Tuesday – Some Mother's Child
Sep. 15th, 2009 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
A curious thing has occurred here in my 40th year: I find myself missing my mother more than ever. Maybe it's because the 25th anniversary of her passing is fast approaching, causing a wound I though closed, if not healed, to reopen and bleed anew.
That's what the tears feel like; blood from a cut I was sure had knitted itself shut and that need not be so careful around anymore. Then something pulls at the edges of it – a memory, a phrase in a song, a longing – and I feel this hot dampness running down my skin. "Now where did that come from?" I wonder, and grab a tissue to clean up the mess.
Why on earth, all of the sudden, do I want to see her so bad when I barely remember face on some days? Why do I want to ask for her advice and seek her approval? Why do I want to hear her tell just one time that she is proud of how I turned out, she who did not live long enough to see how I even would turn out?
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
I was 15 when she died, but I really lost her when I was 12. She and my father had a good marriage, and with her diagnosis and through her treatment they clung to each other. We kids became a side issue; our needs were met, but they turned their focus away from us to deal with the battle she was fighting inside of her body. I took over more chores, like the cooking and the laundry. I did my homework without prodding. I was good, because I thought that if I was good my reward would be my mother getting better.
My friends at school did not know. My parents were private people, and when they told us about my mother's cancer that night at the dinner table, they told us they did not want us talking about it with people outside the house. This was a family matter. It was just a lump in her breast at that time. She had a biopsy scheduled. It could turn out to be nothing, but what ever it turned out was our family's business and no one else's.
The biopsy was positive. Chemo therapy followed, and it was successful. Then they discovered another lump, this time under her arm. She had more chemo, and this time radiation. She grew sicker, so I worked harder at being good. I made good grades. I did what I was supposed to. I was as good as a kid could be.
But she was a bad mother and did what no mother is supposed to do until her children are out of the house and until they have had a chance to make something out of themselves and bring home grandbabies for her to admire: she died. Without asking her children or anything. Without waiting to around to see what kind of person I would grow up to be.
I missed two days of school that week early October. We buried her on a Monday. Tuesday, we went grocery shopping and got the house back in order after the wake. Wednesday, I was back in school. My father thought it best that we return to normal as soon as possible.
"You look sad, are you all right?" classmates asked me that first day back.
"My mom died on Saturday. She had cancer. I'm okay, though."
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry! Your mother had cancer? You never said anything about that..."
I shook my head. "I wasn't supposed to talk about it." I wondered if I was allowed to talk about it now that she and the cancer were both gone, and decided I might as well. People always want to know the why behind something like a death. It was nice to get the truth out in the open, now that it didn't matter anymore. Whatever stigma my parent's thought cancer might have, death trumped it.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Perhaps it is my little boy's recent questions that have been getting under my skin. He knows that his grandfather is my father – my daddy – but he keeps pressing me on the point that I don't have a mommy.
"Did you used to have a mommy?"
"I did."
"But you don't now?"
"No. My mommy died a long time ago."
"Why did she die?"
"She got very sick, baby. Most of the time when people get sick, they get better. But sometimes they don't."
"And they die?"
"Uh-huh. Yes. They die."
"But why?"
"Because they do. That's how the world works. Living things eventually die."
"When you were a little girl and you had a mommy, did you tell your mommy you were going to be a mommy?"
"I think I did. I think I told her I wanted to be one, at least."
"Did you tell her you were going to be my mommy?"
"I didn't know whose mommy I was going to be yet, but I'm glad I'm your mommy."
Maybe these questions are what keep tugging at that old wound. I want to show her this little boy. I want to run into the house like I did after school when I was 7 on the days when we made art projects out of glue and glitter and construction paper. I want to burst through the door with him in my arms, shouting, "Mom! Mom! Look what I made!"
I want her to look at him and marvel, "Ohhhh! Look! Isn't he beautiful?" Just like she did with the doily valentines, and the shoebox panoramas, and the beer bottle covered in torn tissue paper and glue.
