prev
archive
next
Once again, something on my mind that I have to write about before I'll know how I really feel about it. Keeping a journal is very therapeutic. I recommend it.
High: A guy I work with is from Maine. I brought him an Italian sandwich made from the ingredients my sister brought with her. There were tears of joy. Tears, I tell you.
Low: Well, basically this whole darned entry.
Finishing my final paper for Philosophy. What do you want to bet I leave it until Sunday night?
I talked to Susan this morning to make sure they made it home alright. I heard her kids creating in the background. And her husband hollering. And the dogs barking. And her pausing to scream at them to shut up so she could talk. Business as usual, it appears.
Nothing at the moment.
Same as yesterday.
Storyteller
Bio
Dramatis Personnae
Who I Read
Recipes
March 20, 2002
Two inches to the left.
I have an analogy I use, when life has turned surreal and my perspective has changed in some indefinable way. "It's like someone came into my house while I was sleeping, and moved all of the furniture two inches to the left. Something's different, but I can't put my finger on it."
In yesterday's entry I alluded to conversations I had with Susan which revealed details about my family that I was unaware of up until this point. Ever since we talked, I've been mulling things around and around in my head, trying to get a handle on how I feel about it and trying to determine how effected I am. Because really, the "reality" I experienced as I grew up is no different today than it was a week ago. But learning the underlying details and the actual "true" reality of things (if there is such a thing - damned philosophy class) has changed my perspective, and left me feeling very rootless.
So. I don't really know how I feel about all of this "new" information. In the past it has been useful to write an entry, which ends up helping me figure out how I really feel about something. In the end, I end up reading over what I'd written and sometimes being surprised. I'm giving that a shot now. Bear with me, some of this stuff is distressing. To me, anyway.
*********************
My mother was married to a man in the military. While he was away on some overseas assignment, she had an affair with another married man (whose wife was six months pregnant at the time). She also ended up getting pregnant by this man. Of course, when her husband found out he divorced her. My sister Susan was born soon after. (I actually found out about all of this when I was about twelve. But the details have bearing to the "rest of the story".)
After a handful of years, my mother met and married the man who is my father. My father had been married and divorced before, and had children with his first wife. So, I have half brothers and sisters out there that I've never met (this detail I found out last summer when I stayed with Susan). My mother and father remained married until I was three or four, then divorced. The reason of this divorce was always kept secret from me until recently. The reason I was never allowed to see my father was also kept secret. Those details I don't think I'll diverge here, because they're very painful and the story isn't mine to tell.
My sister's life with my mother became hard, especially after I came along. See, my mother knew she had a short time to live. The timespan she was given when she received the aluminum valve in her heart was about ten years, and by the time my mother passed away it had been twelve. Every moment after that ten year mark my mother knew was borrowed time. So, every moment of free time my mother had was dedicated to enjoying the life she had left to live. She partied, she went out, she was rarely home. My sister pretty much raised me, and I spent many weekends at an aunts, or at my grandmother's.
My mother had very exacting standards, regarding behavior, and housekeeping. My sister described it as "living in a museum". You had to be quiet, you had to be neat. You couldn't rock the boat or fight with Mum because she was dying. That one fact hung over my sister's head for her entire childhood. Perhaps understandably, my mother was very self involved and not very nurturing - she was distracted by trying to squeeze as much life out of life as she could. My sister always felt that my mother's coldness was because Susan was an illegitimate child, who caused the demise of her mother's first marriage. As adults we of course realize that Susan had nothing to do with that, it was my mother's own actions. But as a child, this is how she felt.
My mother's own actions didn't help this. Susan was required to babysit whenever my mother wanted to go out (which was several times a week). As Susan got older and wanted to do things herself, she was required to pay for a babysitter herself. She fed me at 2:00 a.m. because my mother wasn't home. She changed my (cloth!) diapers and tended me when I was sick. All the while living under the edict "Don't rock the boat, Mum's dying." Keep the house pristine. Do more than what is expected of you.
Never be demonstrative. Never receive hugs, kisses, or words of praise.
Finally, my mother succumbed from a staph infection developed from complications with the 12-year-old valve procedure. There was nothing they could do to save her - the hole in her heart was too big to repair. And so my sister, at eighteen years of age, had "the" talk with my mother. "Take care of your sister. Make sure she stays in the same schools. Be responsible. Be careful who you marry."
My mother passed away, and my sister was left feeling as if she never really loved her. It was something that was left unresolved, that eats at Susan still today. And so she goes completely the other direction with her kids - not assigning them responsibilities too large for their shoulders, letting them make messes and noise and chaos, hugging and kissing them every other second.
And I am left with a completely different picture of who my mother was than I thought. Cold. Selfish. Someone who didn't know how to be a real mother. Yes, in her story she wrote about wanting a baby, and that baby turned out to be me. But really, my sister is the one who raised me, cared for me, watched out for me. It wasn't her job, but she did it better than the person whose job it was. And then, after my mother died, I went to Grandma. And experienced the loving and nurturing environment my sister never got to have.
My mother had to die, but I'm lucky that my grandmother raised me. That's completely messed up.
