I’ve been loveless on Valentine’s Day, skipped church on Easter Sunday, been unthankful on Thanksgiving, felt like a bad gift at Christmas but the hardest of the Big Days was always Mother’s Day.
Before I’d ever written a Bedtime Story a Mother’s Day came around and I wrote, “On this day when mothers are all washed white as snow…I reflect on my mother…who was the single most complicated person that I will ever know…”
Complicated. All those …’s…
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She was an addict, to food. That needs to get said. It wasn’t said enough; I don’t think it was said at all.
Addiction is to a family what a grenade thrown into a foxhole is to soldiers, except you don’t get to get it over with in one bad moment.
In every family everybody has a role. I was the oldest child by seven years and my job was to figure it out, to find truth in the camo of denial, to find nouns in the house of mirrors of euphemisms. Mom couldn’t see, Dad couldn’t see, none of the other adults were insightful enough, or brave enough, to call it out and speak it true, and so it fell to me.
That’s a hefty load for a little kid.
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It is unnatural for a child to feel unsafe in the embrace of their mother. I did. Wish it wasn’t true, wish it was other, but while her intentions were loving and clean, her weakness made me wary.
On the other hand, it’s entirely natural to want what the emotions say is Normal, to reach for love and security in the place where it is supposed to be found, and so my dance with Mom is the classic to ‘n fro of try and retreat, and try, try again, and retreat…
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When I was just a teenager I could see it clear, like unto prophecy – my mother would eat herself to death. I didn’t want to watch it happen.
At 18 I was gone. Some kids leave for adventure, I think I left in search of normal, whatever that was…wherever that was…if it really was…
When others were pairing up and marrying up I made sure to stay solo, knowing I was entering adulthood wounded and I was determined that I would not make any children until I deemed myself healthy enough to be worthy of the assignment. Any girl attracted to me back then was probably as screwed up as I was, and I was not – WAS NOT – going to make my kids go through what I went through.
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I’ve been alive a few adult decades. I’ve found that Normal isn’t just around the corner. It’s the never reached of never reachdom. All you can aspire to is to just get better.
I’ve found that seeking begets finding, often finding better than what you were seeking. I’ve found it true that God does not waste pain; the parts of me that I trust the most are the places where breaks are repaired with a warranty.
Most of you only know me from these stories. Sometimes you think me deep, occasionally you think me wise, or insightful, and here’s the curious thing, these are all made possible because of Mom. She drove me to feel, to fight, to ask, to dig, to do battle with things with no names.
I mention my dear father in many of my stories, but some of the best of me, the creativity, the childlike wonder, seeing beauty in the common, that’s all Mom…
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Sure ‘nough, it turned out like I thought it would. First, she was house bound, and then she was bed bound, and then she died.
I spoke at her funeral. If you were there, maybe you wondered how a son could hold his composure so well. I’ll tell you why; I mourned her long, long, often, often, while she was still alive. By the time it was official I was long healed.
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One of the best consequences of my relationship with my mother is that I am allergic to lies. There is truth in what I write, and it touches you in a way that a Hallmark card cannot.
I am wary of these washed-white-as-snow days, like Mother’s Day, where we’re like some marching band, all playing the same song, regardless of our individual truth. There’s a lot of pain out there. It comes in more flavors than ice cream. It’s honorable to be nice, but inside, we must keep the truth in plain sight, alone, on an uncluttered shelf.
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Though Mom is dead, she and I are not through. As life ages me I grade her more gently, in a way I couldn’t have done in my youth; maybe in future years I’ll realize how unworthy I am to grade her at all.
I still want to love my mother. I don’t want it to be forced, but want it to be true. She meant well, she poured herself into me in a way I cannot know. I think often of heaven, and wonder what my mother will be like up there. She won’t be an addict there…and I wonder who that will make her, wonder if for the first time I’ll see the Real Her, the wonder of her, free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty, free at last…
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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we rejoice if your heart is clean and grateful, and we wish healing for those who wear an asterisk on days like today…
Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories are posted Eighty-one’s Facebook page. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.
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