the good mother

she is patient. she is kind.

she praises.

she comforts.

she knows how to give 'the look' and knows it will be obeyed.

she is fun.

she is smart.

she laughs. she cries.

she hugs.

she says 'it'll be okay' and it is.

she keeps promises

she trusts.

she is a good mother.

from her mother

she knows what hurt is.

she knows anger.

she knows fear.

she knows frustration.

she knows lonliness

she knows tears.

she knows screaming

yelling

throwing

hitting

she knows sleeplessness.

she knows pain.

she is my daughter

i am her mother

i held the legacy

she broke the cycle

she is the good mother

i am learning

from her

This is dedicated to my oldest daughter who is a very good mother.

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.

fake

she is a good student. the best. always there. always on time. no sass. attentive. good grades. maybe a little too quiet. a little too shy. hidden in the back of the class. answers on the tip of her tongue, but not volunteered. nothing ever volunteered. things must be dragged out of her. she knows the answer. she aces the test. she writes in her journal. in her lonliness. in her sleep. she writes to escape. the teachers never suspect something is wrong. she's a good girl. she never acts out. they are disturbing stories. she has a good imagination. they're wrong. it's not imagination. it's real.

she has few friends. no enemies. not at school, anyway.

her parents put on a good show. middle class. middle age. middle of the road. dad works. never late. never weekends. never nights. always home on time.family vacations. together time.mom stays home. someone needs to be there when the girl gets home. it's the right thing to do. the best for the girl. watches the clock. makes sure the girl is on time. she's not on time. wait until your father gets home. you bad girl. you bad, bad girl. mom bakes cookies. goes to coffee with the neighbors. works in the garden. smiles. a lot. takes the valium the doctor gave her because the girl is such a problem. mom and dad. liquor in hand. every night. sometimes mom forgets to eat. too many martinis. she's tired. she's in the bathroom. leave your mother alone. he laughs. evil laugh. mean laugh. he's not a nice drunk.

weekends start with alcohol. bloody marys. chores. house must be cleaned. the girl will clean. the parents will go. look at them. aren't they sweet. neighbors smile. they are such a close couple. they do everything together. grocery shopping. laundry. cooking. errands. they leave her at home. to study. to clean. she runs. screaming. throwing herself down carpeted staircases. she hurts, but no bruises appear that can't be covered. why? why? why? she screams over and over. she tries to make a phone call. a hotline. she can't. her parents will call home. if the line is busy they will wonder why. she cries. she cries more. she washes her face and calms herself before they come home. she's fine. she's fine. she's fine. she's fine. a mantra she repeats in her head until she can make herself believe it. a little while.

the parents go to the school. go to the concerts. go to the conferences. they talk to the teachers. they bring home the report cards. they throw it on the table. they pick it up again. they wave it in her face. bitter words leave spittle on her face.

"you've got them faked out. they don't know you at all."

maybe not... maybe not.

shadows

most of us live in a black and white world. we believe in what our parents believed in. or not. we were dressed up in our sunday best and hustled to church to be precluded by sunday school and followed by fellowship. a fancy way of saying coffee and cookies and gossip. we were paraded out for christmas pagents and midnight mass and sunrise services. we sang hallalujah in a choir or rang bells in a balcony. we knelt. or not. we ate unleavened bread and drank grape juice. the body. the blood.

we confessed on saturday. went to church on sunday. stabbed our neighbor in the back doing business on monday and fucked our best friends' wife on friday night. saturday we confessed and all was clean and holy again.

you were with 'em or against 'em. friend or foe. take 'em or leave 'em. one for all and all for... what? black and white.

they were different. they were niggers. nobody wants them in our neighborhood. oh... they're the new minister. that's different. we want to be friends. we'll show them how we can all get along. we want the daughter to be our best friend. we like niggers.

we don't drink in this county. this here is a dry county. you have to go across the state line iffin you're going to get liquor. we don't believe it to be a proper thing. here's $20. bring me back some whisky.

black and white. as long as it suits us. right and wrong. do as i say, not as i do.

she lives in shadows. her world revolves in layers of gray. she sees things that aren't exactly there. things that aren't black. aren't white. things that lay in the spaces between. things that aren't supposed to be seen. she knows they are there. she sees them out of the corner of her eye. she senses them on the nape of her neck. her animals react with confirmation. she would like it to go now. it won't. insanity or just another shade of gray?

flashback friday

originally post may 15, 2005

there was a time

there was a time when i was young and naive and believed the world was fair. i thought if you gave it all you had and treated everyone with kindness you would be in turn treated the same. years later i would realize how fucked up i truly was.

