She went to her grave as unhappy as the day she was born. My sister told me her last coherent words were filled with despite of me. Thank the lord I wasn t there to hear them. Ah well
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”
Written by The Fat Lady Sings
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
1:31 am |
Dianne
I m preparing for April.
The beginning of spring is always a lead in to a month I fear and hate. The melting, the temperature fluctuations-they always remind me of a year when my mother went from remission to death in a matter of months, they remind me of a winter when we held our collective breath, and waited, walked on thin glass with the knowledge that she was not long for this world.
There s a look about the dying. A grey, sparse listening, eyes focused on something just outside of vision, an ash to the skin, a weary knowledge and safety about the eyes. Some call it peace. It looked more like bravery to me, and satisfaction. My mother was about to meet her maker, and had comes to terms with her leaving. Her body was falling from her as she heaved up what little was in her stomach. The world was falling from her.
I don t see spring. I don t see my wedding anniversary, or birthdays. I don t see newness in the April air. I see death. I see the ending of a childhood, the shattered pieces of a family, the useless and volatile sympathies of neighbours and not friends. I see one day where she was, and another where she wasn t. Bloated legs twitching on a hospital bed, our front room ruined, her last week spent lying, leaving. The chaos of that last day, the ache of my father s footsteps, running towards my Aunt s crying scream as my mother finally left us.
The stairs held me that day, where I shouldn t have been. Her body seized, and jumped on her bed. Her gown flew up, and I saw my mother as I had never seen my mother, she who never wore shorts, let alone walked around naked. And I knew. If my mother was alive, her hands would be gripping the edges of that gown for dear life, covering her privates . My mother in life was never immodest.
April shows me panic, and fear and sadness and anger. Surrounded by relatives I didn t know, shellshocked by life SHE S GONE! I wandered, and accepted their poor words, their moist hands and casseroles. I sat in our house, waiting for her to come home.
My father threw out her clothes.
April is transition, a day, a month, a year, a life I cannot escape. I became that day, I became within April a creature I wasn t, a thing that should not be. I was born of that death, of pasty deadwhite skin, of eyes that stopped seeing, of the beeping of a machine moving her lungs but not her heart or brain. I was born of that small girl screaming her love over the flatline, sobbing in the arms of an Aunt I barely knew, wishing my mother knew, wishing my mother could hear me.
Wishing my mother back.
I can t fix it. I can t change it. I hardly mourn it now, 18 years later.
18 years. Perhaps my mother was born into another, and is now a fledgling woman, starting out in the world.
Let me know if you see her.
Also posted at my home site:
Spin Me I Pulsate
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
12:24 pm |
Rules for the Motherless Daughter: One
In talking to Jason, I realize how much he wants to protect his daughters, how much he strives to do it right, to be there, to never let them down.
You can try dude, but believe me, you won t win them all. We learn our best lessons the wrong way. (As evidenced by how I learned to just put the icky ice cream down the sick, instead of sneaking the mocha crap out the back door, running my calf directly into a very large, pointy piece of glass. No sympathy from my Dad either, as the blood pooled around my feet) Sometimes, you need to allow people enough rope to hang themselves, so long as you hold onto it with them unaware.
I think of Jason s daughter as someone going where I went, doing what I did, crying the same tears and wanting the same things-her MOM! I see her bright eyes and apple round cheeks and think-I was so young, and yet so old at that age, wasn t I? So much seen oh too soon.
But it made me who I am, what I am. So I do not regret it. Would I change it? Hell YES! But I do not regret what I can t change.
So I wanted to sit down and write out what I consider to be rules for us, for girls without their mothers, without their guides. In our family, some things went right, others, not so much. We did what we could. You can t ask for much more than that when everyone feels so dead inside.
Rule number one?
Do not erase the mother.
We didn t talk about it. We didn t mention it, hardly ever. It was rare that I could express anything out loud to anyone about my mother. It took years before I could do it, before I felt that anyone was listening. Everyone at my house was far too wounded, and struggling with their own pain. I kept it locked tightly inside, ready to spring when allowed.
Many drunken nights later, it would come out at the worst times-when I d sit in the middle of the street, waiting for traffic, when I d throw myself into a friends drumset, hoping something would hurt me, when it didn t, I d start bashing my head on the cement floor. Drunk enough to not feel some pain, I d try to cure the other.
Once I tried to kill myself. I couldn t pin point why, but I didn t want to be alive.
I felt isolated and alone with my grief. I felt that I didn t have the right to talk about it, to work though it, to feel it. I was supposed to suck it up, and deal with it.
I was just a kid.
My school even toed the party line, pretending like nothing had happened for the most part, assuming that I didn t need to talk about it after a year or two had passed.
She was erased. It was like she ceased to exist.
Talk about her. Tell stories. Remind your daughter who her mother was, and what she wanted for her. Your daughter wants to know who she came from.
So tell her.
Also Posted at my home site:
Spin Me I Pulsate
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
5:03 pm |
Sometimes I Think There Are Sharks Around My Bed
Sometimes I think there are sharks around my bed. If you put out your foot or hand a fin will cut it off. I m lucky, though; my bed is against the wall, and the sharks can t get their fins up between. They could if they wanted to but if I m real quiet, then they don t know I m here.
Sometimes I talk to God. I stay awake all night and he keeps me company. I have a direct line to God. He listens to me, and sometimes he makes things happen if I pray real hard. Mom says God always answers your prayers if you re in a state of grace. I promise him things. If I don t say anything to anybody he ll make it go away.
Please please go to the bathroom, please go to the bathroom not here, not tonight please, please, please, please, please I ll never pretend to be sick at mass again, please! No Please Don t! I m sorry! It hurts, Papa!
God doesn t always listen to me. That s because I m bad. God always listens to good little girls. Maybe if I promise to never talk again or give up my kitty ——
Sometimes I think there are sharks around my bed.
Written by The Fat Lady Sings
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
12:12 am |
Oranges
I found out over the Christmas holidays that my Granny’s mother was a lot like my own mother. Abusive, cruel, always yelling and upset. My Granny was treated like a slave, a dog, and not seen as a person. That is, until she went off to visit her grandmother. She says she remembers walking miles, clutching her pillow, as a 4 or 5 year old, in the snow -all the way to her grandmother’s home. Her grandmother lived in a two room house - one served as the kitchen and living space and the other as a bedroom, with a wash basin and stand. When my Granny would visit her own, they would sleep in the same bed.
She remembers waking up in the mornings and her grandmother had put an orange on the pillow beside her. My Granny was very poor, as a lot of people were then, and her tummy often went hungry. She said that she remembers cupping the orange to her face and smelling it for a few minutes before carefully peeling it and savouring every piece. To this day, the smell of orange makes her think of her grandmothers little home, the long talks they had, and those memories with live with her forever.
My Granny is a special person. Her own daughter, (my mother) has always been disturbed, even as a small child of 3. So my poor Granny was sandwiched between an abusive mother and later, an abusive daughter. As we discussed over Christmas holidays, we think that the mental illness skipped our two generations. A bold statement, maybe, but both of us are the polar opposites of our own mothers.
The day we were set to leave my Granny’s to come home, I waited until she had made her bed and I sneaked upstairs to place an orange on her pillow with a thank you card. I just thank God that we had each had a grandmother who was kind, who listened, and who validated our feelings as young people.
~ Karen
Posted by Karen Sugarpants @
11:01 am |
