I am ready to simply spend time with Mom today. She is fragile and vulnerable, in the beginning stages of dementia since her health problems in the last year. On Christmas day, I am in charge of the traditional turkey dinner for six of us, Mom and siblings.
After 47 years of living and working in New England, I am spending two months reconnecting with my mother and siblings in a way I haven't been able to during my annual one-week visits.
“Did you sauté the onions and celery for the stuffing?” my mother asks me from the couch.
“Yes, I did, Mom.”
Two minutes later, she asks me, “Did you sauté the onions and celery for the stuffing?”
Again, I say, “Yes, Mom.” I continue to mix the bread cubes, butter, parsley, and sautéed onions and celery.
Two minutes later, she asks me, “Did you remember to sauté the onions and celery for the stuffing?”
I walk over to her, kneel down next to her.
“Mom, I want to make the dinner exactly the way you want it. I'm following your directions,” I say, with a smile. “I am making it just the way you like it so you'll be happy today.”
She nods, smiles, and says “Okay, good. Did you sauté the onions and celery for the stuffing?”
* * *
We grew up Catholic in Phoenix, moving here in 1952 from Pennsylvania.
My father had a terrible temper, and most of the time his tone and comments were harsh and cruel to his seven children and sometimes to my mother. When my siblings and I were sitting on the floor together in front of the couch watching television, he would knuckle our heads hard when we “made too much noise.” Stupid idiot, clumsy oaf, lazy, ugly brat: those were disparagements we commonly heard from Daddy.
Mom was depressed and overwhelmed by the care and management of our family, and she had little energy for hugs or affirmations. I remember sitting next to her in church one Christmas eve, cuddling up close, slipping my hand into her arm - one of the few times I felt touched or embraced in my family.
I took to heart a lot of those criticisms about myself and didn't have much confidence. I ran away in 1966, as soon as I could find a way out. I searched for love elsewhere, since it seemed so hard to feel in my own home.
Daddy passed away in 1983, and when Mom moved north to Prescott, some of her adult kids followed. Mom and I have worked hard to find compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and for each other.
Now, at 67½ years of age, I have learned that the relentless self-doubt and need to be perfect came from being part of a family that couldn't or didn't give me what I needed.
I now practice a spiritual regime daily to support a healthier and happier life: talking openly with my friends, praying and meditating, studying magic in nature and art, journaling, and self-reflecting with integrity. I still have urges to shop or stay on the computer or eat chocolate, but I view those as replacements for addictions that have had more serious repercussions.
Perhaps it was my karma to learn these lessons. Today, I am grateful for the pain and joy of that growth, that humble honesty, and that personal responsibility that has let me return home.
* * *
I've been sleeping in the same bed with Mom, so we can be close. I love hearing her breathing. I can put my hand on the soft skin of her back and feel her small heart still ticking away.
Often, just before she falls asleep, she seems to remember a story from long time ago. Sometimes, her memory is sharp as a tack, especially when she is remembering something that happened 85 years ago. Other times, she can't remember if she had lunch yet.
She says (loudly, since her hearing aids are on the side table next to her bed), “I don't know if you remember Uncle Bob, do you? When I was a little girl, one Easter, he took some horse turds and put them in a basket, covered with powdered sugar.”
“Did anyone touch them?” I asked.
“No, I think we all recognized them first.”
She has told me that when my father was dying and they were waiting for the ambulance, she asked him, “Do you love me?” He said, “Yes, that's the problem.” I was shocked to learn that even she felt unloved or uncertain of his love.
I do believe that my father loved my mother. Perhaps he seemed miserable in his life because he was unprepared for caring for such a large family. He had only a fourth-grade education but became a skilled mechanic. He was a strict Catholic, a German, and a Virgo, and he followed all the rules.
I believe he was annoyed at the noisy behaviors and relentless needs of his many children, fearful and overwhelmed by the financial responsibility, still wounded by his own unloving, undemonstrative family and resentful that the children took away the attention he sought from my mother. My sister's special needs added another worry.