when you find yourself living in an apartment in the upstairs of a house where the heat is oppressive to the point you leave the window open next to your bed and find yourself covered with snow, shivering uncontrollably in the middle of a december blizzard three days after your eighteenth birthday. within 48 hours you are found huddled in the same apartment in the back of a walk-in closet high on nyquil by the fire department who have been called because you won't answer the door and your family and serious boyfriend who will one day become your ex-husband are afraid you are dead.

i wished i was.
i'm glad i'm not.

she touched my soul

go visit jay at kill the goat and read today's post. she got it right. the post is titled "not any more".

custody

when goodness came, she didn't know how to handle it. it was something to be fearful of, not to trust. she'd been fooled before. she didn't believe entirely that this could be true. what was the saying... too good to be true, it probably is? she wondered if this was another cruel joke being played on her by the universe.

she wanted to take a chance. she wanted to believe in the goodness, the light. he asked her to come live with him. he asked her to bring her children, her meger possessions, her soul. he asked her to try to trust.

she didn't want to risk it all. she didn't want to put her children in a potentially harmful place. she just didn't know. she talked to the man she called husband - in name only - and told him she was moving away to make a fresh start. would he keep the kids for a little while until she could find a job. find a home. he said yes.

he moved home with his parents, taking the children. she moved to another city. another life. she talked to her husband. she asked about the kids. he said they were fine. he told her she had a week to get her things out of the apartment. he'd taken what he wanted.

she got a job. she got her things. she was staying with him. it felt right. it felt good. it felt safe. he felt safe.

she called her husband. his mother answered. she said he wasn't there. it was early in the morning. she heard his morning smoker's cough in the background. she'd lived with it for five years. she'd know it anywhere. his mother denied it. his mother lied. she tried to let her talk to the kids. one four, one two. no. no. she could hear her little boy in the background, not much more than a baby. she heard him crying in rhythm to his rocking. she could picture him on his hands and knees. ma.ma.ma.ma.ma. her heart ripped out of her chest and fell to the floor. his mother hung up.

he held her as she sobbed. he promised her he'd do whatever it took to try and make it right.

she found out his parents were encouraging him to sue for full custody. the social worker came to investigate. they interviewed everyone she knew. they interviewed people she barely knew. when the report came back it said he should have the children. it said she took drugs. it said she was a bad mother. who said it? the people of the church where she tried to fit in. the people who claimed to love her. the people who were going on rumors and innuendo. the people who are supposed to reach out and help you up when you're down. the people who were friends of his family. there was no one to speak for her.

weeks went by. she was allowed visitation. the first time she picked up the kids and brought them to her home they barely knew who she was. they were distant and cool. she burned to hold them. to smell them. to touch their baby fine hair and look into their beautiful little faces. one blue-eyed, one brown... one brown-haired, one blonde. her sweet babies. she put them on the kitchen counter and let them watch while she made spaghetti - their favorite. she tried to talk to them. they just looked at her. she choked down the tears that threatened to wash down her face. they mustn't see her cry.

when they went home, once more she sobbed in his arms. knowing she'd done the right thing to leave and praying that she wouldn't be punished for it for the rest of her life. he told her it would be fine. he told her he loved her.

more time passed. court dates came closer. the divorce was final, but the custody still hadn't been resolved. she was seeing the children every couple of weeks and it was getting better. the day came. they went to court. standing outside of the courtroom, her husband comes to her. he's been talking to his lawyer and they were wondering if she'd be interested in joint custody. something new. it hadn't been used much before. she would have the kids during the week and he would have them on the weekends, alternating holidays. what did she think? what could she think? she was going to have her babies back again.

there isn't a mother out there who won't tell you the joy and peace of watching your babies sleep. she got that back. she never lost that joy. she treasures all of her children for all of their strengths... and weaknesses. she knows how close she came to losing them.

just because

in case someone found this site without coming through The Torn Pages, i will post this here, too.

i just want to say something about the this site. my husband asked me last night why i want to keep going back to that dark time in my life? why not just move forward? i want people to know there is hope. there can be a happy life on the other side of the abyss. i'm not claiming to be "suzy sunshine" all the time, but because of the love of my husband and kids i'm not going back into that dark place again. having said that, some of this may come from losing my mother at such an early age and craving that knowlege of who was she and what was she like? to have the gift of being able to see inside her mind and know how she thought - maybe it would be disturbing, i'm not claiming this has not been disturbing for my family - but maybe it too will let them peek inside my head a bit. i also wrote, at least to this point, without any clue that anyone would ever read this blog... especially my family. there have therefore been no special concessions made for them. i did not write to pump them up or tear them down or rip out their hearts. i simply wrote the truth, and will continue to do so.

