Tequila. Surely someone spiked it. I knew I felt woozy as I was trying to be sexy sitting on the console of my boyfriend's Ford Bronco, all of 17. I announce that I would say the multiplication tables starting from 9 and go backwards to stay focused. I was told I was somewhere in the middle of the 8's when I passed out, slumped forward and slid between the gas pedal and the console.
And, yes, we were moving. My boyfriend was flying down an unfamiliar highway in the backwoods of central Texas at 80, drinking himself.
Somewhere in the process of driving from Bastrop to his parents' home in San Antonio, I lost control of my bodily fluids and pissed myself as well as puked on myself and the car. I was completely gone, so I didn't even know he had changed my clothes for me at some point.
We arrived at his parents' home and I experienced one of the most demoralizing moments of my life. I could not move. I could, however, hear and see a little. The boyfriend drug me into his house with one arm over his shoulders. I could not move my legs to walk, or anything. Couldn't really pick up my head. But I heard his father say, 'Jeee SUS Christ, son, what! IS! THAT?!?!"
I wished I were dead. Or at least buried. So ashamed.
His wonderful family took care of me, cleaned me up, and put me to bed.
The following morning they called my mom and were very honest that they were going to let my mom know the severity of the situation.
I was scared of what mom would say, especially that maybe I wouldn't be able to see the boyfriend.
But, you know what Mom said? She said that I had had a very difficult week. Lots of stress. That I probably just blew off some steam. And that was that.
That's when I knew. Even though the last thing I wanted was punishment, I knew I should have it and that something was very wrong.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
The diamond ring
She wore a purple dress, too warm for the season. I knew it was too warm for the season because my mom taught me these things. And now, she was living in a mission, and even this was a step up from the God awful streets. As much as I prayed to accept the things I couldn't change, the truth of this crushed against my soul.
I had asked her if there was anything she would like to have, now that she had a home, an actual place to live. Yes. She wanted a diamond ring.
In the past my mom had worn beautiful jewelry. I remember one amethyst butterfly and diamond silver ring and matching pendant, in particular. She was not from this kind of place, but she had come to know it fairly comfortably. And now it was all gone. All of it.
Whether these items were hocked, stolen, sold, or bartered, I don't know. I don't know where the upright piano that was my great aunt's went. Nor do I know where the pictures from my childhood are. My trophies and medals from gymnastcis, U.I.L. for orchestra, all gone. These are some of the casualties of homelessness.
The repercussions of what I grieve over since it was my mom who had all these keepsakes and it was my mom who lost them, seem to be relentless and unending. It comes up over something as simple as a fun project at work when people want a photo of you when you were little, or your mom to compare it to. Thank God some of these things have resurfaced and also that other family members have at least some of these items.
So, I choose a diamond ring from the few that I have. This one was given to me at my son's birth. It's not much, but it is something.
I understand why she wants a diamond ring. It respresents some of the dignity, elegance, and beauty that we used to know.
I had asked her if there was anything she would like to have, now that she had a home, an actual place to live. Yes. She wanted a diamond ring.
In the past my mom had worn beautiful jewelry. I remember one amethyst butterfly and diamond silver ring and matching pendant, in particular. She was not from this kind of place, but she had come to know it fairly comfortably. And now it was all gone. All of it.
Whether these items were hocked, stolen, sold, or bartered, I don't know. I don't know where the upright piano that was my great aunt's went. Nor do I know where the pictures from my childhood are. My trophies and medals from gymnastcis, U.I.L. for orchestra, all gone. These are some of the casualties of homelessness.
The repercussions of what I grieve over since it was my mom who had all these keepsakes and it was my mom who lost them, seem to be relentless and unending. It comes up over something as simple as a fun project at work when people want a photo of you when you were little, or your mom to compare it to. Thank God some of these things have resurfaced and also that other family members have at least some of these items.
So, I choose a diamond ring from the few that I have. This one was given to me at my son's birth. It's not much, but it is something.
I understand why she wants a diamond ring. It respresents some of the dignity, elegance, and beauty that we used to know.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Twirling
"Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself
But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow"
- Dixie Chicks, Long Way Around
Here's the thing. Some folks in my family think I'm crazy. Or at least seriously consider it.
I have done some crazy shit. I have made many mistakes and hurt some folks along the way. I have, at times, been desperate and panicked. I do not live traditionally, nor do I wish to do so. I take a lot of risks and I don't worry about how things look very much. I open my mouth and stand up for myself sometimes. This, I know, baffles some folks, especially when my ideas directly oppose some of theirs - or the other way around. But, on a very basic level, I am not even one iota of crazy.
Trust me, I would be. I even should be and have been, briefly. But not today. Not today. And not for most of the days of my life.
I told the therapist i was tired of living, told him I had thought about ending it. I was seventeen. I had been abused, my parents were divorcing, and my mom was a raging drunk. I was in all advanced courses, working twenty five hours a week, was president of the orchestra and twirler in the band. I don't know, call me crazy. Oh, wait. I actually think I was just tired and depressed. Oh, and drinking alcoholically. Minor detail.
They hospitalized me for "major depression." It was actually voluntary. I signed myself in. Imagine that. I thought i could use some help and rest. Sounds nuts, I know.
I forgot to mention it was Christmas time. I am pretty sure all these things can depress you. In any case, there i was.
The morning after I arrived at the sanitarium, Mom came to visit.
What an entrance. She wore her blue, silk dress and fox fur coat, hair all done, stumbling in her heels, smelling like liquor, and loud for the very quiet "unit" I was on.
Oh, the irony. She left. I stayed.
Relatively speaking, nothing much happened. I hung out for a few weeks, had some therapy, and left.
But first, Mom had to ask a question. The day before I was discharged the doctor told me he was testing me for bipolar disorder. I asked why, whether this was standard operating procedure. He said that it was not. So, then I deduced that he must suspect me of being bipolar and suggested such, to which he replied that no, indeed he did not suspect me of being bipolar. When I looked at him quizzically he grew agitated and finally burst out with his explanation.
Sighing heavily, he quipped, "Kollette, your mother has requested this."
"Oh! Is she worried about me?"
"In my opinion, Kollette, she knows you are being released and yet you still do not see things her way. Therefore, even though we are telling her otherwise, she thinks something must still be wrong with you."
This simple statement set my world on edge. It both terrified and freed me. It has served me multiple times, since Mom is not the only person who has gone to such lengths to perpetuate some needed fantasy.
And the strength, the power, the cunning and baffling force of the disease of alcoholism once again attempted to engulf us both.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Comatose
Home for Freshman summer of college.
You have to do it! You just have to!
But I didn't have the strength. I simply did not have it.
I had walked in the door around midnight and she sat in the lounge chair near the front door of the little rental town home. All of the lights were off. She had her eyes closed. No movement. I was annoyed by her being so drunk that she just fell asleep right there like that.
But when I tried to rouse her, I got nothing from her.
I shook her a bit. Nothing. Harder. Nothing.
She was bluish. A little chilly to the touch.
Oh, God! Could she be...?
I cannot do this by myself. I cannot do this by myself.
I called for help.
That's when he demanded that I take her pulse while he got on his way to come over and help me.
My chest was made completely of molten lead. My brain was ice. I again attempted to summon up the needed courage and force myself to do it.
Nothing happened. It would not come.
You have to do it! You just have to!
But I didn't have the strength. I simply did not have it.
I had walked in the door around midnight and she sat in the lounge chair near the front door of the little rental town home. All of the lights were off. She had her eyes closed. No movement. I was annoyed by her being so drunk that she just fell asleep right there like that.
But when I tried to rouse her, I got nothing from her.
I shook her a bit. Nothing. Harder. Nothing.
She was bluish. A little chilly to the touch.
Oh, God! Could she be...?
I cannot do this by myself. I cannot do this by myself.
I called for help.
That's when he demanded that I take her pulse while he got on his way to come over and help me.
My chest was made completely of molten lead. My brain was ice. I again attempted to summon up the needed courage and force myself to do it.
Nothing happened. It would not come.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Hospice Lady and Peace
Evenings when the weather was rainy, or cold, or boiling hot, I would look out my window and hope and pray that she decided to stay in the mission, or at a shelter, or that a good person had an extra bed for her, or that she had maybe gotten money for a motel.
She would call but I often couldn't answer. I could not take the chance that she would be raging and drunk, or full of the latest drama she had largely brought on herself. Or maybe it was also that it was just so damned painful to hear from her. I knew that I was no match for the pain she was in nor for her desire to escape it. Nothing would stop her, not even her love for me. And that hurt more than I can put into words, even though it shouldn't. That should bring me relief, somehow, that it wasn't personal. It's just that it felt so personal.
Maybe I will always wrestle with that, as well as whether there was more that I could have done. Feeling so powerless, actually being so damned powerless, was also very painful.
My faith was also hugely affected. Terribly affected. For years I struggled with this question: how could You? God, how could you let her never, ever get out of pain? I prayed, I got and stayed sober, I begged, I helped, I stopped enabling...so why? I would hear someone say that they prayed and their brother got sober, so prayer really works. I would seeth with grief and rage, quietly daring God to explain that, to ask Him whether He wanted me to understand that prayer for others works but not for me and my mom. Why was her whole life so damned tragic?
I still don't fully have the answers to that. But I do trust God. He Has just been way too good to way too many people, myself included, for me not to. So, He definitely must've had His reasons. I think now that maybe it was actually more merciful to mom and that she was of better use to God just as she was, to leave when she did, the way that she did. The Hospice Counselor explained that when Mom actually died, she had a very peaceful expression. The counselor said that she had seen countless people die, and that no amount of drugs or medicines could keep a horrible look off of their faces if they were not at peace, so she knew that Mom was.
I know that her story has definitely inspired me to do all that I can to stay sober, and that many of my fellow alcoholics have not been able to do so. I also have realized, being forty two now myself, that although she was fairly young when she died - fifty three - that forty two and fifty three is a long time. I have already had a good life. She lived a very long time, had a long marriage, two kids, jobs, friends, and interests like singing for a whole lifetime before things got really, really bad.
There are those who believe that my mom was mentally ill, perhaps bipolar or some such other problem. But I don't think that's the case. I think she quite simply had alcoholism, and also PTSD from past abuse. Then I think person after person let her down, and she also did not turn to some places that she could have. I see Mom as a champion for women's rights in that she did whatever it took to stand up for herself. She was willing to lose support from people she cared about. Perhaps she was somewhat misguided, because certainly there is no bigger way to say "fuck you" to society than to quit living by its rules, but the ones she broke may have hurt her more than anyone. Still, she did it, which was enormously brave and I am so very proud of her for not going back on her truth about the abuse. I can only assume that at some point the lack of support was too much and so she got together with hurtful people and also back with her sister. Certainly much of her rebellion was aimed at continuing to blot out her pain with alcohol. Certainly that part hurt others, and ultimately I will call it wrong. Yet I have enormous sympathy for it. I know what that terror feels like, when someone has hurt you and you want the people you love to believe you, to protect you, to support you, and they don't. So you find something to help with that feeling. You deny it's a problem so that you can keep your defense. I understand that. I understand so much about her still today. She continues to inspire me still today. My whole life is one of bravery largely due to her.
I wouldn't even have said anything about my own abuse if it hadn't been for Mom. She taught me to speak out, to speak up. She believed me, and she thought I should be heard. She was my advocate.
She would call but I often couldn't answer. I could not take the chance that she would be raging and drunk, or full of the latest drama she had largely brought on herself. Or maybe it was also that it was just so damned painful to hear from her. I knew that I was no match for the pain she was in nor for her desire to escape it. Nothing would stop her, not even her love for me. And that hurt more than I can put into words, even though it shouldn't. That should bring me relief, somehow, that it wasn't personal. It's just that it felt so personal.
Maybe I will always wrestle with that, as well as whether there was more that I could have done. Feeling so powerless, actually being so damned powerless, was also very painful.
My faith was also hugely affected. Terribly affected. For years I struggled with this question: how could You? God, how could you let her never, ever get out of pain? I prayed, I got and stayed sober, I begged, I helped, I stopped enabling...so why? I would hear someone say that they prayed and their brother got sober, so prayer really works. I would seeth with grief and rage, quietly daring God to explain that, to ask Him whether He wanted me to understand that prayer for others works but not for me and my mom. Why was her whole life so damned tragic?
I still don't fully have the answers to that. But I do trust God. He Has just been way too good to way too many people, myself included, for me not to. So, He definitely must've had His reasons. I think now that maybe it was actually more merciful to mom and that she was of better use to God just as she was, to leave when she did, the way that she did. The Hospice Counselor explained that when Mom actually died, she had a very peaceful expression. The counselor said that she had seen countless people die, and that no amount of drugs or medicines could keep a horrible look off of their faces if they were not at peace, so she knew that Mom was.
I know that her story has definitely inspired me to do all that I can to stay sober, and that many of my fellow alcoholics have not been able to do so. I also have realized, being forty two now myself, that although she was fairly young when she died - fifty three - that forty two and fifty three is a long time. I have already had a good life. She lived a very long time, had a long marriage, two kids, jobs, friends, and interests like singing for a whole lifetime before things got really, really bad.
There are those who believe that my mom was mentally ill, perhaps bipolar or some such other problem. But I don't think that's the case. I think she quite simply had alcoholism, and also PTSD from past abuse. Then I think person after person let her down, and she also did not turn to some places that she could have. I see Mom as a champion for women's rights in that she did whatever it took to stand up for herself. She was willing to lose support from people she cared about. Perhaps she was somewhat misguided, because certainly there is no bigger way to say "fuck you" to society than to quit living by its rules, but the ones she broke may have hurt her more than anyone. Still, she did it, which was enormously brave and I am so very proud of her for not going back on her truth about the abuse. I can only assume that at some point the lack of support was too much and so she got together with hurtful people and also back with her sister. Certainly much of her rebellion was aimed at continuing to blot out her pain with alcohol. Certainly that part hurt others, and ultimately I will call it wrong. Yet I have enormous sympathy for it. I know what that terror feels like, when someone has hurt you and you want the people you love to believe you, to protect you, to support you, and they don't. So you find something to help with that feeling. You deny it's a problem so that you can keep your defense. I understand that. I understand so much about her still today. She continues to inspire me still today. My whole life is one of bravery largely due to her.
I wouldn't even have said anything about my own abuse if it hadn't been for Mom. She taught me to speak out, to speak up. She believed me, and she thought I should be heard. She was my advocate.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and...
Paul. Damn him! Wait. I don't need to do that. Pretty sure he's already damned.
But what a conniving, awful, lech of a person. I know we are all children of God, but even as such we can do some low down things. Does it get much worse than strangling someone, hanging out in their hospital room when they almost died because you don't have a home, drinking with them when they are dying from drinking and so are you, not telling their daughter that they are in hospice dying, and then giving hospice the daughter's number when the bill needs to be paid but it's too late for the daughter to see her mom before she dies?
Even when I got Mom on disability and they placed her in that mission, that effing Paul managed to get placed there, too, somehow! But at least at that point I knew that she was in a facility with rules and was being watched over.
They had moved out and gotten their own place again after their time was up there, shortly. Then they lost that, I'm sure. I stopped keeping track of Mom's exact whereabouts when she started communicating again with her sister, Mary.
Mary was one of the family members who absolutely didn't stand by me or Mom when we made our claim that we had been abused by a family member. That member was someone Mary wanted to protect, so she betrayed us, as I saw it. For years, Mom didn't have anything to do with her because of that. I'm not sure exactly at what point she changed her mind.
At the time, I was really hurt by her getting back in touch with Mary and that part of the family. I told Mom I felt betrayed by that.
"Well, honey, I need help. I need support."
"Ask me, Mom!"
"But, baby, that's not your job. I should get help from other people in my life."
She was right. And what had I wanted her to do? I had wanted her not only to stand up to her family, also regarding her marriage for herself, etc. And she lost all of that support. Then when she became so hurtful, she lost a lot of mine, too.
Yes, possibly she could've sought help from other places. She had sought solace in the church, for sure. Even they betrayed her. A counselor at our longtime church that even counseled our family turned out to be a pedaphile. I know she did not feel that she got the reaction she wanted from the church. Although she never lost her faith in Jesus, She definitely stopped believing in the church. So did I for a very long time. In fact, the family person that hurt both of us had actually been a Sunday school teacher many years ago, so people didn't want to believe that he could possibly be a sex offender.
The one place she refused to turn that I so wish she had been able to in order to find some peace, love, and support was a twelve step program.
I guess that damned Paul had his reasons. He knew I wouldn't let him be there with Mom if I was there. Hell, one person in my family was pissed at me that I didn't call Mary when Mom died. I refused. She had not spoken to me since I made my claim that her precious someone had hurt me and then Mom told her he had hurt her, too. Mary was spitting mad at me, and I had been a child at the time. I owed her nothing. I felt she had given Mom up when she chose to protect That person. Mom belonged to me, I felt. I also felt that getting in touch with Mary could reignite a potentially dangerous situation for me.
