friday flashback

Originally post May 22, 2004

denial

my mother died when i was a child. i was three. i only have one true memory of my mother. she had polio and was in an iron lung and i was taken to see her in the hospital. i remember riding on my father's shoulders and laughing at the nurses. my father is very tall, so i had to duck not to hit the lights. i remember standing on a stool next to my mother's face. she asked the nurses to adjust the mirror above her head so she could see me better. she was beautiful.

at some point after my mother went into the hospital, i was sent to live with my father's family. i remember his older brother - my uncle - driving me many miles to my grandmother's house. i liked living at my grandparents'. he was a manager of a supermarket who loved to fish and she was a lovely woman with a quick laugh who had raised four children and still had the youngest in high school. i remember the wedding photo of my mother in my grandmother's bedroom setting on the cedar chest where i could go in and look at it. i remember one day it was gone and we never spoke of her again.

my father would come to my grandmother's and visit me. one time he brought a lady with him who would become my stepmother. i was five. every year on memorial day we would make the two-hour drive to where my mother was buried. we'd take flowers and clean up the gravesite, but nothing was ever said about her. i'd learned early that to bring her up was to get scolded - i learned not to bring it up.

most families have photographs of their children around the house or at least in an album where they are produced for family events and memories are thoughtfully revisited. i never saw a picture of myself until my maternal grandmother gave me some photos when i was thirteen. i finally saw myself and my mother and a picture of a little girl standing on a stool next to a woman in an iron lung with a lovely smile.

in my thirties my husband had some deep conversations with my father. things i think he'd been waiting to say but couldn't bring himself to say directly to me. knowing my husband would be the conduit. one of the most shocking things i was to find out was that my mother didn't die of polio. she'd actually been getting better and had been in rehab and was going to be able to come home when she contracted pneumonia. it was the pneumonia that killed her. it explained a lot.

in my twenties i had pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week. my parents didn't come. my parents didn't call. they didn't send flowers. they ignored me. this was highly unusual. when i finally got ahold of my father to let him know i was better and was going home from the hospital, his comment was, "i guess i won't have to sent the flowers to the funeral home, then". at the time i was shocked. even for my cynical father the comment seemed exceptionally cruel. it would not be clear to me what was going on for another ten years.

my grandmother always said i looked exactly like my mother. my maternal aunt who hadn't seen me for many years finally saw me and told my grandmother that she couldn't get over all the mannerisms i had that were just like my mother. i guess my father couldn't handle it. i wish he had.

the denial hurt.