********************
My uncle and my mother were like two peas in a pod. They were very close growing up, and my uncle was devastated when my mother died. I was afraid of my uncle when my mother was still alive, and very intimidated of him thereafter. I spent many summers at his home, made bearable because of my friendship with his daughter, my cousin Laurel who is three years younger than I am. My uncle is the Head Of The Family, executor of my mother's (and grandmother's) estates, disciplinarian for any Misbehaving Little Girls. My grandmother, being of the era of male dominated households and eldest son worship, thought he hung the moon. Even when she wasn't quite sure that he was doing the right thing, she kept her mouth shut and didn't contest him. I was taught to have Absolute Respect for him.
My uncle had been married previously as well, and had a son (Freddy) from his first marriage. My sister Susan and Freddy were the same age and very close growing up. They would spend summer vacations together at Grandma's, and had a relationship much like mine with Laurel.
Time went by. Freddy and Susan grew up and grew apart. Freddy went to school, got a job, and started his own life. And Freddy started showing signs of not being "his father's son". Not to put too fine a point on it - Freddy was gay. And when his father found out, he disowned his son. No one was allowed to speak of him. He even ordered his mother - my grandmother and Freddy's - not to have any contact with him. No one was allowed to mention Freddy in my uncle's presence. For Laurel and I, not knowing Freddy all that well (Freddy lived with his mom after my uncle divorced his mother, and Laurel didn't spend much time with her half-brother), we were oblivious to the circumstances. But Susan knew. And so did Grandma.
It was the early nineties, and AIDS was just becoming understood. Freddy was one of the first people in New England to contract the disease. When he was refused treatment at hospital after hospital, and refused coverage by his insurance company, he wrote his father and begged for help. His father never replied. Freddy wrote to Grandma and begged for help. Grandma, helpless in the face of my uncle's disapproval, did what she could but only went as far as to invite Freddy and his "partner" to dinner. I'm not sure my uncle ever knew about that. And even then, thinking as people did at the time that AIDS was contracted by casual contact, Grandma threw away the plates and silverware Freddy used. Thankfully, unbeknownst to Freddy.
Susan only learned of these details after Freddy died. No one told her Freddy was sick because Susan was pregnant at the time and they thought that the baby would be endangered by his illness. Ignorance, but still wrong.
Freddy tried one last time to contact his father, to no avail. The news stations told of Freddy's struggle with hospitals and insurance companies, and how he finally had to go as far as Alabama for treatment. He died, away from home and unreconciled with his father.
Grandma finally relented enough to call Susan and tell her of Freddy's passing. Livid, Susan went to Grandma's to confront her and my uncle about the circumstances and question why she wasn't told what was going on. My uncle refused to go to the funeral. His displeasure and disapproval forced my Grandmother, miserable, to stay behind as well. But Susan went, consoling Freddy's partner and whispering to Freddy "Please believe your father still loves you."
She told my uncle what she'd whispered to Freddy, and he was furious with her. She retorted "My mother would be so disgusted with you! I don't know how you can live with yourself." To this day my uncle refuses to speak of Freddy. He doesn't allow pictures of him around his home, and was incensed when we included a picture of Freddy and Grandma on the picture board at Grandma's funeral. But we insisted, and the picture remained.
One small spark of justice in this - Freddy's partner sued the hospital and insurance agency for refusing his treatment, and won a 1.8 million dollar settlement.
Last summer, after Grandma's funeral, my uncle assured me that I could come to him with any problem, for any advice or for any help I needed. He told me to never be afraid to talk to him, and remember that we're all family. Of course, now that I know about this, I believe that to be total bullshit. How can I, his niece, ever count on him for anything when he cast away his dying son?? How must my cousin Laurel, his daughter, feel knowing that he can turn away from his own flesh and blood under such dire circumstance? If she even knows about all of this at all. Everyone did such a good job of hiding all of this from me, I can only assume that's the case with her as well. The man isn't even human. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm done with him.
********************
Such a charming family I come from. It feels like I have no foundation, no roots. The roots I establish for myself (my home, my life in Arizona, Calvin and the kids) are one thing - they exist and are wonderful and very, very important to me. They're stabilizing and keep me sane. But I have no sense of where I come from now at all. My perception of my parents, my grandmother, my uncle - they've all changed. To my father, because of his actions, and my uncle, because of his behavior, I assign blame. They have no excuse except for their fucked up natures. My mother isn't excused, even though given her circumstances in life some of her behavior can be understood. Even my grandmother should have stood up for what she knew was right - I wonder how much of that guilt killed her in the end. I remember her being so depressed sometimes, and I never knew why - she'd never tell me. Now I know.
I know I'll reconcile it all in my head at some point, and come to terms with things. But for right now I'm completely bewildered, and I know a lot of these feelings will never be resolved. I learned of them too late to establish closure with the people involved. I'm really impressed with my sister's ability to deal with all of this, although she left it rather late to fill me in on the details. We've only developed this closeness between us recently, though. It's hard stuff to talk about to a virtual stranger. I'm glad that's not the case anymore.
Things are shifted somehow, and my memories are colored with the knowledge I have now. To put it all in a completely minimalistic term, it sucks.