Monday - Weathering Childhood Storms

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about one of the most important lessons that I learned from my mother: just because you harbor something ugly inside of you doesn't mean it has to control you. She never said this too me directly; I realized the lesson as an adult looking back some 10 years after she was dead.

My kid brother brought it up one day when we had coffee together, but it was something I had been thinking about a lot myself.

"Remember when mom used to make us go to our rooms and we weren't allowed to come out until she stopped throwing things?" he said, "You realize that she was scared she would beat the crap out of us, don't you?"

I realized this as an adult, but I never thought about it as a kid.

My mother had an explosive temper. While she didn't have red hair herself, she inherited the temper of her redheaded father. When she felt angry, her face darkened and her eyes flashed. If she was only a little angry, she might yell and spank me (it wasn't considered abusive back then). It was when I did something really bad and she got so angry that she began to cry that my punishment had to be put off because, apparently, she didn't trust herself not to kill or maim me.

"Go to your room and shut the door," she would growl in a low, guttural voice, "Don't you dare come out. I don't want to see your face until I come get you. Do you understand me? Go!"

I would nod, say, "Yes ma'am," and run to my bedroom. Behind the safety of its door, I played with my toys while listening to my mother transform into a tornado that rampaged through the rest of the house. I heard her cry, I heard her shout, I heard doors slam and objects bounce off of the walls and floors. What I heard was violent, but I never felt afraid. At the time, I thought being sent to my room was my punishment. In reality my room wasn't my prison; it was my shelter.

Eventually, her storm grew quiet except for a few muffled sobs. Awhile after that, my mother would open the door and tell me to come out.

"Look what you made me do," she would say, pointing to the mess in the storm's wake. Objects that previously occupied flat surfaces higher up lay strewn across the floor. Previously folded laundry lay everywhere. Throw pillows had literally been thrown. Curtains were askew on the windows. Paper, pencils and pens from the desk were scattered as far as the eyes could see.

"This is your fault," she would say, "Help me pick it up." So I would. Like the banishment to my room, picking up after Mom's tantrum was inevitably part of my punishment.

I now remember a story she told me about my oldest brother, when he was about 4 years old. He sassed her - told her to shut up - one day. The next thing she knew, he was standing in front of her wailing, one side of his face emblazoned with a crimson mark.

"I don't even remember hitting him," she said, "I just saw my hand print across that baby's face and I realized what I'd done. I felt horrible."

She never allowed it to happen again. When she felt herself start to loose control, she sent her children away until she found it again. She told us she was so mad that she couldn't stand to look at us, but what she meant was that she was so angry that she didn't trust herself around us. Her own father saw nothing wrong with beating his children with a razor strop. She didn't want her children to fear her her the way she feared him.

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We tend to idolize a parent who has passed away. We want to make saints of them. But, as the only daughter and the keeper of my mother's memory, I find that I cherish her shortcomings as much as her virtues. I can learn as much from them, if not more. A saint isn't a real mother. As a woman without a mother, who has not had a mother for most of the years I've been alive, a real mother is exactly what I long for, and not a perfect, plastic saint.

Friday will be the 22nd anniversary of her death. I'm taking the day off from work. When I put in the vacation request weeks ago, I didn't even consider the date, only that it was the Friday before my son's 2nd birthday and I wanted some time for myself.

I'll bring her fresh flowers for her grave, so anyone walking by it will know that this person was and is loved. I'll thank her for keeping me safe, not just from the dangers of the world around me but from the monster she discovered living inside of her.

I don't hate her for having that monster and the capacity to do me harm. I love that, despite being capable of it, she didn't hurt me. I love that I never even knew I should have been afraid until long after the monster and the woman who harbored it were gone from this world. I always felt safe, and I always felt loved.

Flowers on her grave are the least I can do for her.


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Comments

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thank you. ^_^

I always like my humorous entries the best, but it seems like I get the most responses from ones like this.

[georgiaskydiver.livejournal.com]

I try to read all your posts. Your humorous entries are great! But you probably get the most responses to these deep insightful ones because people can really relate to the emotions you express so well.