Then she would hug me and say with a smile, "You did a good job. Dolly, I'm so proud of you."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
A curious thing has occurred here in my 40th year: I find myself missing my mother more than ever. Maybe it's because the 25th anniversary of her passing is fast approaching, causing a wound I though closed, if not healed, to reopen and bleed anew.
That's what the tears feel like; blood from a cut I was sure had knitted itself shut and that need not be so careful around anymore. Then something pulls at the edges of it – a memory, a phrase in a song, a longing – and I feel this hot dampness running down my skin. "Now where did that come from?" I wonder, and grab a tissue to clean up the mess.
Why on earth, all of the sudden, do I want to see her so bad when I barely remember face on some days? Why do I want to ask for her advice and seek her approval? Why do I want to hear her tell just one time that she is proud of how I turned out, she who did not live long enough to see how I even would turn out?
I was 15 when she died, but I really lost her when I was 12. She and my father had a good marriage, and with her diagnosis and through her treatment they clung to each other. We kids became a side issue; our needs were met, but they turned their focus away from us to deal with the battle she was fighting inside of her body. I took over more chores, like the cooking and the laundry. I did my homework without prodding. I was good, because I thought that if I was good my reward would be my mother getting better.
My friends at school did not know. My parents were private people, and when they told us about my mother's cancer that night at the dinner table, they told us they did not want us talking about it with people outside the house. This was a family matter. It was just a lump in her breast at that time. She had a biopsy scheduled. It could turn out to be nothing, but what ever it turned out was our family's business and no one else's.
The biopsy was positive. Chemo therapy followed, and it was successful. Then they discovered another lump, this time under her arm. She had more chemo, and this time radiation. She grew sicker, so I worked harder at being good. I made good grades. I did what I was supposed to. I was as good as a kid could be.
But she was a bad mother and did what no mother is supposed to do until her children are out of the house and until they have had a chance to make something out of themselves and bring home grandbabies for her to admire: she died. Without asking her children or anything. Without waiting to around to see what kind of person I would grow up to be.
I missed two days of school that week early October. We buried her on a Monday. Tuesday, we went grocery shopping and got the house back in order after the wake. Wednesday, I was back in school. My father thought it best that we return to normal as soon as possible.
"You look sad, are you all right?" classmates asked me that first day back.
"My mom died on Saturday. She had cancer. I'm okay, though."
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry! Your mother had cancer? You never said anything about that..."
I shook my head. "I wasn't supposed to talk about it." I wondered if I was allowed to talk about it now that she and the cancer were both gone, and decided I might as well. People always want to know the why behind something like a death. It was nice to get the truth out in the open, now that it didn't matter anymore. Whatever stigma my parent's thought cancer might have, death trumped it.
Perhaps it is my little boy's recent questions that have been getting under my skin. He knows that his grandfather is my father – my daddy – but he keeps pressing me on the point that I don't have a mommy.
"Did you used to have a mommy?"
"I did."
"But you don't now?"
"No. My mommy died a long time ago."
"Why did she die?"
"She got very sick, baby. Most of the time when people get sick, they get better. But sometimes they don't."
"And they die?"
"Uh-huh. Yes. They die."
"But why?"
"Because they do. That's how the world works. Living things eventually die."
"When you were a little girl and you had a mommy, did you tell your mommy you were going to be a mommy?"
"I think I did. I think I told her I wanted to be one, at least."
"Did you tell her you were going to be my mommy?"
"I didn't know whose mommy I was going to be yet, but I'm glad I'm your mommy."
Maybe these questions are what keep tugging at that old wound. I want to show her this little boy. I want to run into the house like I did after school when I was 7 on the days when we made art projects out of glue and glitter and construction paper. I want to burst through the door with him in my arms, shouting, "Mom! Mom! Look what I made!"
I want her to look at him and marvel, "Ohhhh! Look! Isn't he beautiful?" Just like she did with the doily valentines, and the shoebox panoramas, and the beer bottle covered in torn tissue paper and glue.
Then she would hug me and say with a smile, "You did a good job. Dolly, I'm so proud of you."
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I'm so behind in my LJ reading
Date: 2009-10-04 04:04 pm (UTC)