I am my Mother's daughter. We do not look alike. I hope we do not think alike. Sometimes we sound alike on the phone. My voice and my Mother's and my sister's all sound alike over the phone. I pretend that I have fallen far from the tree.
My Dad was almost a professional nurturer. He died in 1992. He was a brilliant man. He was sharp...so sharp he sometimes cut himself. He died of depression, but the cancer killed him. Ninety days from diagnosis to death, my Dad was buried on the day before Christmas Eve. A day does not pass that I want to pick up the phone and call him. But there you go...
In a classic book "Madame Bovary" the hero/main character writes that he has created his wife's face. That the lines etched there are the result of their life together. To some extent my Mom is a product of her marriage to my Dad. But her anger started in her childhood. She was the girl. The boys were important. Her older brother and her younger brother always were the focus.
In the year, before my Father's death he admitted to me, he sabotaged everything my Mom did. I think that being conscious of it made it worse. If it was a success it was his. If it was a failure it was hers. They were in it together. They were joined at the hip. There was no escape. Enmeshment....
In my family, we don't talk about my Fathers secrets. Actually, days before he was diagnosed with Cancer, my brother and sister, and I had all agreed to confront him. But that didn't happen. And like so many things we all remember it differently or don't remember it at all now.
My Mother is remarkable, in a way, as a survivor. The family that looked so good on the outside and collapsed on itself over time.
Part of my journey is an amends I am still making to her. My Mom talks in pronouns. She is difficult to communicate with. This is not new. My Mom was always stand offish, like my sister she is a hugger of children not adults. They are not touchers.
My brother and my sister and my Mom are all Sagittarians. The friendliest most loveable sign. They are always born to be positive, unless there is some sort of planetary conflict. I have never read my Mom's chart, but I know there is an opposition in there somewhere.
She is still angry, but her better nature comes out often. When you come to the house she will feed you. She may tell the same stories (all starring her) again and again. Some of them are totally fiction these days, but that shows her creativity is not dimming.
She refuses to let anyone do anything to help her and you have to pretend like you are not helping. For example, if it looks like she is going to fall into a hole if you grab her she will shake your arm off. But if you say, "Help me Mom", and grab her arm she will take it. I really respect that independence a lot.
Over the years, my Mom has helped a lot of people. I remember the year my ex and I split up. He took all the marital assets (except the house). The bank was cleaned out and even the coffee pot was gone. Anyway it was a tight Christmas. My Mom drove up and honked....She loves to have people come when she honks. Anyway she had a trunk full of Christmas presents for my kids in her car. On the top of the gifts was a coffee pot for me. It was the anniversary of my Dad's death and she had been out shopping for my kids to make sure they had Christmas.
After my car accident my Mom moved in with me for several months...I required an adult sitter due to the closed head injury. I paid all her bills while she was with me. I can remember that the medications and the particular injury I had made me sleep a lot. It scared my Mom.
Every time I would drift off she would wake me up with some silly excuse. "Did you feed the dog" "What time are the girls coming home" It was kinda torture. But looking back she was scared. Like the time when I was 12 and I ran away. I hid out at the gradeschool across the street and watched my Mom drive around to all my friends and look for me. Then she parked in front of the house and put her head in her hands and cried. Actually, I have only seen her cry about 3 times.
My Mom is a puzzle. My memories are hot and cold. Great kindness and love laced with unexplained outbursts and denials. My memories of the smell of her perfumes all mixed together (she uses more than one scent at a time) and chicken soup and seven-up which cures everything, are drifting in my head now.
I try to tuck my Mom in sometimes, and tell her I love her. I try to tell her every day. Sometimes she says it back. Sometimes she doesn't. She is a puzzle. I love her very much.