Thank God that at that time, when I was getting raked over the coals for being "bad"for not calling Mary, Joe was there to help keep me balanced and keep me focused on Jesus, too.
If I have done something wrong, I can make amends. As it is, I have not found it necessary in this case.
But what a conniving, awful, lech of a person. I know we are all children of God, but even as such we can do some low down things. Does it get much worse than strangling someone, hanging out in their hospital room when they almost died because you don't have a home, drinking with them when they are dying from drinking and so are you, not telling their daughter that they are in hospice dying, and then giving hospice the daughter's number when the bill needs to be paid but it's too late for the daughter to see her mom before she dies?
Even when I got Mom on disability and they placed her in that mission, that effing Paul managed to get placed there, too, somehow! But at least at that point I knew that she was in a facility with rules and was being watched over.
They had moved out and gotten their own place again after their time was up there, shortly. Then they lost that, I'm sure. I stopped keeping track of Mom's exact whereabouts when she started communicating again with her sister, Mary.
Mary was one of the family members who absolutely didn't stand by me or Mom when we made our claim that we had been abused by a family member. That member was someone Mary wanted to protect, so she betrayed us, as I saw it. For years, Mom didn't have anything to do with her because of that. I'm not sure exactly at what point she changed her mind.
At the time, I was really hurt by her getting back in touch with Mary and that part of the family. I told Mom I felt betrayed by that.
"Well, honey, I need help. I need support."
"Ask me, Mom!"
"But, baby, that's not your job. I should get help from other people in my life."
She was right. And what had I wanted her to do? I had wanted her not only to stand up to her family, also regarding her marriage for herself, etc. And she lost all of that support. Then when she became so hurtful, she lost a lot of mine, too.
Yes, possibly she could've sought help from other places. She had sought solace in the church, for sure. Even they betrayed her. A counselor at our longtime church that even counseled our family turned out to be a pedaphile. I know she did not feel that she got the reaction she wanted from the church. Although she never lost her faith in Jesus, She definitely stopped believing in the church. So did I for a very long time. In fact, the family person that hurt both of us had actually been a Sunday school teacher many years ago, so people didn't want to believe that he could possibly be a sex offender.
The one place she refused to turn that I so wish she had been able to in order to find some peace, love, and support was a twelve step program.
I guess that damned Paul had his reasons. He knew I wouldn't let him be there with Mom if I was there. Hell, one person in my family was pissed at me that I didn't call Mary when Mom died. I refused. She had not spoken to me since I made my claim that her precious someone had hurt me and then Mom told her he had hurt her, too. Mary was spitting mad at me, and I had been a child at the time. I owed her nothing. I felt she had given Mom up when she chose to protect That person. Mom belonged to me, I felt. I also felt that getting in touch with Mary could reignite a potentially dangerous situation for me.
Thank God that at that time, when I was getting raked over the coals for being "bad"for not calling Mary, Joe was there to help keep me balanced and keep me focused on Jesus, too.
If I have done something wrong, I can make amends. As it is, I have not found it necessary in this case.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Need to Write
I'm afraid. I'm afraid to even keep writing. There's some sort of powerful force in this vast expanse of grief that warns me not to go there. Do not say or write or communicate or express the things on your heart mind soul.
All was not roses and sun with Dad and me. To write about the real family dynamics when I have now lost both of my parents is more than daunting. It's terrifying.
The best I can do is to write about writing right now.
Make no mistake: I did love my father. I do love my dad. The same goes for my mom. It doesn't mean that hurtful things didn't happen. My son loves me, too. Doesn't mean I haven't hurt him. Maybe one day he'll write a blog or a book about the truth of what happened in his childhood. What I hope I have instilled in my son is a voice of his own, the ability to discern the truth in a reasonably sane manner, and to know that to speak the truth is not disrepectful or unloving. I hope if he has things he needs to say about me I can support his healing.
Part of my need - it seems like a need - to put my truth in words and to have others read it and know it and believe me is because the exact opposite happened in my childhood. I told the truth and I wasn't believed. It was an important truth. It was a truth that I needed help with, and it was brave for me to speak. I wasn't believed - not because there was any factual or logical reason to believe that i had lied - in fact I had a reputation for honesty and I still do. I wasn't believed because the truth that I told was too difficult for people to deal with, to handle, to believe themselves. So, as a child, i bore the burden alone. I was an outcast in many ways in my own family, including some members saying that I was a liar and having no more contact with them.
That's why I write my truth. Some of it may not be completely accurate or sane since it's just my point of view and I am a flawed human being just like everyone else. However, I feel confident that the great majority of my self will be revealed through my writing as truthful, trustworthy, and sane.
All was not roses and sun with Dad and me. To write about the real family dynamics when I have now lost both of my parents is more than daunting. It's terrifying.
The best I can do is to write about writing right now.
Make no mistake: I did love my father. I do love my dad. The same goes for my mom. It doesn't mean that hurtful things didn't happen. My son loves me, too. Doesn't mean I haven't hurt him. Maybe one day he'll write a blog or a book about the truth of what happened in his childhood. What I hope I have instilled in my son is a voice of his own, the ability to discern the truth in a reasonably sane manner, and to know that to speak the truth is not disrepectful or unloving. I hope if he has things he needs to say about me I can support his healing.
Part of my need - it seems like a need - to put my truth in words and to have others read it and know it and believe me is because the exact opposite happened in my childhood. I told the truth and I wasn't believed. It was an important truth. It was a truth that I needed help with, and it was brave for me to speak. I wasn't believed - not because there was any factual or logical reason to believe that i had lied - in fact I had a reputation for honesty and I still do. I wasn't believed because the truth that I told was too difficult for people to deal with, to handle, to believe themselves. So, as a child, i bore the burden alone. I was an outcast in many ways in my own family, including some members saying that I was a liar and having no more contact with them.
That's why I write my truth. Some of it may not be completely accurate or sane since it's just my point of view and I am a flawed human being just like everyone else. However, I feel confident that the great majority of my self will be revealed through my writing as truthful, trustworthy, and sane.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Everything's Different Now
The horrible truth is that Dad is dead now. The call came at 6 a.m. Ginger said she was in the ER with Dad and that it didn't look good.
I should have known that meant it was even worse than that. He had really already died. I think now he never woke up. He was in a fatal arythmia, causing his body to gasp for breath, his eyes unfocused, unanswering.
She called 9-1-1, then did CPR for 7 minutes until EMS arrived. At this point it took them 30 minutes to stabilize him in order to be able to transfer him to the ambulance.
His heart did beat then, it's true. But he never could breathe and have his heart beat again without help. As Dad would have wished, Ginger was going to remove him from life support pretty quickly.
Then the hospital staff suggested that since Dad was so young - 66 - and that he was so healthy - having run almost 50 marathons and being in training currently - that they would try hypothermia therapy. They cooled his body down from 24 hours so that it wouldn't have to work, in the hopes that it would give his system the rest it would need to minimize damage and let him start again. They began the warm up process at that point.
I was in the room, right next to him, Aunt Katrina beside me, Grams behind us. I saw the heart monitor drop from 43 to 39 to 27 beats per minute. Then it jumped back up to the 40's, then dropped again, and a nurse came into the room. Then the monitor said VF in red, and the nurse said, "Ok, he's having some fatal arythmia right now. Where is his wife?"
Ginger had already told us that if he entered this state again, she would "call the code," "do not resuscitate."
Sadly, Ginger had just gone to lunch ironically for a birthday meal with her daughters, my husband, and son. We had all been in good spirits because Dad had showed signs of improving.
My aunt called Ginger on her cell as I called her daughter.
The staff were waiting. Ginger was coming up the stairs. I met her at the door to ICU. She asked, "Is he gone?" I replied, "They're waiting for you."
When she got there they told her the situation quickly, and she asked for them to try to resuscitate once more.
Twelve adults swarmed the room as we left it.
Ginger, Aunt Katrina, Grams, and I stood in a tight circle with our arms around each other, crying, wailing, calling out, praying.
The rest of the family came up and surrounded us.
Dad didn't get better.
Ginger looked at us, paced, pulled at her hair, and said, "Call the code."
And that was it. He was gone. We were there.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Moments with Mom
Mom
She told me that when she first saw me, she thought I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She said she’d had an overwhelming feeling of love and told me that she would always love me in the first few moments she met me. She told me that she would die for me, that that’s the strong kind of love she had for me.
She made my Princess costume for Halloween, complete with glitter.
She drove me to gymnastics, and dance, and tap, and choir.
She brushed my hair, went shopping for cute clothes with me, and for shoes, too.
She made sure I got the number one item I wanted each Christmas.
I had a swing set before my family had a couch.
She taught me to sing Jesus Loves Me and to play Heart and Soul on the piano when I was three and four.
She made fried chicken better than anyone, and made it often because it was my favorite meal.
She had an awesome white jumpsuit that she wore with an orange scarf tied around her neck, big round sunglasses and a permanent in her brown hair.
We sang Neil Diamond and Lionel Ritchie songs in the car as they played on the radio.
Her nails were always neatly filed in a half moon shape and the cuticles pushed back and trimmed, as she taught me.
She wore a silver fox fur coat.
Her favorite perfume was Nina Ricci, L’Air du Temps.
She thought Magnum P.I. was hot. We watched Dallas religiously.
She sang Amazing Grace in church and other hymns at people’s weddings. Her singing voice was gorgeous.
Every Easter I had a new dress.
I always had all my school supplies, all my school clothes, and church clothes.
I got to have friends over to spend the night.
When I had my tonsils out she fed me ice cream, and made a place on the couch for me to lay so I could watch t.v.
She planted azaleas and purple ivy in our flower beds and on the side of our house, and had hanging baskets of airplane plants and ferns in front of our house.
All that time I never knew that she was popping Mommy’s little helpers. Never knew she was drinking at night.
There were moments. Signs. She would later confess to me after having about three drinks that she had done something horrible to me when I was two. I was in the tub. I defecated. She became enraged and smeared me with my own feces, telling me that I was shit.
I have no recollection of that moment. It haunted my Mom, though, and I know that I did receive the message that at my core I was bad, or that there was a huge chance that I was. The fear was always lurking underneath. Sometimes it made me panic. I know that Mom was terrified that she was evil. It’s one of the side effects of being abused. The victim, so to speak, absorbs the shame that the abuser ought to feel. Happens all the time. Hearts break every day.
She told me that when she first saw me, she thought I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She said she’d had an overwhelming feeling of love and told me that she would always love me in the first few moments she met me. She told me that she would die for me, that that’s the strong kind of love she had for me.
She made my Princess costume for Halloween, complete with glitter.
She drove me to gymnastics, and dance, and tap, and choir.
She brushed my hair, went shopping for cute clothes with me, and for shoes, too.
She made sure I got the number one item I wanted each Christmas.
I had a swing set before my family had a couch.
She taught me to sing Jesus Loves Me and to play Heart and Soul on the piano when I was three and four.
She made fried chicken better than anyone, and made it often because it was my favorite meal.
She had an awesome white jumpsuit that she wore with an orange scarf tied around her neck, big round sunglasses and a permanent in her brown hair.
We sang Neil Diamond and Lionel Ritchie songs in the car as they played on the radio.
Her nails were always neatly filed in a half moon shape and the cuticles pushed back and trimmed, as she taught me.
She wore a silver fox fur coat.
Her favorite perfume was Nina Ricci, L’Air du Temps.
She thought Magnum P.I. was hot. We watched Dallas religiously.
She sang Amazing Grace in church and other hymns at people’s weddings. Her singing voice was gorgeous.
Every Easter I had a new dress.
I always had all my school supplies, all my school clothes, and church clothes.
I got to have friends over to spend the night.
When I had my tonsils out she fed me ice cream, and made a place on the couch for me to lay so I could watch t.v.
She planted azaleas and purple ivy in our flower beds and on the side of our house, and had hanging baskets of airplane plants and ferns in front of our house.
All that time I never knew that she was popping Mommy’s little helpers. Never knew she was drinking at night.
There were moments. Signs. She would later confess to me after having about three drinks that she had done something horrible to me when I was two. I was in the tub. I defecated. She became enraged and smeared me with my own feces, telling me that I was shit.
I have no recollection of that moment. It haunted my Mom, though, and I know that I did receive the message that at my core I was bad, or that there was a huge chance that I was. The fear was always lurking underneath. Sometimes it made me panic. I know that Mom was terrified that she was evil. It’s one of the side effects of being abused. The victim, so to speak, absorbs the shame that the abuser ought to feel. Happens all the time. Hearts break every day.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Stand up for Women, even Homeless Women
Stand up for Women
Maya Angelou says that when one woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women a little. I firmly believe that.
In telling our stories, I want to stand up for my mom and myself, and all women. My mom was not evil or bad. Nor was she less than or someone to be looked down upon. Part of her was sick. And there were whole, huge parts of her that were wonderful, healing, and loving. Though she was homeless and needed help, her life was not without value. I think I have done so much in my life and yet I haven’t even lived as long as she did.
She had every excuse to be a serial killer as far as I’m concerned, given her past. At least to be a hateful, violent, mean person in every way. She became violent at moments and times but that is not who she was the majority of her life or who she taught me to be.
In standing up for myself, I think it’s so important to learn what we can and cannot do for others, even – or maybe ESPECIALLY – those we love. If I let her in too much, my mom would destroy me, unintentional as it may be. She was doing things that I did not want to be part of and had to separate myself from in some strong ways.
I’ve heard it said that alcoholics have only three possible outcomes if they do not get sober: jail, insanity, or death. In my experience this is true, and sometimes more than one of those outcomes happens.
I struggle to this day with whether or not my mom could have recovered had she wanted to
badly enough. I know for sure that she could not have stopped drinking without help. I know that because of my own personal experience with it. But then, why not get help? What is it that happens for some folks that they do choose to get help to stop drinking and some don’t? Is it something I don’t understand by the grace of God?
Homelessness
I want people to understand that my mom is not some anomaly. She is the result of what we all do, and she is you and me. I think so many people walk by that person on the street. They walk by and they are wearing their Blahniks with their Chanel glasses and Wang slip dresses and they look at the person in the street. They feel only separation, not community. Not unity. Not oneness. Not love. Certainly, they think, they are nothing like this person. Certainly this person is not at all like anyone in my family. But how do they know? It’s a nice convenience to believe that nothing like this could ever happen to us, that certainly this person must have deserved what came to them. That if they only were to “get a job” or “get a life” as they themselves had, they would not be in that situation. Although that person in the street has made certain choices, I can promise that the person in the Blahniks is not wearing because they are a better person. We have all made choices. It’s ok to wear Blahniks. It’s ok to live on the street. It’s ok to recognize a certain degree of differences, consequences, and choices. But what takes more insight and recognition and courage and honesty than that is to realize that I got where I am partially because I’ve had certain advantages and gifts that not everyone had, and I have played a part in the perpetration of all of society’s ills, and I have a responsibility to my fellow human whether I own the block or live in its gutter.
Maya Angelou says that when one woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women a little. I firmly believe that.
In telling our stories, I want to stand up for my mom and myself, and all women. My mom was not evil or bad. Nor was she less than or someone to be looked down upon. Part of her was sick. And there were whole, huge parts of her that were wonderful, healing, and loving. Though she was homeless and needed help, her life was not without value. I think I have done so much in my life and yet I haven’t even lived as long as she did.
She had every excuse to be a serial killer as far as I’m concerned, given her past. At least to be a hateful, violent, mean person in every way. She became violent at moments and times but that is not who she was the majority of her life or who she taught me to be.
In standing up for myself, I think it’s so important to learn what we can and cannot do for others, even – or maybe ESPECIALLY – those we love. If I let her in too much, my mom would destroy me, unintentional as it may be. She was doing things that I did not want to be part of and had to separate myself from in some strong ways.
I’ve heard it said that alcoholics have only three possible outcomes if they do not get sober: jail, insanity, or death. In my experience this is true, and sometimes more than one of those outcomes happens.
I struggle to this day with whether or not my mom could have recovered had she wanted to
badly enough. I know for sure that she could not have stopped drinking without help. I know that because of my own personal experience with it. But then, why not get help? What is it that happens for some folks that they do choose to get help to stop drinking and some don’t? Is it something I don’t understand by the grace of God?
