A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about my mother’s death. I thought that I published it. Apparently I did not. Well, all things happen for a reason. I am not sure what the reason is for the blog not being published but maybe it is for me to write again.
In July of this year, my mother passed away. When I was told of her passing, I was not sure how to respond to the news. You see, my mother and I were never close. We never really interacted. I was always my Dad’s child. A true Daddy’s boy. If I were left with my mother for any length of time, I would become irritable and irritated. Very irritable and irritated. I could not stand her and the feeling was mutual. Eventually my Dad would be contacted and would have to return from wherever he was to come to get me and then return from where ever he was previously. One particular memory I have from my childhood is this – one late night the house phone rang and it was a friend of my Dad’s saying that he needed help with his car. The car was not starting and he was using the house phone of someone else to call my Dad for help (these were the days before cellphones. We only had house phones and landlines then). My Dad turned to my mother to say that he was going to help his friend and asked her to look after me. They then went to the living room. Now this was late at night. The ringing phone woke all of us up. Those were the days that if a house phone rang late at night, it meant bad news. In my sleepy state, I heard my Dad asking my mother to look after me. Even with my head full of sleep, I was having none of that. I took my blanket, I took Eric (my stuffed monkey) and walked out of the house, opened the back door of the car and laid down. Eventually there was a commotion in the house as they realized that I was missing. When they finally found me in the back seat of the car, my mother reached to pull me out and I remember screaming. Screaming that I wanted to stay with my Dad. Dad just said “It’s ok, I’ll take him with me” and that was that. I was happy to be with my Dad. Didn’t care where we were going, didn’t care that it was late at night. That scene played out in several different ways, but always with the same outcome, many times during my childhood. I just wanted to be with my Dad. Period. I was not comfortable with my mother. Period.
My mother was a difficult person. She was not only difficult but she was also argumentative and a bully. She was also physically and mentally abusive. If she were living in a different time she may have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. We suspect she may have been bipolar. I was spared allot of the abuse she gave to her daughter (my half sister from my mother’s previous marriage). My mother not only berated her and insulted her and told her, constantly, that she was never good enough but she also used to beat her. Allot. It was if she was taking out her aggression and frustration on my half sister. My mother hit me once in my life. My Dad put a stop to that immediately. My mother never hit me again. As much as she was a bully and physically abusive, I do believe that she listened to my father. He was slow to anger but when he got angry, watch out. I remember, one day, for some transgression my half sister did, my mother beat her at night, beat her before she went to work and beat her again when she came home. My Dad also put a stop to that when he found out. Those were not good days for my half sister. To this day, my half sister suffers from the trauma of those days. Despite all of that, when my mother died, my sister was grieved. Me, not so much.
When my parents finally divorced, I was given full custody to my Dad by the Courts. In those days, that was unheard of. Later as a young adult, I found out why. As per the court records of the divorce proceedings, my mother did not want me and did not want my Dad to have me. She wanted to put me in an orphanage. Reading those proceedings did not affect me much. I knew my mother. I would have expected nothing less from her. That was the type of person she was. To his credit, the judge awarded me to my Dad. Full custody. God and the courts could not have made a better decision. I was my Dad’s child and I belonged with him.
I don’t want to paint a picture that my mother was the world’s worst person but what I write is all from memory. Those are the memories of what I have with my mother. When I heard that my mother died, I did cry a bit. But what I cried for was not for the loss of her but really and truly for the loss of what could have been. Had she been a different person, I may have had a different life, I may have known what a mother’s love was like. I have deep seated issues with trust, with interacting with women, with seeing myself as worthy of love and with being happy. Maybe that is the legacy that she left me. Who knows? But I do know one thing: she left me in the care of my Dad. A man who taught me, a man who guided me and a man who became more than a Dad, he became a trusted friend. It was an honor to be his son. So, to end this, I want to thank my mother for giving me to my Dad. I want to thank her for giving me life, I want to thank her for showing me how NOT to be but I would also like to thank her for teaching me that sometimes you have to be a fighter and sometimes a bully. Take that an interpret it however you will.
Take care mother, rest in peace. I am moving on from you and your memories.
But if you see Dad, tell him that I love him and miss him still.
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