When my parents played cards at home, Daddy would often get angry and yell at my mother or even their friends. For years, because of the memory of his verbal abuse, I refused to play cards.
Mom plays solitaire every day but she is always looking for a partner for Rummy or Pitch. She whistles some old country standard, lays down her solitaire cards and, chuckling, asks me, “Are you sure you don't want to learn to play cards and play with your old mother before she dies?”
I consider this offer and agree to play; she teaches me Rummy 500, and from the beginning, I beat her 9 out of 10 games. I guess I have some of my father's genes after all.
* * *
Seeing where and how I share traits I have hated in my family, and where and how I make different choices has been challenging. Coming from a large family, my tendency to crave attention is strong. The way to get our parents' attention was to be smart, funny, or bad. The seven siblings became competitive.
When I notice my siblings becoming resentful, showing off for Mom, trying to “one up” one another, or getting angry over perceived slights or criticisms, I can react in the same knee-jerk manner.
Some people might think it's insane to come visit your family of origin for two months where you know your buttons will be pushed. Some might think it's crazy to sleep, eat, play with your mother, to hash out the arguments that come up with siblings, to say “you can't talk to me like that anymore” when someone tells you “you're full of shit” in the middle of a fairly normal disagreement.
It might take me a minute to turn around my reaction. It might take a day. But I remember a mantra: “Don't take anything personally.” I say the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” It's the balm.
I can see in myself the traits I abhor. I want to be a good teacher: warm, helpful, and happy to share knowledge. Good teachers know more than I do and can offer those skills in a humorous and warm way. They can attend to the needs of a group and not get flustered.
From the open blue skies of Arizona, the antiquities of the native people, the delicious authentic Mexican food to the over-decorated square in Prescott (rhymes with “biscuit”) and the clouds of smoke you must pass through near the many rehab centers in town. All of it, the delightful and insufferable, fills me with a wondrous connection of truth and healing, as I see it, of my family and our history.
* * *
I have a strong connection to the open beauty of this land, and it still touches me deeply.
I remember Phoenix in 1952. I remember the adobe-and-stucco 900-square-foot house the nine of us lived in. When cash was short, Mom made a Christmas tree from a tumbleweed she found on the desert. She painstakingly covered each tiny branch with cotton and with tiny painted balls, and she seated it on the large console TV.
Daddy taught her to drive at age 40, wanting her to chauffeur around the kids. She drove out to the desert and gathered flagstone, loaded it in the trunk of her car, brought it home, and built a patio in the backyard so we could have someplace for us to play.
Mom pioneered special programs in the public schools for my sister with special needs.
When I hang out my sister Margaret's sheets on the clothesline today under the same Arizona sun and blue sky, I have a strong body memory of doing the same thing in the backyard when I was 10 years old.
I went to see a wonderful exhibit of the work of Edward S. Curtis, the legendary photographer who captured, with great respect, thousands of images of native people. I stood awestruck in front of one with a group of young Hopi girls, walking with beautiful pots on their heads, full of water, smiling playfully with one another.
Tearfully, I felt that magic, existential connection with all of humanity, over all times on earth, while recognizing the artist's eye and intention. I enjoyed a place of innocence, forgiveness, and hope.
I wondered: Are they like me? I wondered: Were those Hopi girls fighting with their siblings or parents? It's likely some are, just as we do in my family today, as families did in ancient Greece, as they did in the time of Shakespeare, as they have forever.
* * *
My whole family is healing, “little by slowly,” as they say in recovery. Siblings speak more kindly and respond more patiently. I have asked Mom if she has any problems or challenges with me staying here, in her bed, in her home. I would ask this of any friend who hosts me for an extended time.
“Like what? What do you mean?” she said.
“Like being in your way, making too much noise, borrowing your car?”
“Oh, no,” she replies. “The only thing I want is for you to play cards with me more.”