Homelessness
I want people to understand that my mom is not some anomaly. She is the result of what we all do, and she is you and me. I think so many people walk by that person on the street. They walk by and they are wearing their Blahniks with their Chanel glasses and Wang slip dresses and they look at the person in the street. They feel only separation, not community. Not unity. Not oneness. Not love. Certainly, they think, they are nothing like this person. Certainly this person is not at all like anyone in my family. But how do they know? It’s a nice convenience to believe that nothing like this could ever happen to us, that certainly this person must have deserved what came to them. That if they only were to “get a job” or “get a life” as they themselves had, they would not be in that situation. Although that person in the street has made certain choices, I can promise that the person in the Blahniks is not wearing because they are a better person. We have all made choices. It’s ok to wear Blahniks. It’s ok to live on the street. It’s ok to recognize a certain degree of differences, consequences, and choices. But what takes more insight and recognition and courage and honesty than that is to realize that I got where I am partially because I’ve had certain advantages and gifts that not everyone had, and I have played a part in the perpetration of all of society’s ills, and I have a responsibility to my fellow human whether I own the block or live in its gutter.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Where there's smoke...
When I was eight, some friends and I lay in wait for Granny to neglect her square, vanilla leather box of a purse. We lifted three Marlboro Red cigarettes from her matching cigarette case.
In the heat of the East Texas summer, in the scorched grass we crouched like barn cats behind the old, wooden shed.
My Granny and Papa smoked so much that the whole “living room” smelled like smoke, and I such good memories combined with the smell of all that smoke that for many years whenever I smelled smoke I felt sentimental about it.
We had stolen some matches, too. We choked and laughed. The friend with her stringy, blonde hair, tiny, sturdy body and hard, worn face that already looked middle aged even though she was only seven, showed us how the tar from the cigarrette stained a white Kleenex when she blew a smokey breath into it, making a nasty orangey brownish spot right in the center. Her lime green shorts were dirty, too short and too worn in the seat, her sleeveless yellow and white striped cotton top fit just barely, but it wasn’t cute. It wasn’t fresh or something a mom who wanted her daughter to have darling clothes would buy. She very well may have been barefoot.
So we smoke the cigarettes, and that’s exciting. But, as B.B. King says, soon enough “the thrill is gone.”
We try phone pranking for a while, just calling random numbers from the yellow pages and dialing them from Granny’s rotary phone, asking questions like, “Is there a John in the house? No? When then how do you go to the toilet?” laughing, hanging up, and rolling with hysterics. but that gets old. Plus we get in trouble for it.
So we get a good idea. We will steal some of Granny’s chewing tobacco, dry it out for about 24 hours, and then smoke it. So we snake some of the tobacco and some paper towels, find a proper spot in the back bedroom, and spread it out the way little girls dry out flowers to save. We check on it every few hours to see that it is drying properly and how close we are to being able to smoke it.
About four in the next afternoon it is ready and so are we! But wait! What will we roll it in to smoke? We need some kind of paper. Well, for heaven’s sake, there is no paper in the entire dang house except for Granny’s Redbook magazine. It will have to do.
So we tear out a few pieces of magazine paper.
I am not the coolest one in the bunch so they have to show me how to roll. And by God, we smoke that dried chewing tobacco in chemically- and ink-treated magazine paper.
The friend can really blow some dark tar stains without a filter.
Something in me shifts. This time, it feels dirtier. Planned out. More dangerous.
I return home to Mom. I am sure someone will figure me out. I am wracked with guilt. I can’t believe we’ve gotten away with it this long. But I try to tell myself to keep it together.
One day passes. I hold it in, but I am sure that my guilt can actually be seen. It is somehow seeping out like black sludge from under my feet. I manage to fall asleep. Another day begins.
My smiling mom glides into my room, beautiful brown hair, cute shorts outfit, and asks me with her sweet face if I had fun at Granny’s with my step-sister, and I cannot keep holding the guilt in. It’s too much against her glory. I let the words sink into my mire.
I hope she won’t hate me or punish me but I am ready regardless.
What she does is to sit with me, listen fully, take me seriously, and look at me full in the face and say, “You did the right thing by telling the truth. And since you did, I will not punish you for this. Last, you must not do this again.”
Indelible. From that moment on I knew I would always tell my story, tell the truth – regardless of the consequences – and hope for the best.
In the heat of the East Texas summer, in the scorched grass we crouched like barn cats behind the old, wooden shed.
My Granny and Papa smoked so much that the whole “living room” smelled like smoke, and I such good memories combined with the smell of all that smoke that for many years whenever I smelled smoke I felt sentimental about it.
We had stolen some matches, too. We choked and laughed. The friend with her stringy, blonde hair, tiny, sturdy body and hard, worn face that already looked middle aged even though she was only seven, showed us how the tar from the cigarrette stained a white Kleenex when she blew a smokey breath into it, making a nasty orangey brownish spot right in the center. Her lime green shorts were dirty, too short and too worn in the seat, her sleeveless yellow and white striped cotton top fit just barely, but it wasn’t cute. It wasn’t fresh or something a mom who wanted her daughter to have darling clothes would buy. She very well may have been barefoot.
So we smoke the cigarettes, and that’s exciting. But, as B.B. King says, soon enough “the thrill is gone.”
We try phone pranking for a while, just calling random numbers from the yellow pages and dialing them from Granny’s rotary phone, asking questions like, “Is there a John in the house? No? When then how do you go to the toilet?” laughing, hanging up, and rolling with hysterics. but that gets old. Plus we get in trouble for it.
So we get a good idea. We will steal some of Granny’s chewing tobacco, dry it out for about 24 hours, and then smoke it. So we snake some of the tobacco and some paper towels, find a proper spot in the back bedroom, and spread it out the way little girls dry out flowers to save. We check on it every few hours to see that it is drying properly and how close we are to being able to smoke it.
About four in the next afternoon it is ready and so are we! But wait! What will we roll it in to smoke? We need some kind of paper. Well, for heaven’s sake, there is no paper in the entire dang house except for Granny’s Redbook magazine. It will have to do.
So we tear out a few pieces of magazine paper.
I am not the coolest one in the bunch so they have to show me how to roll. And by God, we smoke that dried chewing tobacco in chemically- and ink-treated magazine paper.
The friend can really blow some dark tar stains without a filter.
Something in me shifts. This time, it feels dirtier. Planned out. More dangerous.
I return home to Mom. I am sure someone will figure me out. I am wracked with guilt. I can’t believe we’ve gotten away with it this long. But I try to tell myself to keep it together.
One day passes. I hold it in, but I am sure that my guilt can actually be seen. It is somehow seeping out like black sludge from under my feet. I manage to fall asleep. Another day begins.
My smiling mom glides into my room, beautiful brown hair, cute shorts outfit, and asks me with her sweet face if I had fun at Granny’s with my step-sister, and I cannot keep holding the guilt in. It’s too much against her glory. I let the words sink into my mire.
I hope she won’t hate me or punish me but I am ready regardless.
What she does is to sit with me, listen fully, take me seriously, and look at me full in the face and say, “You did the right thing by telling the truth. And since you did, I will not punish you for this. Last, you must not do this again.”
Indelible. From that moment on I knew I would always tell my story, tell the truth – regardless of the consequences – and hope for the best.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Unwanted Guests Revised
Unwanted Guests
“I don’t get angry at the bills I have to pay. I don’t get angry when my mom smokes pot, hits the bottle and goes right to da rock… Let the loving, let the loving come back to me. Love is what I got.” - Sublime
2 years before Mom died. I’m 31.
March in Houston is one of it’s most beautiful times. It can be downright balmy and green in spots. The rose garden down by Herman Hospital is in full bloom.
I’ve about worn out my Allanis Morrissette, Jagged Little Pill CD.
The hospital smells so antiseptic, but like it’s covering something up. It’s a sickly odor that just hangs there, and you have to breathe it. I have to breathe it, walk in it, move through it.
I round the corner of the tan cinderblock and whitish tiled hallway to the hall that Mom is on.
The lights are off in her room but natural light from the window half illuminates her. I sit down beside her on her bed. A cheap, white standard issue blanket covers her legs.
The lice are gone from her hair and I see someone has braided it.
“Your hair looks nice, Momma.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. I was waitin’ for Paul to come bring me another robe.”
“Paul, mom?” I’m more than mad. Paul. Paul who was also homeless, shifty, constantly drunk and God knows what else, and who had also tried to strangle Mom with a wire coat hanger. That Paul. But I’m not much surprised. Mom wasn’t too much into making the greatest decisions for herself at that point. That helped me feel self-righteous and shielded me from too much disappointment.
Outside I ask the nurse for an update. Same old story, Mom has severe Cirrhosis of the liver, acute gastric hemorraging, and many other deadly complications. It’s a matter of time if she doesn’t get help, and maybe even if she does. This time, it looks like weeks. It’s a miracle she’s still alive now and that she came through the week she did.
“And, has she had a visitor?”
“Oh, yes, and we asked him to leave. We think he’s sleeping her ebecause he doesn’t have anyplace else to go more than he’s really caring for your mom.”
“Well, you would be right about that. Also, he has been very abusive to her and should not be allowed around her.”
“Oh, my! Well, we will be sure and call security if he comes back.”
Continued –
The doctor comes back in to Mom’s room. “Ma’am, you have acute cirrhosis of the liver, your stomach is basically eating itself, and you have jaundice.”
Mom wants to know what causes cirrhosis.
The doctor explains that almost always it is caused by alcohol abuse, and that very rarely it can be caused by coming in contact with a chemical like a cleaner one may be allergic to.
I think, this is it. This is the moment of truth. Someone else besides me, someone with a degree in this is officially putting it out there. She will get it.
She pipes up, “Well, I wonder what on earth I was cleaning with.”
And so it is the moment of truth. Not for Mom, but for me. I get it, finally. I get it that she will not. I will have to love her just like this, just as she is, or wish something in vain for the rest of what little time we have left.
I return home for some rest and to take care of my son. Once I get back to the hospital, I see and smell that Paul has been there. I am livid. I track down the hospital staff including an officer and complain. They say they can do nothing especially if the patient allows the guest.
I am stunned. Hightailing it back to Mom’s room, I figure she must not be capable of saying no to him. Maybe she’s afraid. I demand of her, “Mom, don’t let Paul in here!”
“Honey,” she drawls non-chalantly, “he keeps me company. He’s been helping me.”
Again, put in my place. “Fine, but I will not allow him to be here when I am.”
Outside the room, I ask the doctor about a liver transplant. He is impatient. He looks at me like I am completely gone. “Look,” he deigns, “we don’t even really try to find a liver with cases like hers.”
And there you have it. So many truths I have to accept and none of them wanted. I allow them to take up residence in my psyche.
“I don’t get angry at the bills I have to pay. I don’t get angry when my mom smokes pot, hits the bottle and goes right to da rock… Let the loving, let the loving come back to me. Love is what I got.” - Sublime
2 years before Mom died. I’m 31.
March in Houston is one of it’s most beautiful times. It can be downright balmy and green in spots. The rose garden down by Herman Hospital is in full bloom.
I’ve about worn out my Allanis Morrissette, Jagged Little Pill CD.
The hospital smells so antiseptic, but like it’s covering something up. It’s a sickly odor that just hangs there, and you have to breathe it. I have to breathe it, walk in it, move through it.
I round the corner of the tan cinderblock and whitish tiled hallway to the hall that Mom is on.
The lights are off in her room but natural light from the window half illuminates her. I sit down beside her on her bed. A cheap, white standard issue blanket covers her legs.
The lice are gone from her hair and I see someone has braided it.
“Your hair looks nice, Momma.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. I was waitin’ for Paul to come bring me another robe.”
“Paul, mom?” I’m more than mad. Paul. Paul who was also homeless, shifty, constantly drunk and God knows what else, and who had also tried to strangle Mom with a wire coat hanger. That Paul. But I’m not much surprised. Mom wasn’t too much into making the greatest decisions for herself at that point. That helped me feel self-righteous and shielded me from too much disappointment.
Outside I ask the nurse for an update. Same old story, Mom has severe Cirrhosis of the liver, acute gastric hemorraging, and many other deadly complications. It’s a matter of time if she doesn’t get help, and maybe even if she does. This time, it looks like weeks. It’s a miracle she’s still alive now and that she came through the week she did.
“And, has she had a visitor?”
“Oh, yes, and we asked him to leave. We think he’s sleeping her ebecause he doesn’t have anyplace else to go more than he’s really caring for your mom.”
“Well, you would be right about that. Also, he has been very abusive to her and should not be allowed around her.”
“Oh, my! Well, we will be sure and call security if he comes back.”
Continued –
The doctor comes back in to Mom’s room. “Ma’am, you have acute cirrhosis of the liver, your stomach is basically eating itself, and you have jaundice.”
Mom wants to know what causes cirrhosis.
The doctor explains that almost always it is caused by alcohol abuse, and that very rarely it can be caused by coming in contact with a chemical like a cleaner one may be allergic to.
I think, this is it. This is the moment of truth. Someone else besides me, someone with a degree in this is officially putting it out there. She will get it.
She pipes up, “Well, I wonder what on earth I was cleaning with.”
And so it is the moment of truth. Not for Mom, but for me. I get it, finally. I get it that she will not. I will have to love her just like this, just as she is, or wish something in vain for the rest of what little time we have left.
I return home for some rest and to take care of my son. Once I get back to the hospital, I see and smell that Paul has been there. I am livid. I track down the hospital staff including an officer and complain. They say they can do nothing especially if the patient allows the guest.
I am stunned. Hightailing it back to Mom’s room, I figure she must not be capable of saying no to him. Maybe she’s afraid. I demand of her, “Mom, don’t let Paul in here!”
“Honey,” she drawls non-chalantly, “he keeps me company. He’s been helping me.”
Again, put in my place. “Fine, but I will not allow him to be here when I am.”
Outside the room, I ask the doctor about a liver transplant. He is impatient. He looks at me like I am completely gone. “Look,” he deigns, “we don’t even really try to find a liver with cases like hers.”
And there you have it. So many truths I have to accept and none of them wanted. I allow them to take up residence in my psyche.
Wedding Present
Wedding Present
Reason number 452 to forget I was married a second time: the week I sang Amazing Grace to Mom was the week before my wedding. Only five days before I was supposed to be a bride again, she was supposed to die again.
I couldn’t count on my mother at my wedding. I couldn’t even invite her to my wedding. I did – of course – knowing that there was no possible way she could make it. Thinking about it now, I guess I could have had it somewhere in Houston and not Austin where he and I lived. But that’s not what I did.
Probably part of me was trying to move on and not care. What’s interesting is that two weeks before the wedding I called my therapist to say that I surely was selfish for spending any money on a wedding when my mother was in the shape she was in, that probably I should take that money and put my mother in a rehab – one last chance. I called around and found a place that had a bed. My therapist told me that I was sabotaging my own prospects at a happy life, feeling survivor guilt, and was trying to parent my mother.
Next thing I know, my mom lands herself in a bed. Well, I don’t believe in coincidence. And she wasn’t hearing it from the doc that she even had a problem with alcohol at that fatal point. Plus, she was hanging out with old man mean-o mooch.
I think the good Lord was showing me that she wasn’t ready and that I didn’t have to feel guilty. Of course, I didn’t get that at the time.
At the time, I was full of grief for what I didn’t have: my mom. Shouldn’t every girl/woman be able to have her mom when she gets married? Why oh why can’t I? Too, and fair enough, I was terribly sad that she was dying for certain and that the dream that she may recover was really over. I missed her, or at least what there was of her.
Flashback: about a year before that, when I did live in Houston and Mom got released from her assault – after they’d taken her car. I talked to her about staying in a shelter. She let me know that sometimes she did go to Star of Texas, but that she didn’t like the rules plus she had a bed in a room with so many people that she had to sleep with her shoes on or they would get stolen.
I call Star of Texas to find out what the rules are. The young man on the phone tells me that, yes, it’s true that no alcohol is allowed and that often that is a reason that some folks refuse to stay. They would rather have their drink than a roof and a bed. He fills me in on some more harsh truth, which is that this mission area is a known haven for heroin addicts and prostitutes, that often this is what becomes of people who hang around there, that it’s a vicious cycle.
I call an institution to find out the legalities of having someone committed for their own good. Turns out, they have to be a lot more than homeless and refusing a bed so that they can drink. It seems that they have to prove that they are a danger to themselves or others. I am certain that if they just talk to Mom they will see that she is a danger to herself – she stays out on the street and gets assaulted, ending up in the hospital. The police who question her call me back and claim that she was very clear and lucid about what she wanted and wasn’t doing anything wrong. I call the young man again at STAR of Texas and he says, yep. There’s your trouble. And if you want you can work very hard to try to get someone to maybe commit her for a short time while she hates you for a long one.
This is when my panic starts to really set in. This is when I start to experience real symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is when I start staying up nights, not eating. I lose 16 pounds in two weeks – I wasn’t heavy in the first place. A counselor at the school where I teach stops me in the hall and asks me what’s going on with the dark circles under my eyes. I tell him, and he tells me I am not going to make it through the school year like this. And I don’t.
