And another one last night...

This one involved going to the house where I grew up, apparently at a point in time between after my mom had died and while my dad was living in the house alone. I didn't go inside the house in my dream, only walked around the backyard, marveling at how all the gardening my mom had done over the years was a distant memory because the backyard was a mess of weeds and chaos.

There was a little more there in the dream, but what got me this morning was that I woke up with a particular memory of my mom. I don't really know how to describe her. She wasn't a bad parent in the sense of being a provider of a decent home, good food, adequate clothing - she did all that. But she didn't know how to relate to kids and it always struck me as a thing of wonder and mystery why she had so many. And she didn't only have 6 kids, she also took in many foster children. I was the last foster child, adopted after I'd been there for approximately 5 years. (I say all this and it gives the impression that my dad was invisible or non-existent. He was there, but she was certainly the force to reckon with in our house.)

Anyway, the memory: after leaving for college I went back home as little as possible. After my freshman year, I lived at home for a few months, then had an offer to live with my college best friend and I accepted that offer with alacrity. Once I moved out to that apartment, I never moved back. I'd visit for holidays and the other odd occasion, but that was it. I couldn't relate to my parents, I had an uncomfortable childhood best forgotten, and any closeness was one that came from a sense of obligation more than anything else. On one visit back my mom was telling me a story about something a neighbor had done which annoyed her. She got to a point in the story where she said, "But you know me, a big ol' softie..." and I didn't hear any more.

Something along the lines of "???????????????" and "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" was reverberating around in my brain.

It's been something I've chewed on ever since, the question of which of us was completely delusional when it came to describing her personality. I mean, certainly the fact that she took in so many foster children (and a couple of them kept in occassional contact, always commenting on their appreciation of all she did for them) bespeaks of kind-heartedness. And yet I wouldn't have called her a kind person. She was a strange amalgamation of actions - doing generous things while at times making the recipient feel guilty for accepting the generosity.

Maybe I was too sensitive about things like how she always, and I mean always, introduced me as "the one we adopted". Or yelling at me in front of a large group of people about participating in a series of practical jokes which had been going back and forth between me and my friends and my sister and her friends for a few days. While nothing was said to my sister. But then there'd be things like knowing I'd done things that were against her rules for which I was never disciplined. Or her changing her mind about providing some financial support for me to go to college after the mother of one of my friends said something about how I was the one kid she knew out of all of the kids she knew that needed to go to college. (It was perhaps that plus how I was given a scholarship I didn't even know about or apply for - something I still take as the biggest compliment I've ever received.)

Since becoming a parent, there's certainly a lot more that I understand about her. I can understand some of that drive to "just be obeyed, damn-it, because I'm the parent and you're the child and I know more than you". And some of how the daily grind of work and parenting can suck the humor or positive attitude right out of you. But even understanding more of her, I'll never understand all of her. That of course raises the question of whether anyone can ever understand all of anyone else, and I say that's a fair enough question. It's just that I can feel closer to some people and reveal more of myself to them after a few conversations than I ever could with my mom. I don't think that'd be any different were she still alive.

A lot of the times my husband and I feel like our only parenting philosophy is to not be like our parents. This can take you a long way, but really it sucks when it comes down to specific situations. There will be times when discipline will be left to me because my husband's father was so...well...I'll just say he didn't dispense discipline in proportion to the crime, so my husband will sometimes feel like it's better if he steps back so as to not do something that he'd regret forever. Likewise there will be times when I have to send my daughter out of the room to collect myself because my instinct is to scream incoherent and hurtful and guilt-inducing things, and I'd rather not say things my daughter will feel the sting of forever. So that takes care of negative reactions to avoid, but it's not much help when it comes to finding the appropriate positive reactions to act on.

