Mom (this is for Toni)

 

There we are, Mom and I.  Me in all my glory reaching up to her.  Usually, she would accept my uplifted arms--I'm pretty sure after this picture she did anyway. 

 Mom's childhood was just pure neglect so she's never been very good at showing feelings--I don't much think she knows how.  She has always known, however, that she's supposed to.  I was a very needy child and I remember hanging on her, begging to be loved (not literally).  I'd have it no other way.  She would love me whether she wanted to or not, damn it! 

I think those early years of forcing affection on her did teach her to love a little easier because as I grew she got better and better at it (with me anyway).  She would hold me on her lap, sing silly songs to me like "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?"  She talked to me about God and religion.  She talked to me about beauty and would impress upon me the importance of inner beauty and the insignificance of outer beauty--this was a tough one to grasp because I just wanted to know if I was pretty.  She'd say, Dory is pretty outside, but you have inner beauty (my sister and I discovered as adults that she said the same thing to Dory--"Jenny is pretty outside, but you have inner beauty--we'd been duped).  She would call me Precious.  I can still hear her saying it to me as if it were my name. 

I don't think Mom knew how pretty outside she was, but her beauty would take my breath away sometimes.  She said she grew up hating her looks because she looked just like her mother who, she was constantly told, "abandoned her children like puppies".  I imagine it was difficult for her father to look at her, her stepmother I'm sure couldn't stand it, and her grandparents, she said, would actually scold her resemblance to her own mother.  I loved it.  I loved to admire her perfect complexion, eyes, nose and lips.  Her smile lit up rooms and hearts.  Her voice sounded angelic to me when she sang, which was quite often.  I was so proud to be seen out with her, that people would know I came from that.

When she'd make herself eggs and toast, or peanut butter toast, I'd beg like a puppy and she'd always share a bite.  Things always tasted better off of her plate.  She would let me 'help' her with the crossword puzzle (she always had a newspaper folded in fourths in front of her, pencil in one hand, cup of coffee in the other, and glasses slid down the bridge of her nose. 

Mom was never unkind.  She loved us and tried to protect us, but she was no match for Dad.  The one time she tried to say something when he was beating Dave, Dad went into a rage and threw him into the corner of the wall, splitting his head wide open, blood everywhere.  He looked at her and said, "now look what you made me do."  She never said anything again.  She would try to escape life with him many times--sometimes with us, sometimes alone.  He'd always pull her back in.

She was usually the sole provider for the family as a waitress.  The cash in hand each day made it easy to stash money from him for use during times of starvation after he'd make her quit her job.  One of my favorite memories of money stashing came when I was in early high school, I think.  It was Christmastime and he dropped us off at the mall.  I wasn't supposed to know there was no money--it was all a big game.  Mom was supposed to tell me that she'd forgotten the money at home, oh darn, we couldn't do any shopping and would just have to wait for Dad to come pick us up.

My sister had just had her first son and Mom was determined to get that grandchild a Christmas gift.  Mom had $100 stashed in a compartment of her purse.  We decided to tell Dad that we found a hundred dollar bill on the floor of the ladies room--how fortunate for us since Mom forgot all of her money at home (wink, wink, nod, nod).  I still smile at the look on Dad's face when he pulled up and saw us standing there with all the bags.  It was beautiful because what could he say, really.  Mom loved to give. 

The last time we left Dad it was just Mom and I left at home.  For a while we lived in Gary's girlfriend's family's abandoned basement near a gas pump that was supposed to blow at any time (that was the reason it was abandoned).  I loved being there with her.  No modern conveniences, hiding out.  It was so primal.  Eventually Gary helped move us back to Florida where the three of us lived for a while--again, so primal, yet so wonderful. 

Like I said in an earlier post, Mom is Cinderella without the happy ending.  She even had the ugly stepmother and  stepsister who were jealous and hateful to her.  She grew up and thought she found her prince--he was handsome, intelligent, from a good family.  Unfortunately it's difficult to see mental illness until it's too late. 

Mom did the very best she could with what she had to work with.  She was good and kind and taught me all that I deem important in this life.  Though she never learned to swim, she taught me how to gracefully stroke past those rocks.  I thank God every day for her.

Jen ;-)