Reason number 452 to forget I was married a second time: the week I sang Amazing Grace to Mom was the week before my wedding. Only five days before I was supposed to be a bride again, she was supposed to die again.
I couldn’t count on my mother at my wedding. I couldn’t even invite her to my wedding. I did – of course – knowing that there was no possible way she could make it. Thinking about it now, I guess I could have had it somewhere in Houston and not Austin where he and I lived. But that’s not what I did.
Probably part of me was trying to move on and not care. What’s interesting is that two weeks before the wedding I called my therapist to say that I surely was selfish for spending any money on a wedding when my mother was in the shape she was in, that probably I should take that money and put my mother in a rehab – one last chance. I called around and found a place that had a bed. My therapist told me that I was sabotaging my own prospects at a happy life, feeling survivor guilt, and was trying to parent my mother.
Next thing I know, my mom lands herself in a bed. Well, I don’t believe in coincidence. And she wasn’t hearing it from the doc that she even had a problem with alcohol at that fatal point. Plus, she was hanging out with old man mean-o mooch.
I think the good Lord was showing me that she wasn’t ready and that I didn’t have to feel guilty. Of course, I didn’t get that at the time.
At the time, I was full of grief for what I didn’t have: my mom. Shouldn’t every girl/woman be able to have her mom when she gets married? Why oh why can’t I? Too, and fair enough, I was terribly sad that she was dying for certain and that the dream that she may recover was really over. I missed her, or at least what there was of her.
Flashback: about a year before that, when I did live in Houston and Mom got released from her assault – after they’d taken her car. I talked to her about staying in a shelter. She let me know that sometimes she did go to Star of Texas, but that she didn’t like the rules plus she had a bed in a room with so many people that she had to sleep with her shoes on or they would get stolen.
I call Star of Texas to find out what the rules are. The young man on the phone tells me that, yes, it’s true that no alcohol is allowed and that often that is a reason that some folks refuse to stay. They would rather have their drink than a roof and a bed. He fills me in on some more harsh truth, which is that this mission area is a known haven for heroin addicts and prostitutes, that often this is what becomes of people who hang around there, that it’s a vicious cycle.
I call an institution to find out the legalities of having someone committed for their own good. Turns out, they have to be a lot more than homeless and refusing a bed so that they can drink. It seems that they have to prove that they are a danger to themselves or others. I am certain that if they just talk to Mom they will see that she is a danger to herself – she stays out on the street and gets assaulted, ending up in the hospital. The police who question her call me back and claim that she was very clear and lucid about what she wanted and wasn’t doing anything wrong. I call the young man again at STAR of Texas and he says, yep. There’s your trouble. And if you want you can work very hard to try to get someone to maybe commit her for a short time while she hates you for a long one.
This is when my panic starts to really set in. This is when I start to experience real symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is when I start staying up nights, not eating. I lose 16 pounds in two weeks – I wasn’t heavy in the first place. A counselor at the school where I teach stops me in the hall and asks me what’s going on with the dark circles under my eyes. I tell him, and he tells me I am not going to make it through the school year like this. And I don’t.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Summer 89
In the summer of 89, Houston was as hot as ever. I had just completed my freshman year at U.T. Austin and thought I would try to live a semi-normal life like my peers did and return home until fall. Except I didn’t really have a home. The family and the house I had grown up with seemed to have both been sold in the divorce the year before, and since I was not really “at home” anymore neither parent had a true room for me to stay in.
Mom had hooked me up with a temporary job editing engineers’ documents for an oil company. My boss had been her boss in the past. It was a posh job with the exception of the huge signs and warnings as you walked in to work each day, and the clearance you had to have to be on the campus. You see, fueling the entire enterprise was a nuclear reactor. Contained, harnessed, but always a threat. It’s so weird how life can imitate art.
I left the cute, rented townhouse in the mornings in cute outfits. I made friends with my co-workers, went to lunch with them, and read interesting documents all day.
Then one day came when I thought to call my mom at work from my little desk. The person who answered let me know that she was no longer employed.
The day before she had been.
The confirmation that something was horribly wrong was extremely cold comfort. The fear and despair was rising up and I couldn’t keep it down. Maybe you’ve seen a drama where there’s a nuclear emergency and the lights go down and a huge drone sound warns and then an alarm, and a computerized voice calmly announces “this building will self destruct,” that’s was happening in my head.
I stood up in my cubicle with the phone receiver pressed to my ear. The tears came and I choked, “this is because of her drinking isn’t it?!” A pause of silence and a small “Ah-“
“This is her daughter. Answer me!” I demanded.
“I’m sorry, I can’t discuss that.” Click.
Me. Left with me to figure it out.
The tragic truth is that this was the first major step toward my mom not being able to support herself at all. She would not hold another job for any length of time. She would eventually only have temporary positions, and then none. She would move to a less expensive place, then begin hocking our family heirlooms including the piano she used to play on, and then have no place at all.
That fall, I took my last drink of alcohol to date.
I asked my mom about stopping, too. Once, after she had moved into the smaller apartment, she told me that she really needed to drink because of all the pain she was in. Who am I to judge?
Believe me, I used to and sometimes still can. I was so angry that I hated her at times. I desperately wanted her to be what I thought I needed. And then I would alternate at being angry with myself. I wanted to rescue her. But it turned out that most of my attempts either enabled her to keep hurting herself or sabotaged myself, as others had to teach me. The rest had little to no effect.
I know alcohol comforted me. I know I didn’t live through half what she did. I know that I was blessed with a way to stop drinking. For whatever reason, my mom did not find that. Maybe she could have.
But it seems to me to be splitting hairs sometimes. I don’t think that people with or without cancer, for instance, are more or less blessed than each other because people are blessed in different ways. Maybe someone with cancer could have stopped smoking sooner, or eaten more vegetables, or gone to the doctor sooner. Maybe. Sometimes the chances are greater than others that things could have been different if only… Then, at some point, “if only” doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore.
I do know I wish she could have found the comfort I found in sobriety. I do know that, even though she caused plenty of hurt, many of her actions spared me the kind of pain she had to live through.
So, I will never know if I could have done things differently than she did. I only know I can do my life differently than I did before. For that, I am responsible.
Today, I’d rather not and don’t work at a nuclear facility. I also am committed to doing my part to stop the cycle that has been going on in my family for farther back and sideways than I can determine. Most of the time that involves just trying to be all I can be today, make sure I stay sober, show up for my kid and my husband, for work, and for my friends and other family – but not to the extent that it would hurt me. It takes almost all my energy just to make me the best I can be.
Mom had hooked me up with a temporary job editing engineers’ documents for an oil company. My boss had been her boss in the past. It was a posh job with the exception of the huge signs and warnings as you walked in to work each day, and the clearance you had to have to be on the campus. You see, fueling the entire enterprise was a nuclear reactor. Contained, harnessed, but always a threat. It’s so weird how life can imitate art.
I left the cute, rented townhouse in the mornings in cute outfits. I made friends with my co-workers, went to lunch with them, and read interesting documents all day.
Then one day came when I thought to call my mom at work from my little desk. The person who answered let me know that she was no longer employed.
The day before she had been.
The confirmation that something was horribly wrong was extremely cold comfort. The fear and despair was rising up and I couldn’t keep it down. Maybe you’ve seen a drama where there’s a nuclear emergency and the lights go down and a huge drone sound warns and then an alarm, and a computerized voice calmly announces “this building will self destruct,” that’s was happening in my head.
I stood up in my cubicle with the phone receiver pressed to my ear. The tears came and I choked, “this is because of her drinking isn’t it?!” A pause of silence and a small “Ah-“
“This is her daughter. Answer me!” I demanded.
“I’m sorry, I can’t discuss that.” Click.
Me. Left with me to figure it out.
The tragic truth is that this was the first major step toward my mom not being able to support herself at all. She would not hold another job for any length of time. She would eventually only have temporary positions, and then none. She would move to a less expensive place, then begin hocking our family heirlooms including the piano she used to play on, and then have no place at all.
That fall, I took my last drink of alcohol to date.
I asked my mom about stopping, too. Once, after she had moved into the smaller apartment, she told me that she really needed to drink because of all the pain she was in. Who am I to judge?
Believe me, I used to and sometimes still can. I was so angry that I hated her at times. I desperately wanted her to be what I thought I needed. And then I would alternate at being angry with myself. I wanted to rescue her. But it turned out that most of my attempts either enabled her to keep hurting herself or sabotaged myself, as others had to teach me. The rest had little to no effect.
I know alcohol comforted me. I know I didn’t live through half what she did. I know that I was blessed with a way to stop drinking. For whatever reason, my mom did not find that. Maybe she could have.
But it seems to me to be splitting hairs sometimes. I don’t think that people with or without cancer, for instance, are more or less blessed than each other because people are blessed in different ways. Maybe someone with cancer could have stopped smoking sooner, or eaten more vegetables, or gone to the doctor sooner. Maybe. Sometimes the chances are greater than others that things could have been different if only… Then, at some point, “if only” doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore.
I do know I wish she could have found the comfort I found in sobriety. I do know that, even though she caused plenty of hurt, many of her actions spared me the kind of pain she had to live through.
So, I will never know if I could have done things differently than she did. I only know I can do my life differently than I did before. For that, I am responsible.
Today, I’d rather not and don’t work at a nuclear facility. I also am committed to doing my part to stop the cycle that has been going on in my family for farther back and sideways than I can determine. Most of the time that involves just trying to be all I can be today, make sure I stay sober, show up for my kid and my husband, for work, and for my friends and other family – but not to the extent that it would hurt me. It takes almost all my energy just to make me the best I can be.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
An Open Letter
An Open Letter
My senior year, I was taking all International Baccalaureate courses, was president of the Orchestra, was a twirler for the school band, and I worked 25 hours a week. My parents were getting a divorce, and both my mother’s and my own alcoholism were burgeoning.
It was getting rougher to maintain my double life. I was late to the National Honor Society meetings and dumped Baccardi into a Big Gulp cup in the back, then eventually just stopped going. I went to work and got called out for having red, glassy eyes. I wrote myself a tardy permit to first period every, single day.
One night at work in the lovely Galleria, the huge, glass front door to our contemporary women’s clothing shop shattered. Per company policy, two people had to stay – one manager and one other employee - until it got fixed. I volunteered to stay with my boss. For this, she treated me to dinner. It was late and the whole mall closed down for hours by the time the new door came.
For some ungodly reason, I drove the two of us to dinner. I had a Pontiac Sunbird hatchback – gold, complete with furry, gold seat covers. I’m sure I had New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle blasting while I smoked cloves on the way.
We went to a fabulous TexMex restaurant called Ninfa’s. My beautiful and cool boss treated me to a few margaritas. It was the 80’s. No one carded, besides I was with an adult and probably was dressed a bit too old for my age, anyhow.
Back in my car after dinner, we sat in the dark with the red signal and dashboard lights playing on our faces. The intersection was one of the busiest in Houston, on one of the busiest streets: Westheimer. When the light turned green, I attempted a U-turn.
I guess I did all right, except I curbed it and heard tires burning rubber. I wondered out loud to my boss whose tires were squealing.
“Those are your tires, baby,” came her response.
Amid this kind of living, and returning home one night, I found my mom awake too late to be up healthily, and pissed.
“Did you open this letter, Kollette? Did you!” It wasn’t really a question. She was accusing me.
I literally had no idea to what she was referring, but the fear of her vehemence was overwhelming. She was dead serious.
Hell, I may have opened the letter. I don’t know. I can assure anyone that I had no mal intent, no secret searching or snooping going on, I actually could have cared less. But alcohol can make you paranoid, especially if you’re in a black out.
Her face looked like stone. Her robe was hanging open. Her drink was in her hand. Her voice was flat, monotone when she started to ask a question, then gravelly, loud and slurred when she clenched her ending.
“Did you know it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail, Kollette? No daughter of mine can do that and live in my house! Get out! Get out!”
I did. In the middle of the nigh,t I grabbed as many things as I could that I thought I might need overnight and fled. I didn’t know where to go. Seventeen is too young to rent a hotel room. I didn’t want to bother my friends’ parents nor did I want them to know about all this. So, I went to a guy’s apartment I had been seeing. Of course, he was accommodating, and only slightly took advantage of the situation. He did comfort me.
I went back to our place in the wee hours of the morning to try to get more things, hoping to catch Mom while she was passed out. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there! And that’s when I knew she had gone to her boyfriend’s house, too. This cut me. Until now I had thought my mom was still living by some of her principles. At least I was a kid and not preaching about abstinence. But this was my mom. Torn open.
My senior year, I was taking all International Baccalaureate courses, was president of the Orchestra, was a twirler for the school band, and I worked 25 hours a week. My parents were getting a divorce, and both my mother’s and my own alcoholism were burgeoning.
It was getting rougher to maintain my double life. I was late to the National Honor Society meetings and dumped Baccardi into a Big Gulp cup in the back, then eventually just stopped going. I went to work and got called out for having red, glassy eyes. I wrote myself a tardy permit to first period every, single day.
One night at work in the lovely Galleria, the huge, glass front door to our contemporary women’s clothing shop shattered. Per company policy, two people had to stay – one manager and one other employee - until it got fixed. I volunteered to stay with my boss. For this, she treated me to dinner. It was late and the whole mall closed down for hours by the time the new door came.
For some ungodly reason, I drove the two of us to dinner. I had a Pontiac Sunbird hatchback – gold, complete with furry, gold seat covers. I’m sure I had New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle blasting while I smoked cloves on the way.
We went to a fabulous TexMex restaurant called Ninfa’s. My beautiful and cool boss treated me to a few margaritas. It was the 80’s. No one carded, besides I was with an adult and probably was dressed a bit too old for my age, anyhow.
Back in my car after dinner, we sat in the dark with the red signal and dashboard lights playing on our faces. The intersection was one of the busiest in Houston, on one of the busiest streets: Westheimer. When the light turned green, I attempted a U-turn.
I guess I did all right, except I curbed it and heard tires burning rubber. I wondered out loud to my boss whose tires were squealing.
“Those are your tires, baby,” came her response.
Amid this kind of living, and returning home one night, I found my mom awake too late to be up healthily, and pissed.
“Did you open this letter, Kollette? Did you!” It wasn’t really a question. She was accusing me.
I literally had no idea to what she was referring, but the fear of her vehemence was overwhelming. She was dead serious.
Hell, I may have opened the letter. I don’t know. I can assure anyone that I had no mal intent, no secret searching or snooping going on, I actually could have cared less. But alcohol can make you paranoid, especially if you’re in a black out.
Her face looked like stone. Her robe was hanging open. Her drink was in her hand. Her voice was flat, monotone when she started to ask a question, then gravelly, loud and slurred when she clenched her ending.
“Did you know it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail, Kollette? No daughter of mine can do that and live in my house! Get out! Get out!”
I did. In the middle of the nigh,t I grabbed as many things as I could that I thought I might need overnight and fled. I didn’t know where to go. Seventeen is too young to rent a hotel room. I didn’t want to bother my friends’ parents nor did I want them to know about all this. So, I went to a guy’s apartment I had been seeing. Of course, he was accommodating, and only slightly took advantage of the situation. He did comfort me.
I went back to our place in the wee hours of the morning to try to get more things, hoping to catch Mom while she was passed out. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there! And that’s when I knew she had gone to her boyfriend’s house, too. This cut me. Until now I had thought my mom was still living by some of her principles. At least I was a kid and not preaching about abstinence. But this was my mom. Torn open.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Date with a Pistol
About four or five years into the really bad drinking that I had become aware of at about 13, things had gotten progressively worse.
I had tried to explain to this guy I was dating when I was about 18 how my mom could get. “I don’t believe you,” he flat out let me know. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. Mom was such a beauty, and always a lady in public. All our nasty secrets were just that: secrets.
Mom’s drinking was done in the privacy of her own home, so all the havoc was mine and ours only to behold. Therefore, our hell was not even believed by some of my friends.
One night this same guy came to pick me up for a date. As I recall it, he asked my mom if he could drive me clear to Galveston. “Sure,” she said. “And where will y’all stay the night?” This, may I remind you, is out of the mouth of the woman who one year earlier threatened to remarry my father because I said that I thought it was silly to get married just to be able to have sex. Side note: this is a reference to a Bible verse my parents liked to quote which said basically that it was better to marry than to burn with passion. I said that you should just have sex rather than marry someone you aren’t sure about. This sent her into a tizzy that had her claiming I hadn’t learned a thing from either of them and that if that’s what I had decided then she should get back together with him to teach me right.
Back to the night at hand, I’m pretty sure that what happened next is that Mom continued to have a few more, and that the guy hung out with us a while before we were supposed to leave. Maybe Mom started getting mean – I’m not sure there. But I do know that she sure got ready for my date to leave. He probably asked her to calm down, and – now this I remember – she threatened to shoot him with her pistol if he did not leave.