One of the greatest blessings of adulthood is, I think, the fact that this is finally a stage in life where it's easier to accept your own flaws and it's easier to believe in your own strengths. Along with that is the knowledge that your parents were just their own collection of flaws and strengths so that a lot of what you don't understand is just them - it has nothing to do with you. While I know I'll never fully understand her, I can accept the idea that she was just doing the best she could from her point of view. She probably kicked herself for things she said and did just like I do. That's more helpful to realize than I ever would've believed back before I became a parent, so I think of that as one of the blessings of parenthood: being able to forgive even if I can't understand.

Tags: dreams, mom

11 years ago my mom fell down one night when she got out of bed. It was a pretty common thing, tripping over a piece of carpet and falling down in the dark. Beyond the immediate pain and the bruises, she and my dad didn't think much about it. But it turned out she had apparently hit her head, or had maybe just fallen faster and with more force than usual, because the fall resulted in her brain sliding within her skull and becoming bruised. Bleeding occurred which caused the brain to get pushed around further until the pressure was so intense that the symptoms imitated those of a stroke. Of course, we found all this out after surgery. That time surrounding the surgery became a bit of a blur - the way our collective lives started to become attuned to the rhythyms of the hospital, then within that, those of the specific departments responsible for her care. Siblings were called in from out of town. Other relatives and friends came and went. Meals were eaten at restaurants close by. Work became something distant, part of another world, another life. Our group was large enough to take over the waiting room, making it a grotesque kind of living room where visitors would drop in for updates and maybe stick around to be one of the two people per hour who were allowed a brief audience with my unconscious mother. Meanwhile, there were magazines, and the writing of Christmas cards, and puzzles, and even a little knitting to fill in the hours.

Eventually it became clear that each of us needed to think of her life in terms of lasting hours longer, not decades or years or months or weeks or days. Hours. We took our turns saying good-bye, then waited some more. My oldest brother arrived from out of town and had his good-bye. And that was it. It was as though she had been waiting for him because within moments of his time with her, she was gone.

****
On the drive home from the hospital, we realized it had been lightly snowing for a few of hours. It was snowing still, drifting down from the sky, highlighted in the dark by the street lights. It was about 10:00 at night, so the roads were mostly empty, and it was lovely (as it always is for the first snow), quiet and calm. And I couldn't stop crying. After arriving home I realized I would have to leave a message at work to give an update and let them know I'd be out for at least a week. That's when I had to say the words for the first time, do that thing that would make it concrete. And that fact hit me the moment I got to the part of my message where the words should have come out of my mouth. I couldn't say it. I sobbed and regained my composure. But still, I couldn't say it. I paused what felt an eternity, then finally said the words. It was done: I had said the words and now it was real. It was real.

****
The rest of that month isn't very clear in my memory. I know we planned her funeral on the 6th (my brother's birthday) and held it on the 10th (my birthday). I know that my husband was determined that at least a few moments would be carved out the day of the funeral to celebrate my birthday. He even bought cards for my various siblings to sign and give to me as their own (and who couldn't love a man like that?). The family went out to dinner together that night and had a picture taken of our group as we left the restaurant. We found it ironic that the only picture to feature all of the siblings together, something my mom would have loved dearly, was taken the day of her funeral. We joked that it would likely be the only picture that ever would feature all of the siblings together, but it was that kind of joke that you tell when you're speaking a painful truth in a palatable way. We haven't all been together since that night, and I don't expect we ever will again.

****
In the years since, my oldest brother has made it a tradition to come in from out of town each year on the 4th to decorate her grave. It worked out that those of us siblings that are around could get together more conveniently today vs. tomorrow, so we made our visit a day early. There were a few other people out there at the cemetary at the same time as us, braving the wet and the cold, staring at plaquards and placing flowers on the ground. All of us honoring the reality of someone, even as the concrete knowledge of the way they laughed, the scent of their skin, the way they said your middle name when angry, the way they couldn't hold a tune, and the way their hands looked as they touched yours fades to a fleeting ghostliness. For the world, the reality of a person who has died are a few stark words resting next to them on the ground. For those who knew that person it's always so much more, even as it's reduced to a simple gesture made with a bouquet of flowers on an anniversary.

Tags: family, mom