We are family

Always? Even bad mothers?

I’ve been searching my memories over the last few days. I’ve even sat through old 8mm home movies (recorded on VHS now) so that I could distinguish real memories from what I’ve been fed.

Here’s what I remember from say, birth to 5-6 years old when we moved the first time. I remember having a dutch door on my bedroom, to keep me in. I remember rows of medicine bottles on the kitchen windowsill. I have lots of memories of playing alone in our basement. Babies and barbies under the bar, singing and dancing to three records on the console record player down there, making tents under the pool table. I also remember having a bed of blankets in my closet where I watched filmstrips on the wall. I have no single memory of spending any time doing anything with my mother. In fact, the only actual memories I have of early childhood with my Mom were public occasions. She shined in public.

One thing I was told of that time frame: My Father tells me he came home from work one day and I was unconscious on the living room floor. She had apparently tranquilized me with her own meds.

Here’s what I remember from our 2nd home, age 6ish to 12ish: I remember spending lots of time with my grandmother, who for a short time lived just down the street. My older sister and I shared a room until eventually my parents gave up their room so Beth could have her own space. I remember my dad spending time with me, reading, fixing my bunk bed so I had a comfy cubby underneath. (Another hiding place?) My dad at that time was a truck driver and was gone for days at a time. The most I remember about that time with my mother was her yelling at me when we were out in public, but I can’t honestly remember any moment in that house with her that wasn’t documented in photos. Except I have a vivid memory of my father walking through the door with his little blue suitcase and my mother’s voice listing our infractions for the x-amount of time he was gone and that he needed to “beat the children, Vernon.”

Why can’t I remember? Is it because life was so ordinary, uneventful that there is nothing to remember? I’ve heard people say they remember cooking/sewing/art/conversation/bland moments with their parents. I certainly remember such moments with my own children. Is that normal?

We moved again. I got in trouble in 6th grade for the first time and the first thing out of her mouth wasn’t asking for my side of the story, it wasn’t parental at all. She said “how could you do this to me, embarrassing me like this?”

My memories as a teen are clearer. My mother often lied to me. I remember slaps across the face. Once she knocked me across the room. When my parents were getting divorced I found out about it from the neighbor. I was sent away to strangers for the summer and when that was over (long story) she and I lived in a new apartment and she wouldn’t let me know how to contact my father. I was told constantly that I was stupid, useless and a whore. Which, let’s be real, I kind of was. We fought all the time.

As an adult everything out of her mouth was belittling and sarcastic. People laugh when mothers are portrayed this way in sitcoms, but living with that shit is hell. I wasn’t caring for my husband the right way, my kids were out of control. She even called CPS on me once, but the investigators didn’t find a damn thing wrong.

There are two reasons I still have any relationship with this woman. The first being the last thing my grandmother asked of me before I left Florida was that I never cut Mom off. Therefore the weekly phone calls. Another is that she’s not the same person anymore. Right now she’s a fairly decent human being. I can stand her now. On my last visit there was only one sarcastic comment!

Do I forgive her a lifetime of lousy parenting? No. Do I forget? Some of it apparently.

So no, I don’t honor my mother. I honor my word to my grandmother. My life wasn’t what I’d say horrible, just not good. What I can remember of it.