He called me later and told me that he believed me.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Christmas Dinner
Christmas Dinner I left my son’s father in the fall of 94. I left him in Austin and went to Houston for a much better job, and I took our son. The reasons I left him are numerous, and I know he has his arguments (not even saying they don’t have some merit) about me. I do think I can say something we would both agree on, though, which is that I believe in recovery and he does not. I don’t want certain mind altering things as part of my daily life. Also, truly, I needed that job. It’s hard to believe that my salary at my first teaching job, to which I commuted an hour each way WITH a toddler, was 17,000 a year. Yes, that’s right. Seventeen. But it was. That job I took in Houston was an exponential jump in salary as well as benefits, career growth, etc. Our family needed it. So, I left. I loved it. I loved my job, having my own place, raising my son, making new colleagues who are still friends, making new recovery friends, being closer to other family, including mom. It’s an interesting thing to realize that just because someone is homeless doesn’t mean they don’t have a home. My mom lived somewhere. She lived in Houston. That Christmas, I invited Mom over for Christmas dinner. I really thought I was being gracious. I mean, she needed food and a place to be, right? And I could provide that. Now, I am ashamed of my arrogance. I made the works, all rich foods. You know, par for the course for a southern Christmas dinner. What was I thinking? I really must have been in denial to a certain degree myself, at that point. Mom was sicker than a dog. I know now that she was the gracious one. I did know that in her current state I couldn’t let her live with me and my son. Her unpredictable violence, blackouts, and overall drunkenness as well as other decisions she made were quite literally dangerous for my small boy to live with. At the same time, she was my mom, my family, and there was no graciousness or generosity in loving on her in every way possible. I made the works, all rich foods. You know, par for the course for a southern Christmas dinner. What was I thinking? I really must have been in denial to a certain degree myself, at that point. Mom was sicker than a dog. I know now that she was the gracious one. Funny that I was disappointed that she smelled of alcohol when she got there. Oh – at that point she still had a car to reside in. I didn’t even think about the fact that she probably could have used some gas money, and that even that would be humiliating for her. Mom barely toughed her food. I had thought she would love it, need it, gobble it up! But she couldn’t, I now know. The latter stages of alcoholism, including cirrhosis were literally eating her alive. She excused herself and went to the restroom. Her retches were quite audible through the door. I doubt she kept anything down. Me? I was annoyed. Only in restrospect did I get it that she was violently ill, not just a little too much drinking for the evening which is what I thoguht at the time. Maybe it’s what I hoped. Maybe it was too hard to realize the cold truth at the moment. In any case, Mom came to visit me and Zachary. I’m certain that she gave all that she had to be able to do that. She got herself together, spent much needed money on gas, drove, ate food she couldn’t handle, and didn’t make a big deal of being wretchedly ill. That is gracious. That was the last Christmas dinner we had together.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Open Eyes
Sometimes people need to believe something so badly that, even though their perspective is skewed, they will defend their own twisted belief so vehemently that they will hurt others who call them out on their twisted perception. And sometimes just the fact that someone else has another viewpoint about a situation is enough for them to feel threatened. Sometimes people feel justified in hurting that person who calls out their faulty belief. They feel justified because they think that the fact that the other person has weaknesses and faults strengthens their own position. Sometimes they even feel justified in attacking the person who sees their skewed vision because of this. I think it's important to consider the source - all of it. And if someone has made great strides or has delved into an area and learned much about it, even if they aren't perfect, they should be given credit for what they have come to know. Of course I'm speaking of myself, here. I know that the things I share in this memoir raise awareness and help some to feel healing. I also know that it causes some to build sandbags around their levies of disbelief, and to resent me, or to have a skewed perception of me such as to think of me as stuck or even to pity me. That's o.k. I have done the same thing when I needed to in my life. I could not be where I was not. As the popular saying goes, when the student is ready the teacher appears. The fact that I have made many mistakes in my life and continue to have multiple flaws, does not erase the fact that I have learned to see many things clearly. I have learned even to overcome some flaws. I also pray that if I am not seeing clearly, that God helps me to do so. It's been nine years since my mom passed away. I have a wonderful life. I laugh loudly and often, tell raunchy jokes, cuss sometimes, pray all the time, sing daily, read voraciously, practice yoga, teach kiddos, work well with colleagues, eat healthily, don't drink or smoke. I am open to new ideas and experiences, willing to take risks, dedicated to having fun, and am hopelessly devoted to my friends. I believe that my mom had a disease called alcoholism. I believe that everyone in my family played a part, some more than others, and some are still running from the truth. I did not get here on my own and couldn't have. I have a relentless pursuit of support and recovery, thank God. I have found it for years and have devoted myself to it. It has wholly changed me. One of my high school friends and I spent some time together after not seeing each other for over twenty years. He had not known that my mom had passed away, but had remembered how much I struggled with our relationship and how angry I had been at Mom in high school. At one point he said to me, "The thing that is so remarkable to me is that you have no anger toward your mom anymore." And I don't.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Straight to the Beach
We drove straight to the beach...sort of. After Mom died, that which was important immediately shifted. As soon as I got home after that fateful phone call, grace made my decisions for me. There was no longer any reason to hurry, nothing to panic about. No one to save in the nick of time. So, I took my time. I did not set out to drive for hours that evening after an almost full work day, finding out that my mother had died, that an asshole had betrayed me and stuck me with the bill, then breaking it to my son, and attending a support group meeting. Instead, I decided to leave in the morning and ate dinner, went to sleep as best I could, and let my son and boyfriend do the same. We set out in Joe's car the next day. He had graciously and wisely agreed to drive. Still, I felt vulnerable. I did not know just how vulnerable until Joe - thinking he was doing me a favor - decided to take a route to Houston that I didn't normally take. He thought it would be shorter and that I would appreciate not having to think about it or make a decision. Normally, that probably would have been true. But that day, I freaked out. "Where are you going?" I demanded more than asked. I was utterly unhinged. Looking up and seeing the road not be what I expected it to look like made me feel as if my already seemingly crumbling world was now even more unrecognizable. Surprise, then terror came over Joe's face as he must have seen my own face. "Ugh, I just thought it would be faster to go this way," he stammered, trying to keep his voice even. "No! No!No! I don't know this way. We have to turn around. We have to go the way I know!" Too much out of my control, too much that I had lost, too much that I would have to learn to do without and without guidance, too much that I would have to be, so that I just needed every single thing possible to be familiar at that time. So, even though we had to drive about twenty additional miles total to get back to that route, we did. He did. Thank God. But I knew exactly where I was headed. I had to get to the beach. After that initial blip, we drove straight there. I had to sit on the sand, watch the mesmerizing power of the ocean moving predictably and unpredictably at the same time. Joe played football with Zach on the beach, and swam, and laid around so that I could have my time. I sat there in Lotus pose for three hours, meditating, breathing in the life force of the whole system.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Lullaby and Goodnight (revised 3-22)
Lullaby and Goodnight 9 years old
I was laying in my bed with my Spring green and white checked bedspread with matching canopy swathing me. Even with this birthday bedset present from my parents surrounding me, that night I felt a bit scared for some reason. Then Mom came in. She glided across the room, always graceful. She sat down beside me and reached her slender hand out to place on mine. Opening her lovely mouth, she effortlessly sang to me, her voice sweet and rich like brown sugar – once again – “Lullaby, and good night…” After the song she stood, smiled, told me she loved me, walked to the door to turn the light out and said, “Good night, Irene!” Other nights she sang Amazing Grace. Sometimes she said, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!”
Every night she was there.
This was my model for how to tuck my son in, and what to do for him his whole childhood at bedtime. I sang Amazing Grace to him so many nights when he was young that I couldn’t count them. When he was about six, one night after I finished singing he asked, “Mom, what’s a ‘branch like me’?” One of my favorite memories.
Later I would sing that same song back to my mom in a tragic yet miraculous moment.
She told me a story again and again whenever I was upset with a friend. She was at school, maybe first grade. She was pushing her friend on a swing. The friend was angry – about what I forget. She kept telling my mom she hated her. The friend would yell, “I hate you.” And my mom would respond, “Well, I love you.” She tells me that just because someone says somethiing hurtful to me is no excuse not to love them or to act hurtful myself. When I say that what the friend did to me was worse than what I did back, she says, “You can always find someone worse than you are. That’s no excuse to do wrong.” When people tell me how they are so glad they told someone off or how justified they are because someone else did something wrong, I tell them what Mom taught me. I don’t always follow it perfectly, but I know I should.
I think a myth about homeless people, or alcoholics, is that they or we have always been defective. It's easy to dismiss these people as not even comprehending the things others do. It's easy to count them as out; as not even counting as real people like when we walk by someone on the street who is talking to himself and is not wearing clean clothes, perhaps. My mom was real. She taught me love and tenderness, how to be affectionate, how to be a better person and a bigger person than others. Yes, she hurt me, too. I don't know a parent who doesn't hurt their kid. I have hurt mine. I still count. So did she. So do they.
I was laying in my bed with my Spring green and white checked bedspread with matching canopy swathing me. Even with this birthday bedset present from my parents surrounding me, that night I felt a bit scared for some reason. Then Mom came in. She glided across the room, always graceful. She sat down beside me and reached her slender hand out to place on mine. Opening her lovely mouth, she effortlessly sang to me, her voice sweet and rich like brown sugar – once again – “Lullaby, and good night…” After the song she stood, smiled, told me she loved me, walked to the door to turn the light out and said, “Good night, Irene!” Other nights she sang Amazing Grace. Sometimes she said, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!”
Every night she was there.
This was my model for how to tuck my son in, and what to do for him his whole childhood at bedtime. I sang Amazing Grace to him so many nights when he was young that I couldn’t count them. When he was about six, one night after I finished singing he asked, “Mom, what’s a ‘branch like me’?” One of my favorite memories.
Later I would sing that same song back to my mom in a tragic yet miraculous moment.
She told me a story again and again whenever I was upset with a friend. She was at school, maybe first grade. She was pushing her friend on a swing. The friend was angry – about what I forget. She kept telling my mom she hated her. The friend would yell, “I hate you.” And my mom would respond, “Well, I love you.” She tells me that just because someone says somethiing hurtful to me is no excuse not to love them or to act hurtful myself. When I say that what the friend did to me was worse than what I did back, she says, “You can always find someone worse than you are. That’s no excuse to do wrong.” When people tell me how they are so glad they told someone off or how justified they are because someone else did something wrong, I tell them what Mom taught me. I don’t always follow it perfectly, but I know I should.
I think a myth about homeless people, or alcoholics, is that they or we have always been defective. It's easy to dismiss these people as not even comprehending the things others do. It's easy to count them as out; as not even counting as real people like when we walk by someone on the street who is talking to himself and is not wearing clean clothes, perhaps. My mom was real. She taught me love and tenderness, how to be affectionate, how to be a better person and a bigger person than others. Yes, she hurt me, too. I don't know a parent who doesn't hurt their kid. I have hurt mine. I still count. So did she. So do they.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Deer Park Cremation Part 2
Joe, my boyfriend, and I had decided that it would be easier on Zachary, my son, if he didn’t have to go into the ultra formal and grave room to discuss the details of what to do with Mom’s remains. Since he was young, he also needed someone to stay with him, and that meant Joe couldn’t be with me.
So there I was. Me and the man. He sat down at the huge oak desk across from me, looked down at the paperwork, took a quick breath in, then looked up with an apologetic smile.
“We’re so sorry for your loss. We at Deer Park Funeral Home are here to make the transition as peaceful as possible and to help you honor your loved one as you wish.”
I was impressed. It sounded lovely, and a lot better than how things went down when the Hospice lady just straight up asked for my credit card number because Mom was dead now and she needed to be moved. I guess I had sort of expected similar treatment here. This was a pleasant departure, so to speak.
I began to feel a bit better, not quite so numb. A tiny little perk of something like warmth.
Then came the questions.
How old was your mother at her time of death? Did she have any siblings? By whom is she survived? What was her father’s name?
Each one of these seemingly harmless questions was an onslaught of the brokenness that was our family. I wasn’t sure how old mom was. I didn’t have her license to get her birth year and we certainly hadn’t been having a lot of mother- daughter discussions about what it was like to be her age, or birthday parties to celebrate milestones or anything. We were just glad when there was no call from the hospital. I did later realize that she had been 53 upon the time of her death.
My mom had siblings, yes. Her baby brother had died in an alcohol-related car accident when she was fourteen. Her other brothers suffered from alcoholism badly, and one had died. The other died a few years later. None of them saw 60. Her sister was married to a man that I hoped never to see again for what he had done in our lives, and she stayed married to him.
So, even though she was survived by some of them and us, I didn’t have a lot I wanted to say about that. I was pretty sure I knew my Granny’s full name, but I sure did not now my momma’s daddy’s name. I knew everyone called him “Red,” partially because he had red hair. I’m sure he also had a red face, as he had died from a heart attack when my mom was only ten. Although there is no proof, I’m sure alcohol played a role.
My mind tried to recover from the buckshot questions that had fired holes through it. I was still reeling when the funeral home man must’ve had smpathy given my near- catatonic state and useless answers, “Um, they called him Red. Uh.” He put his pen down and mercifully stopped the questioning.
He shifted into low gear and began to explain the process of cremation. Learning about the tangible finality that my mom could now have was nothing short of a blessing.
So there I was. Me and the man. He sat down at the huge oak desk across from me, looked down at the paperwork, took a quick breath in, then looked up with an apologetic smile.
“We’re so sorry for your loss. We at Deer Park Funeral Home are here to make the transition as peaceful as possible and to help you honor your loved one as you wish.”
I was impressed. It sounded lovely, and a lot better than how things went down when the Hospice lady just straight up asked for my credit card number because Mom was dead now and she needed to be moved. I guess I had sort of expected similar treatment here. This was a pleasant departure, so to speak.
I began to feel a bit better, not quite so numb. A tiny little perk of something like warmth.
Then came the questions.
How old was your mother at her time of death? Did she have any siblings? By whom is she survived? What was her father’s name?
Each one of these seemingly harmless questions was an onslaught of the brokenness that was our family. I wasn’t sure how old mom was. I didn’t have her license to get her birth year and we certainly hadn’t been having a lot of mother- daughter discussions about what it was like to be her age, or birthday parties to celebrate milestones or anything. We were just glad when there was no call from the hospital. I did later realize that she had been 53 upon the time of her death.
My mom had siblings, yes. Her baby brother had died in an alcohol-related car accident when she was fourteen. Her other brothers suffered from alcoholism badly, and one had died. The other died a few years later. None of them saw 60. Her sister was married to a man that I hoped never to see again for what he had done in our lives, and she stayed married to him.
So, even though she was survived by some of them and us, I didn’t have a lot I wanted to say about that. I was pretty sure I knew my Granny’s full name, but I sure did not now my momma’s daddy’s name. I knew everyone called him “Red,” partially because he had red hair. I’m sure he also had a red face, as he had died from a heart attack when my mom was only ten. Although there is no proof, I’m sure alcohol played a role.
My mind tried to recover from the buckshot questions that had fired holes through it. I was still reeling when the funeral home man must’ve had smpathy given my near- catatonic state and useless answers, “Um, they called him Red. Uh.” He put his pen down and mercifully stopped the questioning.
He shifted into low gear and began to explain the process of cremation. Learning about the tangible finality that my mom could now have was nothing short of a blessing.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Don't Know Why cont'd and Deer Park Cremation Pt 1
I screamed when I saw the blood streak the windshield. The little bird hit hard and right in my line of sight, right in front of my eyes.
Bits of feather and guts stuck there, mercilessly.
Something in me broke, and I cried. I had been wrapped in a blanket, sort of keeping it together, staying calm, singing a song as we drove along the highway to Houston, to what was left of my mom.
Deer Park Cremation – part 1
Pasadena in any state is not the most desired area. Drive the gray highway out around the power plants and smokestacks to Pasadena, Texas and Deer Park Funeral Home is smack in its heart. Here, due to the pollution and the city lights, the stars are neither big nor bright at night. The day is a muggy, overcast haze oppressing miles of concrete.
The funeral home was a modest but clean and well-kept building sitting more or less solo on a slab of concrete foundation. We opened the doors of the car and let in the sweltering heat of the day, then dragged up to the building. My boyfriend swung open the glass door for us and my son and I entered the cool air conditioning.
For what I could afford at the time, I thought it was pretty nice. Nothing too gauche, or falling apart. I’d take it.
I sat on the edge of my chair alone in the room that was big enough for whole families to gather in. It seemed like I should try to behave like a lady, maybe like Sally Field in that movie where she tries to sell her cotton. That seemed like a good act to follow since my would-be role model was the very person I was sitting there to honor. I was broken hearted and numb. And alone.
I stared at the dark green carpet, wondering who had chosen that color. Maybe it had been on sale. It looked like they had splurged for the desk. Finally a man came in. He was slightly rotund with a kind face. Not wearing a suit. But then I wasn’t wearing gloves like Sally Field. Maybe this was an ok concession on each of our parts.
These details comforted me. Small distractions and small pieces of hope were what I clung to in this dismal place.
Bits of feather and guts stuck there, mercilessly.
Something in me broke, and I cried. I had been wrapped in a blanket, sort of keeping it together, staying calm, singing a song as we drove along the highway to Houston, to what was left of my mom.
Deer Park Cremation – part 1
Pasadena in any state is not the most desired area. Drive the gray highway out around the power plants and smokestacks to Pasadena, Texas and Deer Park Funeral Home is smack in its heart. Here, due to the pollution and the city lights, the stars are neither big nor bright at night. The day is a muggy, overcast haze oppressing miles of concrete.
The funeral home was a modest but clean and well-kept building sitting more or less solo on a slab of concrete foundation. We opened the doors of the car and let in the sweltering heat of the day, then dragged up to the building. My boyfriend swung open the glass door for us and my son and I entered the cool air conditioning.
For what I could afford at the time, I thought it was pretty nice. Nothing too gauche, or falling apart. I’d take it.
I sat on the edge of my chair alone in the room that was big enough for whole families to gather in. It seemed like I should try to behave like a lady, maybe like Sally Field in that movie where she tries to sell her cotton. That seemed like a good act to follow since my would-be role model was the very person I was sitting there to honor. I was broken hearted and numb. And alone.
I stared at the dark green carpet, wondering who had chosen that color. Maybe it had been on sale. It looked like they had splurged for the desk. Finally a man came in. He was slightly rotund with a kind face. Not wearing a suit. But then I wasn’t wearing gloves like Sally Field. Maybe this was an ok concession on each of our parts.
These details comforted me. Small distractions and small pieces of hope were what I clung to in this dismal place.
Friday, April 6, 2012
I Don't Know Why (part 3)
I sat in the car after the phone went dead.I suppose I was praying, but mostly just being still and breathing in an attempt not to fly apart.
I turned the key. Started the car. Drove on home.
The drive home is a blur, as well as exactly what happened in the next few hours. What I do remember vividly however, is getting up early the next morning - Friday - and leaving for Houston.
It was a strange feeling, not rushing down to Houston. And I hadn't rushed to leave work either. I had tried to slow down and decide what I needed to do. Part of me felt guilty and I suppose still does about that.
My boyfriend, Joe, at the time was quite wonderful about it all. He agreed to drive me and my son in his car so that I didn't have to.
He got us both blankets from the house to wrap up in in. I know it was hot, but I was shaking nonetheless, so it was a huge comfort.
The huge Norah Jones debut album had just come out and I had it because I thought a couple of songs sounded very nice. Now one in particular will forever be the music for my mom's funeral for me, for lack of a better word.
The power of the instrumentals grabbed me first. Then the lyrics:
I waited 'til I saw the sun
I don't know why I didn't come
I left you by the house of fun
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come
When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand
First we listened to the song many times, then all at once I sang along. I sang with my whole self, and felt the healing.
I turned the key. Started the car. Drove on home.
The drive home is a blur, as well as exactly what happened in the next few hours. What I do remember vividly however, is getting up early the next morning - Friday - and leaving for Houston.
It was a strange feeling, not rushing down to Houston. And I hadn't rushed to leave work either. I had tried to slow down and decide what I needed to do. Part of me felt guilty and I suppose still does about that.
My boyfriend, Joe, at the time was quite wonderful about it all. He agreed to drive me and my son in his car so that I didn't have to.
He got us both blankets from the house to wrap up in in. I know it was hot, but I was shaking nonetheless, so it was a huge comfort.
The huge Norah Jones debut album had just come out and I had it because I thought a couple of songs sounded very nice. Now one in particular will forever be the music for my mom's funeral for me, for lack of a better word.
The power of the instrumentals grabbed me first. Then the lyrics:
I waited 'til I saw the sun
I don't know why I didn't come
I left you by the house of fun
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come
When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand
First we listened to the song many times, then all at once I sang along. I sang with my whole self, and felt the healing.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
I Don't Know Why (more)
I Don’t Know Why (more)
It was Thursday before Memorial Day when Mom died. Even now as I type the actual word “died” I whimper, pause, wince. It is such a final and prominent, gavel-bang of a word.
People ask me all the time when she died, and I know I’m not supposed to respond, “the Thursday before Memorial Day.” I know they are looking for a date or how many years it has been. And I really don’t know.
Maybe it doesn’t register with me how long it’s been or what the date was, because for me all Thursdays before Memorial Day weekend will perpetually be the day that my mom died, and that’s all that counts to me now. It is an eternal difference. That’s all I know.
It was Thursday before Memorial Day when Mom died. Even now as I type the actual word “died” I whimper, pause, wince. It is such a final and prominent, gavel-bang of a word.
People ask me all the time when she died, and I know I’m not supposed to respond, “the Thursday before Memorial Day.” I know they are looking for a date or how many years it has been. And I really don’t know.
Maybe it doesn’t register with me how long it’s been or what the date was, because for me all Thursdays before Memorial Day weekend will perpetually be the day that my mom died, and that’s all that counts to me now. It is an eternal difference. That’s all I know.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
I Don’t Know Why I Didn't Come
She’s gone.
The Hospice lady wants my credit card number so she can pay for Mom’s body to be removed from her bed.
I ask the Hospice lady on the phone if I can call someone to let them know and see how we can handle the bill for Mom’s removal. I want to talk to my family, my friends.
The lady says that’s fine, but don’t be too long. The reason she called – and she hates to have to do this to me – but the thing is, you see, that bodies start to decompose very quickly. The fluids begin to leave the body in a matter of hours and so if I could get back to her right away…she would’ve called much sooner but the man wouldn’t give her my number until now.
Her voice fades in and out to me as if she were a million miles away. She must be. I am so detached that I am sitting quite still in my car. The light gray vinyl interior looks as dull as my senses feel. It’s comforting. It fits and holds me in this moment.
My brain is on autopilot somehow processing what she is telling me without my emotions keeping pace.
Some miniscule part of me wants for a second to be enraged at the horror and injustice of this moment. The rest of me hushes that voice. There is no point. It doesn’t serve Mom or me, or anyone. The rage retreats to someplace that it can’t be reached. Now I experience a serenity and grace that is truly beyond my own understanding.
You think if certain things happen to you, or if you know certain things, or handle them that you will explode. Or die. But you don’t have to. You just don’t have to.
"Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist meaning is available in spite of--nay, even through suffering, provided . . . that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If, on the other hand, one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude. Long had not. . . chosen to break his neck, but he did decide not to let himself be broken by what had happened to him.” – Victor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning
"My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing--which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.” – Victor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning
The Hospice lady wants my credit card number so she can pay for Mom’s body to be removed from her bed.
I ask the Hospice lady on the phone if I can call someone to let them know and see how we can handle the bill for Mom’s removal. I want to talk to my family, my friends.
The lady says that’s fine, but don’t be too long. The reason she called – and she hates to have to do this to me – but the thing is, you see, that bodies start to decompose very quickly. The fluids begin to leave the body in a matter of hours and so if I could get back to her right away…she would’ve called much sooner but the man wouldn’t give her my number until now.
Her voice fades in and out to me as if she were a million miles away. She must be. I am so detached that I am sitting quite still in my car. The light gray vinyl interior looks as dull as my senses feel. It’s comforting. It fits and holds me in this moment.
My brain is on autopilot somehow processing what she is telling me without my emotions keeping pace.
Some miniscule part of me wants for a second to be enraged at the horror and injustice of this moment. The rest of me hushes that voice. There is no point. It doesn’t serve Mom or me, or anyone. The rage retreats to someplace that it can’t be reached. Now I experience a serenity and grace that is truly beyond my own understanding.
You think if certain things happen to you, or if you know certain things, or handle them that you will explode. Or die. But you don’t have to. You just don’t have to.
"Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist meaning is available in spite of--nay, even through suffering, provided . . . that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If, on the other hand, one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude. Long had not. . . chosen to break his neck, but he did decide not to let himself be broken by what had happened to him.” – Victor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning
"My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing--which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.” – Victor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Going Back to the Start
Age 40, last year
“I don’t want to watch anymore.”
“I’ll fast forward this part.”
“No. It doesn’t matter. I’m already messed up over it.”
“Well, I was really looking forward to watching this.”
“So fucking watch it, then!”
“Hey! What is wrong with you? Why are you talking to me like that?”
I always had a mouth on me but even still my unsuspecting husband wasn’t used to me talking like this, much less to him. We had started to watch a movie/documentary. Most people would be concerned while watching but clearly my reaction was much bigger than that.
So I fling myself from the couch, shaking, lip already trmebling and barrel down the hallway, the scene from the film a virtual photograph in my mind that refuses to go away.
The woman in the film clip, caught on surveilance camera, was dropped off by a taxi in a hospital robe. She laboriously ambled into the street, turned around, and hobbled the other direction aimlessly. Later it was revealed that the woman, indigent and without resources or a home, was dropped off this way intentionally due to directives from a hospital where she had been discharged.
The woman was my mother. Not factually or literally my mother. But I had seen my mother in this state. My beautiful mess of a mother.
So, when I started to try to say what was bothering me with Joe’s arms around me, I did not know where to begin. He had a vague idea that my mother was an alcoholic, that she had been homeless for a time before she passed away and that the whole thing was tragic.
But it was in this moment that I got it that people could not imagine the impact of the details that made the whole – unless I told them. So, I asked Joe what he wanted to know. And that’s where this memoir started. He listed things he had had questions about, including why that movie freaked me out so much. I started responding, to which responses you are now privy.
Disability
Age 30, Mom age 52
I’m filling out the form that has the ever-so-slight chance of getting my mom a place to stay once she’s discharged from the hospital, which the staff want to do now.
I try to picture this woman who is days away from having called me a “Brewsky” in an awful state of detox, who the doctor says should have been dead by now, not even able to stand, and on so many medications that I doubt she could spell her name being discharged onto the Houston streets, right outside the Ben Taub Hospital – not an especially nice place.
What would have happened to her if I hadn’t been there? Would she have been put out already?
She’s not just homeless, she’s not just an alcoholic. She’s violently, incurably ill. She needs round the clock medical care. But to society, and to this hospital, she is a throw away.
Certainly she had a part in that. Some part of her had the guts and the defiance to turn her back on regular rules and tell it all to fuck off. Her choice.
I never expected any other individual or society or even myself to make her better or to save her from her own consequences when she ostensibly could have made another choice.
This is different. She is now physically, medically, mentally in every way unable to care for herself.
When this happens to your mother or grandmother, you call in a nurse, or put her in a nursing home, or assisted living. Well, when your parents are divorced, your mom never could get sober, her family is all dead or worse off than she is, and you are a single parent and teacher, calling in a nurse is not an option. Extended care at a hospital or other facility is not, either.
I get educated on these cold, hard facts the way getting struck by lightning educates someone to come in out of the rain. Or the way getting bitten by a shark educates someone not to swim by the Farrallon Islands. I am mortally wounded and at the same time trying to navigate a solution. I am completely unprepared and unequipped to handle my mother’s disease or her imminent death emotionally. This is the sea I am drowning in. I am also unprepared practically and financially, as is she, even though I am a hardworking, tax paying citizen. But the state will put her out on the streets. The lack of care as well as the dangers on the street are the sharks in the water in which I am drowning.
In this state, it’s hard to think of my name and address. It’s hard to think of Mom’s. Well, the address is easy. But what do I write? How will I ever find her social security number? She doesn’t even know where head is right now. Besides, there is no home in which to search through file cabinets with any files at all! It’s impossible. It can’t be done. I should just give up.
I argue with myself. I fight my own will and get through that God forsaken document one damned blank at a time. Mother's Maiden Name: done. Mother's Father: deceased. Check.
I hand it to the social service worker, knowing that the chances that my mom will get to see any benefits from it before she dies are slim to nill.
Then I pray.
“I don’t want to watch anymore.”
“I’ll fast forward this part.”
“No. It doesn’t matter. I’m already messed up over it.”
“Well, I was really looking forward to watching this.”
“So fucking watch it, then!”
“Hey! What is wrong with you? Why are you talking to me like that?”
I always had a mouth on me but even still my unsuspecting husband wasn’t used to me talking like this, much less to him. We had started to watch a movie/documentary. Most people would be concerned while watching but clearly my reaction was much bigger than that.
So I fling myself from the couch, shaking, lip already trmebling and barrel down the hallway, the scene from the film a virtual photograph in my mind that refuses to go away.
The woman in the film clip, caught on surveilance camera, was dropped off by a taxi in a hospital robe. She laboriously ambled into the street, turned around, and hobbled the other direction aimlessly. Later it was revealed that the woman, indigent and without resources or a home, was dropped off this way intentionally due to directives from a hospital where she had been discharged.
The woman was my mother. Not factually or literally my mother. But I had seen my mother in this state. My beautiful mess of a mother.
So, when I started to try to say what was bothering me with Joe’s arms around me, I did not know where to begin. He had a vague idea that my mother was an alcoholic, that she had been homeless for a time before she passed away and that the whole thing was tragic.
But it was in this moment that I got it that people could not imagine the impact of the details that made the whole – unless I told them. So, I asked Joe what he wanted to know. And that’s where this memoir started. He listed things he had had questions about, including why that movie freaked me out so much. I started responding, to which responses you are now privy.
Disability
Age 30, Mom age 52
I’m filling out the form that has the ever-so-slight chance of getting my mom a place to stay once she’s discharged from the hospital, which the staff want to do now.
I try to picture this woman who is days away from having called me a “Brewsky” in an awful state of detox, who the doctor says should have been dead by now, not even able to stand, and on so many medications that I doubt she could spell her name being discharged onto the Houston streets, right outside the Ben Taub Hospital – not an especially nice place.
What would have happened to her if I hadn’t been there? Would she have been put out already?
She’s not just homeless, she’s not just an alcoholic. She’s violently, incurably ill. She needs round the clock medical care. But to society, and to this hospital, she is a throw away.
Certainly she had a part in that. Some part of her had the guts and the defiance to turn her back on regular rules and tell it all to fuck off. Her choice.
I never expected any other individual or society or even myself to make her better or to save her from her own consequences when she ostensibly could have made another choice.
This is different. She is now physically, medically, mentally in every way unable to care for herself.
When this happens to your mother or grandmother, you call in a nurse, or put her in a nursing home, or assisted living. Well, when your parents are divorced, your mom never could get sober, her family is all dead or worse off than she is, and you are a single parent and teacher, calling in a nurse is not an option. Extended care at a hospital or other facility is not, either.
I get educated on these cold, hard facts the way getting struck by lightning educates someone to come in out of the rain. Or the way getting bitten by a shark educates someone not to swim by the Farrallon Islands. I am mortally wounded and at the same time trying to navigate a solution. I am completely unprepared and unequipped to handle my mother’s disease or her imminent death emotionally. This is the sea I am drowning in. I am also unprepared practically and financially, as is she, even though I am a hardworking, tax paying citizen. But the state will put her out on the streets. The lack of care as well as the dangers on the street are the sharks in the water in which I am drowning.
In this state, it’s hard to think of my name and address. It’s hard to think of Mom’s. Well, the address is easy. But what do I write? How will I ever find her social security number? She doesn’t even know where head is right now. Besides, there is no home in which to search through file cabinets with any files at all! It’s impossible. It can’t be done. I should just give up.
I argue with myself. I fight my own will and get through that God forsaken document one damned blank at a time. Mother's Maiden Name: done. Mother's Father: deceased. Check.
I hand it to the social service worker, knowing that the chances that my mom will get to see any benefits from it before she dies are slim to nill.
Then I pray.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Unwanted Guest
Unwanted Guest
“I don’t get angry at the bills I have to pay. I don’t get angry when my mom smokes pot, hits the bottle and goes right to da rock… Let the loving, let the loving come back to me. Love is what I got.” - Sublime
2 years before Mom died. I’m 31.
March in Houston is one of its most beautiful times. It can be downright balmy and green in spots. The rose garden down by Herman Hospital is in full bloom.
I’ve about worn out my Allanis Morrissette, Jagged Little Pill CD as it is my constant companion during the hour-long commute back and forth to my English teaching job at the largest high school in Houston, on the south east side. It's feisty and angry like I am. This weekend morning, the other patrons of the hospital parking lot get to share the album with me for a moment as I pull into a space with the volume cranked. Some athletes have a song that "pumps them up," some musicians get inspired by a muse, some soldiers pray before they go into action. This is my way of doing all of these. I let the moment linger briefly, before inhaling deeply then yanking the keys out, throwing open the door, and stepping into the day.
The hospital smells so antiseptic, but like it’s covering something up. It’s a sickly odor that just hangs there, and you have to breathe it. I have to breathe it, walk in it, move through it.
I round the corner of the tan cinderblock and whitish tiled hallway to the hall that Mom is on.
The lights are off in her room but natural light from the window half illuminates her. I sit down beside her on her bed. A cheap, white standard issue blanket covers her legs.
The lice are gone from her hair and I see someone has braided it.
“Your hair looks nice, Momma.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. I was waitin’ for Paul to come bring me another robe.”
“Paul, Mom?” Paul. Paul who was also homeless, shifty, constantly drunk and God knows what else, and who had also tried to strangle Mom with a wire coat hanger. That Paul. But I’m not much surprised, even though I'm livid. Mom wasn’t much into making the greatest decisions for herself at that point. That helped me feel self-righteous and shielded me from too much disappointment.
Outside I ask the nurse for an update. By now it seems like the same old story. Mom has severe Cirrhosis of the liver, acute gastric hemorraging, and many other deadly complications. It’s a matter of time if she doesn’t get help, and maybe even if she does. This time, it looks like weeks. It’s a miracle she’s still alive now and that she came through the week she did. It's completely unnerving to absorb and yet I am pretty sure I've heard this all way before now.
She may or may not die from her medical conditions at this point, but I'll be damned if she'll be hurt by this loser again.
“And, has she had a visitor?”
“Oh, yes, and we asked him to leave. We think he’s sleeping her ebecause he doesn’t have anyplace else to go more than he’s really caring for your mom.”
“Well, you would be right about that. Also, he has been very abusive to her and should not be allowed around her.”
“Oh, my! Well, we will be sure and call security if he comes back.”
“I don’t get angry at the bills I have to pay. I don’t get angry when my mom smokes pot, hits the bottle and goes right to da rock… Let the loving, let the loving come back to me. Love is what I got.” - Sublime
2 years before Mom died. I’m 31.
March in Houston is one of its most beautiful times. It can be downright balmy and green in spots. The rose garden down by Herman Hospital is in full bloom.
I’ve about worn out my Allanis Morrissette, Jagged Little Pill CD as it is my constant companion during the hour-long commute back and forth to my English teaching job at the largest high school in Houston, on the south east side. It's feisty and angry like I am. This weekend morning, the other patrons of the hospital parking lot get to share the album with me for a moment as I pull into a space with the volume cranked. Some athletes have a song that "pumps them up," some musicians get inspired by a muse, some soldiers pray before they go into action. This is my way of doing all of these. I let the moment linger briefly, before inhaling deeply then yanking the keys out, throwing open the door, and stepping into the day.
The hospital smells so antiseptic, but like it’s covering something up. It’s a sickly odor that just hangs there, and you have to breathe it. I have to breathe it, walk in it, move through it.
I round the corner of the tan cinderblock and whitish tiled hallway to the hall that Mom is on.
The lights are off in her room but natural light from the window half illuminates her. I sit down beside her on her bed. A cheap, white standard issue blanket covers her legs.
The lice are gone from her hair and I see someone has braided it.
“Your hair looks nice, Momma.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. I was waitin’ for Paul to come bring me another robe.”
“Paul, Mom?” Paul. Paul who was also homeless, shifty, constantly drunk and God knows what else, and who had also tried to strangle Mom with a wire coat hanger. That Paul. But I’m not much surprised, even though I'm livid. Mom wasn’t much into making the greatest decisions for herself at that point. That helped me feel self-righteous and shielded me from too much disappointment.
Outside I ask the nurse for an update. By now it seems like the same old story. Mom has severe Cirrhosis of the liver, acute gastric hemorraging, and many other deadly complications. It’s a matter of time if she doesn’t get help, and maybe even if she does. This time, it looks like weeks. It’s a miracle she’s still alive now and that she came through the week she did. It's completely unnerving to absorb and yet I am pretty sure I've heard this all way before now.
She may or may not die from her medical conditions at this point, but I'll be damned if she'll be hurt by this loser again.
“And, has she had a visitor?”
“Oh, yes, and we asked him to leave. We think he’s sleeping her ebecause he doesn’t have anyplace else to go more than he’s really caring for your mom.”
“Well, you would be right about that. Also, he has been very abusive to her and should not be allowed around her.”
“Oh, my! Well, we will be sure and call security if he comes back.”
Sunday, February 19, 2012
A Dying Prayer, Part 2
She’s gone.
When I heard the words, I closed my eyes and breathed in to absorb them; to absorb the truth. I had to breath and sit still to hold onto serenity, to sanity. Because my soul was screaming and tearing and ripping that this could not be right, this could not be how her story – how our story as mother and daughter – ended. So, I had to move and think very slowly and deliberately to keep the gnashing and wailing at bay.
The ache in my chest welled up.
And then the woman from Hospice spoke again. I had forgotten I was still holding my phone to my ear. I had forgotten I was in my car, that I had a body, that I was here.
When she spoke she said, “Now, I know this is hard, but I need to tell you some things.”
“Ok.”
“Since your mother has died, we need to move her body now. Bodies start to decompose in a matter of hours. In order to move her, we need someone to pay for that. Do you have a credit card? If you do, I can take your credit card number right now so that we can have her moved to a funeral parlor.”
“Uh, yes. I do.”
“Ok, that will be about $350.00”
My brain started functioning slightly again at this jolt of reality.
“Did my mom ask you to call me? Why didn’t you call before?”
“Your mom wanted us to call.But until today the man said he didn’t have your number, the man that was here with her.’
“A man?”
“Yes. I asked him all week since she got here for your number. She did tell us she had a daughter. But she couldn’t remember your number and she didn’t have it with her. But the man did. He wouldn’t give us your number until today, though, when we knew she was going to go any minute.”
I winced, confused.
She noticed the pause. “We had told him someone wold have to pay for her removal. That’s when he finally gave us your number, at the end.”
A tornado whirled inside my head. So, this coward had kept me from my mom, kept me form knowing she was in Hospice, and then handed me the bill upon her death. I realized who it had to have been.
And yet, my hugest fear had been that I woud not know. She had disappeared for months at a time more than once. I lived with dread that she would die and I would not know. That she would have no I.D., no belongings, and no one to let me know. I would finally have to visit hospitals, jails, morgues, and ID her myself. I prayed fervently that this would not be the case.
That prayer was answered with a resounding “yes.”
When I heard the words, I closed my eyes and breathed in to absorb them; to absorb the truth. I had to breath and sit still to hold onto serenity, to sanity. Because my soul was screaming and tearing and ripping that this could not be right, this could not be how her story – how our story as mother and daughter – ended. So, I had to move and think very slowly and deliberately to keep the gnashing and wailing at bay.
The ache in my chest welled up.
And then the woman from Hospice spoke again. I had forgotten I was still holding my phone to my ear. I had forgotten I was in my car, that I had a body, that I was here.
When she spoke she said, “Now, I know this is hard, but I need to tell you some things.”
“Ok.”
“Since your mother has died, we need to move her body now. Bodies start to decompose in a matter of hours. In order to move her, we need someone to pay for that. Do you have a credit card? If you do, I can take your credit card number right now so that we can have her moved to a funeral parlor.”
“Uh, yes. I do.”
“Ok, that will be about $350.00”
My brain started functioning slightly again at this jolt of reality.
“Did my mom ask you to call me? Why didn’t you call before?”
“Your mom wanted us to call.But until today the man said he didn’t have your number, the man that was here with her.’
“A man?”
“Yes. I asked him all week since she got here for your number. She did tell us she had a daughter. But she couldn’t remember your number and she didn’t have it with her. But the man did. He wouldn’t give us your number until today, though, when we knew she was going to go any minute.”
I winced, confused.
She noticed the pause. “We had told him someone wold have to pay for her removal. That’s when he finally gave us your number, at the end.”
A tornado whirled inside my head. So, this coward had kept me from my mom, kept me form knowing she was in Hospice, and then handed me the bill upon her death. I realized who it had to have been.
And yet, my hugest fear had been that I woud not know. She had disappeared for months at a time more than once. I lived with dread that she would die and I would not know. That she would have no I.D., no belongings, and no one to let me know. I would finally have to visit hospitals, jails, morgues, and ID her myself. I prayed fervently that this would not be the case.
That prayer was answered with a resounding “yes.”
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Miracle Bus to Hospice
May, 2003, me: age 33; mom: age 53
I can picture her. I’m sure it was sunny. I can see her looking down to know just where to place her feet to step up onto the bus just as her arm was reaching up to grasp onto the rail. I can picture her looking up into the bus driver’s face, certainly looking drawn, beyond weary, somehow pale and yellow at the same time, with difficulty breathing. The bus driver’s face would be bent with worried lines and questions, waiting for my mom to speak.
And she would say, “take me to Hospice.”
They said that’s what she did. The social worker that I spoke with at Hospice said that somehow she’d had the strength and the wherewithal to get on the city bus and request to be taken to Hospice. Which the bus driver did.
I don’t know if it was the correct bus or route; I highly doubt that it was. My mom was mostly incohernet even in her sober states at this point, so to be three days from death and have the Houston bus schedule straight as well as to wait on the correct bus, physically, seems even more of a miracle than I can fathom. But I can fathom the good heart of a bus driver who must’ve known the situation was dire.
I can picture her. I’m sure it was sunny. I can see her looking down to know just where to place her feet to step up onto the bus just as her arm was reaching up to grasp onto the rail. I can picture her looking up into the bus driver’s face, certainly looking drawn, beyond weary, somehow pale and yellow at the same time, with difficulty breathing. The bus driver’s face would be bent with worried lines and questions, waiting for my mom to speak.
And she would say, “take me to Hospice.”
They said that’s what she did. The social worker that I spoke with at Hospice said that somehow she’d had the strength and the wherewithal to get on the city bus and request to be taken to Hospice. Which the bus driver did.
I don’t know if it was the correct bus or route; I highly doubt that it was. My mom was mostly incohernet even in her sober states at this point, so to be three days from death and have the Houston bus schedule straight as well as to wait on the correct bus, physically, seems even more of a miracle than I can fathom. But I can fathom the good heart of a bus driver who must’ve known the situation was dire.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Dreaming
The Dream of the Sea of Heads - sometime in 2010, age 39
Last night I had a dream. I was in the ocean. The waves curled in front of me, forming a wake. In the crests of the wake I make out the forms of peoples’ heads bobbing. They all look the same. In the water, it is difficult for me to make out who they are. Is it Mom? Is it Jesus? Both have long dark hair. I choose to swim toward one of them. When I make the choice I am swept away into a story: the story of my life; the story of our lives.
My mother and I are together. We are both adults. My son is young. We are angry, fighting. She is herself as she was at that age: drinking, angry, belligerent. I am myself as I was at that age: sober, self-righteous, belligerent.
In this version of our life story, she raised me and my brother, divorced, and continues on her path, I on mine. She eventually dies of her own choices in front of my eyes, much the same way she did in reality. I am able to hold judgment. There was nothing I could do about it in the dream.
Suddenly I am back in the ocean with the heads again. I understand that I am to choose again. Excited at this possibility of another chance, I choose a different head to swim toward. I am swept away into another story.
There is my mom. We are us, yet we are different. My mom has had a lifelong partner, very sweet – instead of bitterly divorcing my father. She has given to me, to my brother, to her partner. She is 80 some odd years old now. She has always wanted to be a lawyer. She has a personal library that she wishes to get together into a room of shelves so that she can finally go to law school as she wished her whole life, according to this dream. But I can see that her body is so twisted with arthritis and age and pain that this will not be possible. Her tragically hopeful desire breaks my heart. She points toward the library of books and says, “Guess I’ll get busy now!” And stumbles into my arms, breaking in front of my eyes. I understand that she has a disease and a mortality that she could not control and is not at fault over, and that she gave what life she did have to her family and loved ones. I weep with regret for her as I hold her lifeless body.
I am in the ocean again, swimming with the heads. I understand that I am to choose again. Yet this time I also understand that no matter what choice I make, the story itself may be different but the outcome would be the same. My mom will die in front of my eyes. It is out of my hands.
And I have a new awareness. My mom’s truth is the same in both stories, just the circumstances differ. I am so blaming in the story that is similar to reality. I have so much of what she should have been like figured out. I know choices she should have made, and I have anger that she did not make them. And in the second story I have so much respect for my mother’s choices. She did so much for others and – strikingly in the second story I am the same as I am now: a much more compassionate, less judgmental person with a full heart of love due in large part to the love my mom had for me. In all versions, including reality, I am the same person. I had always felt that if my mother had made different choices, I would be a better person. I no longer am sure of this at all.
I am struck, too, with the realization that the real story of my mom is also that she had a disease and a mortality that she could not control and is not at fault over, and that she gave what life she did have to her family and loved ones. I weep with regret for my former short-sightedness.
Last night I had a dream. I was in the ocean. The waves curled in front of me, forming a wake. In the crests of the wake I make out the forms of peoples’ heads bobbing. They all look the same. In the water, it is difficult for me to make out who they are. Is it Mom? Is it Jesus? Both have long dark hair. I choose to swim toward one of them. When I make the choice I am swept away into a story: the story of my life; the story of our lives.
My mother and I are together. We are both adults. My son is young. We are angry, fighting. She is herself as she was at that age: drinking, angry, belligerent. I am myself as I was at that age: sober, self-righteous, belligerent.
In this version of our life story, she raised me and my brother, divorced, and continues on her path, I on mine. She eventually dies of her own choices in front of my eyes, much the same way she did in reality. I am able to hold judgment. There was nothing I could do about it in the dream.
Suddenly I am back in the ocean with the heads again. I understand that I am to choose again. Excited at this possibility of another chance, I choose a different head to swim toward. I am swept away into another story.
There is my mom. We are us, yet we are different. My mom has had a lifelong partner, very sweet – instead of bitterly divorcing my father. She has given to me, to my brother, to her partner. She is 80 some odd years old now. She has always wanted to be a lawyer. She has a personal library that she wishes to get together into a room of shelves so that she can finally go to law school as she wished her whole life, according to this dream. But I can see that her body is so twisted with arthritis and age and pain that this will not be possible. Her tragically hopeful desire breaks my heart. She points toward the library of books and says, “Guess I’ll get busy now!” And stumbles into my arms, breaking in front of my eyes. I understand that she has a disease and a mortality that she could not control and is not at fault over, and that she gave what life she did have to her family and loved ones. I weep with regret for her as I hold her lifeless body.
I am in the ocean again, swimming with the heads. I understand that I am to choose again. Yet this time I also understand that no matter what choice I make, the story itself may be different but the outcome would be the same. My mom will die in front of my eyes. It is out of my hands.
And I have a new awareness. My mom’s truth is the same in both stories, just the circumstances differ. I am so blaming in the story that is similar to reality. I have so much of what she should have been like figured out. I know choices she should have made, and I have anger that she did not make them. And in the second story I have so much respect for my mother’s choices. She did so much for others and – strikingly in the second story I am the same as I am now: a much more compassionate, less judgmental person with a full heart of love due in large part to the love my mom had for me. In all versions, including reality, I am the same person. I had always felt that if my mother had made different choices, I would be a better person. I no longer am sure of this at all.
I am struck, too, with the realization that the real story of my mom is also that she had a disease and a mortality that she could not control and is not at fault over, and that she gave what life she did have to her family and loved ones. I weep with regret for my former short-sightedness.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Restaurant Door
1999, age 29 for me
That evening I want her to experience something nice; something any mom, any woman would get to do. I picked her up from the mission where she lived; the little apartment – complex – looking residential center off of the Kirby freeway that the disability insurance had gotten her.
I liked the tall trees surrounding the complex, and that area of town was ok. Decently safe, and pretty with the trees. Also, it was far from downtown and the people she had hung around. The facility had staff onsite to help with medications, clothing, food, counseling, recovery meetings, therapy, etc. I was pleased.
She was in a heavy purple dress, too warm for the summer day. It hit me that my mom was one of those people that you donate clothes to. She was a woman at a shelter. Not only that, but this was a step up.
Still, she looked nice. Her hair was brushed. Even her nails were badly painted. But she didn’t stand out. You wouldn’t have known she was homeless, or maybe even from a mission.
This was hard to adjust to, as she always had stood out before in a much different way. I can not remember a time that I was not aware of people turning to watch my mother move through a room. She glided and was a true beauty, always stylish even with limited resources. Classy, beautiful makeup, always wearing trendy yet classic and seasonable styles and accessories. Those days were over.
In any case, I just wanted to take her to a restaurant dinner. Just a normal night out like people do; they take their moms out to dinner sometimes.
I really thought this was the beginning of my chance to get my mom back. I figured it would be a long road but that this was finally our chance to be a normal mother and daughter – now that she was sober.
The restaurant across the freeway was called The Mason Jar. It looked pleasant, fun, and family oriented.
What happened after dinner was so significant to me as to have wiped the dinner itself completely from my memory. Mom and I headed to the ladies’ room just before it was time to leave. Afterward, I was following mom. She was headed more or less toward the restaurant front door when she veered to the left. Was there something in the aisle? Must be. I turned with her, and kept following her. She paused for a moment, then veered again. This time, I wondered what she was doing, but kept following. A few more steps and she turned toward me. I asked her what she was doing. In a controlled, even tone with a hint of nercvousness she answered, “Well, I’m just trying to find the door.”
Stone, cold sober. I now knew mom was gone for good. There is a syndrome known in slang terms as “wet brain” in which an alcoholic who has drank so much for so long has literally pickled their brains. Even when they are no longer intoxicated their brain is damaged permanently.
The gravity of that moment, that realization was so heavy and so poignant that I could only absorb it in pieces. Part of me wanted to fall to my knees in the middle of the restaurant and weep. Part of me wanted to curse God and demand that Hechange this situation. Part of me wanted to grab my mom and hug her tight. Part of me wanted to run out that door and never look back. Internally, I did all of these things. Outwardly, I guided mom to the door, and my face clouded over.
The long process of acceptance, grieving, and healing from this truth began. I learned to let my mom go even more, to be honest about all of my feelings and to identify the, to feel them, move through them, not act on them except to cry or yell with a good friend about it. I learned that the God that I believe in can take it when I am angry with Him, and that he understand my temper tantrums, just as a loving parent does for a child.
It has been an even longer process to stop being angry about it; to not be angry with God. It began with knowing that He was taking care of me and so many others. Of that, I had no doubt. So, reconciling the horrible truth and the wonderful truth has been one of my greatest challenges.
That evening I want her to experience something nice; something any mom, any woman would get to do. I picked her up from the mission where she lived; the little apartment – complex – looking residential center off of the Kirby freeway that the disability insurance had gotten her.
I liked the tall trees surrounding the complex, and that area of town was ok. Decently safe, and pretty with the trees. Also, it was far from downtown and the people she had hung around. The facility had staff onsite to help with medications, clothing, food, counseling, recovery meetings, therapy, etc. I was pleased.
She was in a heavy purple dress, too warm for the summer day. It hit me that my mom was one of those people that you donate clothes to. She was a woman at a shelter. Not only that, but this was a step up.
Still, she looked nice. Her hair was brushed. Even her nails were badly painted. But she didn’t stand out. You wouldn’t have known she was homeless, or maybe even from a mission.
This was hard to adjust to, as she always had stood out before in a much different way. I can not remember a time that I was not aware of people turning to watch my mother move through a room. She glided and was a true beauty, always stylish even with limited resources. Classy, beautiful makeup, always wearing trendy yet classic and seasonable styles and accessories. Those days were over.
In any case, I just wanted to take her to a restaurant dinner. Just a normal night out like people do; they take their moms out to dinner sometimes.
I really thought this was the beginning of my chance to get my mom back. I figured it would be a long road but that this was finally our chance to be a normal mother and daughter – now that she was sober.
The restaurant across the freeway was called The Mason Jar. It looked pleasant, fun, and family oriented.
What happened after dinner was so significant to me as to have wiped the dinner itself completely from my memory. Mom and I headed to the ladies’ room just before it was time to leave. Afterward, I was following mom. She was headed more or less toward the restaurant front door when she veered to the left. Was there something in the aisle? Must be. I turned with her, and kept following her. She paused for a moment, then veered again. This time, I wondered what she was doing, but kept following. A few more steps and she turned toward me. I asked her what she was doing. In a controlled, even tone with a hint of nercvousness she answered, “Well, I’m just trying to find the door.”
Stone, cold sober. I now knew mom was gone for good. There is a syndrome known in slang terms as “wet brain” in which an alcoholic who has drank so much for so long has literally pickled their brains. Even when they are no longer intoxicated their brain is damaged permanently.
The gravity of that moment, that realization was so heavy and so poignant that I could only absorb it in pieces. Part of me wanted to fall to my knees in the middle of the restaurant and weep. Part of me wanted to curse God and demand that Hechange this situation. Part of me wanted to grab my mom and hug her tight. Part of me wanted to run out that door and never look back. Internally, I did all of these things. Outwardly, I guided mom to the door, and my face clouded over.
The long process of acceptance, grieving, and healing from this truth began. I learned to let my mom go even more, to be honest about all of my feelings and to identify the, to feel them, move through them, not act on them except to cry or yell with a good friend about it. I learned that the God that I believe in can take it when I am angry with Him, and that he understand my temper tantrums, just as a loving parent does for a child.
It has been an even longer process to stop being angry about it; to not be angry with God. It began with knowing that He was taking care of me and so many others. Of that, I had no doubt. So, reconciling the horrible truth and the wonderful truth has been one of my greatest challenges.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Down By the Riverside
My age: 32
“Gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside…”
The sun shone golden on Bull Creek’s water dancing over its shallow, limestone floor. Green leaves and white tree trunks lining the creek bed were picturesque.
The drive down Austin’s Highway 360 was beautiful that day. I was leaving work a little early that afternoon. A case worker had called from Hospice in Houston. It was the first time I’d heard anything in months about mom. In case you don’t know, when Hospice is involved it means the story is over.
The truth of that call seared through the beauty of that afternoon. I told my co-workers, my friends, what was going on and that I was leaving.
I went straight to a support group meeting. I ran into an old friend there who hugged me before I ever even got inside. I don’t remember what the meeting topic was or who said what, but I know that people loved on me and supported me.
Five minutes later on the highway, just before the beautiful little turnout for Bull Creek, the phone rang again. The warm voice of the case worker asked me if I were driving. Yes. Ok, pull over.
In my heart, I already knew. But I held off the truth for a moment in a sort of space where time did not exist. Just one more moment before I know for sure, just let me have this moment.
I told the case worker that I could pull down under the bridge into a most tranquil little spot. There, beside the creek, the words fell down.
She’s gone.
“Gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside…”
The sun shone golden on Bull Creek’s water dancing over its shallow, limestone floor. Green leaves and white tree trunks lining the creek bed were picturesque.
The drive down Austin’s Highway 360 was beautiful that day. I was leaving work a little early that afternoon. A case worker had called from Hospice in Houston. It was the first time I’d heard anything in months about mom. In case you don’t know, when Hospice is involved it means the story is over.
The truth of that call seared through the beauty of that afternoon. I told my co-workers, my friends, what was going on and that I was leaving.
I went straight to a support group meeting. I ran into an old friend there who hugged me before I ever even got inside. I don’t remember what the meeting topic was or who said what, but I know that people loved on me and supported me.
Five minutes later on the highway, just before the beautiful little turnout for Bull Creek, the phone rang again. The warm voice of the case worker asked me if I were driving. Yes. Ok, pull over.
In my heart, I already knew. But I held off the truth for a moment in a sort of space where time did not exist. Just one more moment before I know for sure, just let me have this moment.
I told the case worker that I could pull down under the bridge into a most tranquil little spot. There, beside the creek, the words fell down.
She’s gone.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Powerless
They wanted to release her. Release her? Where? This trip to the hospital – this time because she had been assaulted – had also resulted in the only home she had - her car - being impounded for having no registration.
She was just a little bit better off than dead. Release her?
I demanded for them to keep her. They told me I could take it up with the social workers on staff.
The concrete walls were painted yellow, and the offices behind the indoor window were dark. Clearly, hardly anyone was there. Someone tentatively stepped out, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I need to speak to a social worker. The hospital wants to release my mother but she has nowhere to go. She’s homeless and extremeley ill, on the verge of death. She’s also an addict and in a state of detox, and not safe to keep with me.”
“Well, the social workers aren’t here, but you can fill out this paperwork to try to get her some disability insurance from Social Security. That usually takes a long time, though, and lots of folks die before the paperwork ever goes through.”
She delivers this cold fact like I have on a suit of armor that the terrible news cannot penetrate.
I sit and do the only things I can: hold the old, brown clipboard on my lap and fill out the paperwork, and pray. This is the definition of powerlessness.
She was just a little bit better off than dead. Release her?
I demanded for them to keep her. They told me I could take it up with the social workers on staff.
The concrete walls were painted yellow, and the offices behind the indoor window were dark. Clearly, hardly anyone was there. Someone tentatively stepped out, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I need to speak to a social worker. The hospital wants to release my mother but she has nowhere to go. She’s homeless and extremeley ill, on the verge of death. She’s also an addict and in a state of detox, and not safe to keep with me.”
“Well, the social workers aren’t here, but you can fill out this paperwork to try to get her some disability insurance from Social Security. That usually takes a long time, though, and lots of folks die before the paperwork ever goes through.”
She delivers this cold fact like I have on a suit of armor that the terrible news cannot penetrate.
I sit and do the only things I can: hold the old, brown clipboard on my lap and fill out the paperwork, and pray. This is the definition of powerlessness.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Mommy's Little Helper
One afternoon my senior year, I drove home to our little rented town house in my gold Pontiac Sunbird hatchback. My head was buzzing with the drama that had taken place at school – whatever it happened to be that day. I dragged myself inside crying and complaining that I’d had a bad day. Mom was enormously sympathetic and sat on the stairs with her arm around my shoulder while I talked and cried. She didn’t judge or berate me. Suddenly she stood up and told me to wait right there. She came back with - very popular at the time – a wine cooler and half of a little, white pill. She told me to drink and take both, that that’s what made her feel better after a hard day. I obeyed, but I did ask what the white pill was. “That’s Valium. It just makes you relaxed.”
I forget at what point it was that I learned that a doctor had actually told mom that in order to help her relax at night, she should drink a glass of wine. He also prescribed her Valium. We know now that this was a fairly common practice back then, and it reeked havoc indiscriminately.
Truth be told, Mom had a lot she needed to relax over. Based on a combination of things she told me, other facts I know myself, and what I have learned from therapists and doctors, she was a victim of years of incest. This causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had an episode of PTSD, but it can make you feel as terrified as if someone were holding a gun to your head. What is happening is that you are essentially feeling the emotions of a past traumatic experience – such as incest – at a time when you are physicllay safe enough to experience it. In the actual moment of the trauma, often times our bodies and psyches shut down and we do not feel. But we do later. This, in turn, can make you feel comepletely crazy because you know you are terrified but you also know there’s not really anything that bad happening at that moment. I should know. I have it, too.
I won’t spend too much time on this subject now, but I do want to say that I am so grateful to be part of the first wave of women who can recover from sexual abuse in a healthy way, because more people have now studied it and found what works to help us heal. There are also better medicines.
But we didn’t at the time. The kind of pain and fear my mom lived with and in every day of her life would level a lesser person. And it has. But not her. She actually did what the doctor ordered. And it cost her.
I forget at what point it was that I learned that a doctor had actually told mom that in order to help her relax at night, she should drink a glass of wine. He also prescribed her Valium. We know now that this was a fairly common practice back then, and it reeked havoc indiscriminately.
Truth be told, Mom had a lot she needed to relax over. Based on a combination of things she told me, other facts I know myself, and what I have learned from therapists and doctors, she was a victim of years of incest. This causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had an episode of PTSD, but it can make you feel as terrified as if someone were holding a gun to your head. What is happening is that you are essentially feeling the emotions of a past traumatic experience – such as incest – at a time when you are physicllay safe enough to experience it. In the actual moment of the trauma, often times our bodies and psyches shut down and we do not feel. But we do later. This, in turn, can make you feel comepletely crazy because you know you are terrified but you also know there’s not really anything that bad happening at that moment. I should know. I have it, too.
I won’t spend too much time on this subject now, but I do want to say that I am so grateful to be part of the first wave of women who can recover from sexual abuse in a healthy way, because more people have now studied it and found what works to help us heal. There are also better medicines.
But we didn’t at the time. The kind of pain and fear my mom lived with and in every day of her life would level a lesser person. And it has. But not her. She actually did what the doctor ordered. And it cost her.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Peanut Butter
I realize now I have avoided peanut butter all these years. Just recently – eight years later – I have reclaimed it for myself. I love peanut butter! But there was a long time it brought back too much discomfort. Too much guilt.
I hadn’t heard from Mom in a while. It was getting chillier in the Houston area, around November. Mom called to tell me she was styaing in a motel. Her voice was a bit slurred early that morning as it came tinny over the phone. She didn’t have any food. She asked if I could give her some peanut butter.
I was learning a little bit about alcoholics, or so I thought. I knew that if you provided them with things that aided in their addiction, you weren’t helping them. In fact, you wer hurting and even prolonging their pain. At the time, in my ignorance, I felt that if I gave her the peanut butter – all she asked for was peanut butter – that I would be enabling her. I could picture her in that run down place, and I knew she had spent money or gotten someone to pay for her obvious intoxication and for the room. I thought that any expense she had or needed was wrapped up in that whole system of her disease. So, I said no.
Right now, it hurts me to even think of that. The shame I feel for denying my mother this necessity even in this moment causes me to stop typing, cry out, and hold my face in my hands. I complete typing this sentence with blurred vision from tears.
At the time, every new behavior I was learning hurt. I certainly did feel awfully at the time about denying my mom the food, but I felt awful doing any new behavior that was right regarding her. So, I didn’t recognize it as hurting because it should hurt - because it was wrong.
I know Mom forgives me, whether I deserve it or not. I went overboard in what I thought would help, only to realize with hindsight that of course I could give my mom some peanut butter. That is an essential. It didn’t mean I was enabling her disease of alcoholism.
Here is how she was so sweet and humble even in the midst of her diesase: she asked for some peanut butter. She ASKED. For some peanut butter. Not a meal, or groceries. Or money. And she asked. She didn’t, as any mother rightfully could have, direct me to help her. And it was for FOOD. The most basic need we have.
To add insult to injury, her own daughter refused. Me. I am that daughter. I have to own that. I pray that my lack of wisdom and insight did not damage her too badly physically. I hope that someone who was capable of more understanding and generosity at the time gave her some food.
I know that she knows now how sorry I am. She always knew how wrong I was. And she loved me, as I love her still.
To this day, I almost always have at least one jar of peanut butter in my car. I give it to anyone who asks, and to many who simply accept the gift I am extending to them at the red light where they hold a sign, or the corner wher they huddle with their belongings.
I also have to forgive myself. I get to recognize that we all did things that seem cruel and things that were hurtful to each other in our struggle together with this disease. “Forgive my trespasses, as I forgive those who have trespassed against me.”
I hadn’t heard from Mom in a while. It was getting chillier in the Houston area, around November. Mom called to tell me she was styaing in a motel. Her voice was a bit slurred early that morning as it came tinny over the phone. She didn’t have any food. She asked if I could give her some peanut butter.
I was learning a little bit about alcoholics, or so I thought. I knew that if you provided them with things that aided in their addiction, you weren’t helping them. In fact, you wer hurting and even prolonging their pain. At the time, in my ignorance, I felt that if I gave her the peanut butter – all she asked for was peanut butter – that I would be enabling her. I could picture her in that run down place, and I knew she had spent money or gotten someone to pay for her obvious intoxication and for the room. I thought that any expense she had or needed was wrapped up in that whole system of her disease. So, I said no.
Right now, it hurts me to even think of that. The shame I feel for denying my mother this necessity even in this moment causes me to stop typing, cry out, and hold my face in my hands. I complete typing this sentence with blurred vision from tears.
At the time, every new behavior I was learning hurt. I certainly did feel awfully at the time about denying my mom the food, but I felt awful doing any new behavior that was right regarding her. So, I didn’t recognize it as hurting because it should hurt - because it was wrong.
I know Mom forgives me, whether I deserve it or not. I went overboard in what I thought would help, only to realize with hindsight that of course I could give my mom some peanut butter. That is an essential. It didn’t mean I was enabling her disease of alcoholism.
Here is how she was so sweet and humble even in the midst of her diesase: she asked for some peanut butter. She ASKED. For some peanut butter. Not a meal, or groceries. Or money. And she asked. She didn’t, as any mother rightfully could have, direct me to help her. And it was for FOOD. The most basic need we have.
To add insult to injury, her own daughter refused. Me. I am that daughter. I have to own that. I pray that my lack of wisdom and insight did not damage her too badly physically. I hope that someone who was capable of more understanding and generosity at the time gave her some food.
I know that she knows now how sorry I am. She always knew how wrong I was. And she loved me, as I love her still.
To this day, I almost always have at least one jar of peanut butter in my car. I give it to anyone who asks, and to many who simply accept the gift I am extending to them at the red light where they hold a sign, or the corner wher they huddle with their belongings.
I also have to forgive myself. I get to recognize that we all did things that seem cruel and things that were hurtful to each other in our struggle together with this disease. “Forgive my trespasses, as I forgive those who have trespassed against me.”
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