i read something once by David Pelzer the man who wrote "A Child Called It". he was talking about all the criminals in the world who blamed their lives of crime on child abuse. he said he wanted to write his books to show that it wasn't always the case. that it was an excuse, like anything else. he wanted people to know you could be abused and come out the other side a whole, loving, kind human being. i'm just trying to show that although i'm a bit quirky at times, i'm a whole, loving, kind human being who survived. Rejoice!

helpless

in the days before... the dark days...there were so many things she didn't understand. she didn't know why her parents hated her so. she didn't know why she could do nothing right. she was never good enough. the grades were never good enough. the bathroom was never clean enough. the girl was never quiet enough. then she was too quiet.

in looking back the trail is clear. she can see the path as surely as blood dripping into newly fallen snow. one thing leading to another. the parents who couldn't let her out of their site for a minute. then they did and something bad happened, but they didn't believe. they couldn't believe.

the awkwardness. the shyness. the gawky teen years overexposed by drunken jokes and lewd comments. the young adult treated as a young child treated as a thing. never talk to this girl. what do we say? nothing. requests. commands. lists. rules. do this. do that. don't talk back. don't talk.

she went from being shy to being non-existant. she would melt into the corner of the classroom. please don't pick me. don't pick me. i'll write it down for you. don't make me speak. don't point me out. i'm here... i'm not here.

a teacher noticed her writing. another noticed her attitude. another noticed her mind. they were fleeting moments trapped in cinder block walls for six hours a day. then the real world came rushing back.

a job... a real job... a chance to get out of the house for a few hours a day more. a man, a boy really. he notices her. he sees past her silence. he sees her joy escaping day by day and growing as each passing hour flies by in the restaurant. could it be she is happy here?

they join and he becomes a crutch. a further escape into the night and the darkness. weeks go by and she is free in the darkness. free to be herself. free to have a voice. she doesn't recognize the voice.

they run away and get married and hide from her parents. his parents are very ensconsed in the church. they are displeased with the idea of living together but happy they've married. she tries to fit into their world. she tries to learn about this god that she's only heard about but never seen. the one she prayed to day after day and heard only echos of her own whispers in return.

children come. violence comes. small, but bitter. flash - quick. not sure why or where or when. forgiveness comes. hard.

jealousy. she has blossomed. she is a butterfly now...her cocoon has ruptured and set her free. she is coming into her own. she is starting to laugh. starting to feel some sense of ...joy. he won't let her. he is green. he sees her startling beauty. more so because she doesn't see it herself. she still carries the ugly troll within her head.

he mistrusts. she is innocent. he becomes more controlling. she begins to feel the pull of her parents speaking in her mind. worthless. she fades. becomes fainter each day. he still resents. he's angry and sad. she can't help him. she rebels. they agree to disagree. they agree to live in the same space but not the same time.

she tries to live again. one, two, three, four... how many failed relationships must you have to feel less than a human being? does being raped make you less of a woman? did you ask for it? did you? they say you did. she falters. she slips. she hides in her space with a man she no longer knows and believes it is the lesser of two evils.

she gets pregnant. a third. it can't happen. there isn't enough. of anything. now she is losing a piece of herself. her body. her soul. she will never get it back. she is less than before.

how does she know god exists? because out of the darkness came a man with a pure soul. a man without a hint of anger or jealousy or hate or violence. a man who loved. simply loved. he took her in and loved her in a way no one ever had before. he held her gently. softly. a feral cat come tame at last. he nurtured her. he stroked her. he brought strength to make her strong. he brought hope to the hopeless. he cared for her children as his own. he helped her climb out of the abyss. no longer helpless.

hope

two weeks before my 19th birthday my husband and i moved into a new apartment. i was very sick with a kidney infection and was in pain that i'd never felt before. every slight movement was agony. i constantly felt as though a knife was piercing my back and my husband couldn't even sit on the bed without sending me into spasms of white hot pain. we lived in a fairly large city and the powers that be decided that our name would be on the list for having a telephone installed when they said so. my husband pleaded with them, explaining i was very sick and pregnant, but they wouldn't budge.

two days after my birthday i was sitting on the toilet, feeling for the thousandth time that day that i had to pee, and not producing anything but a drop or two in the toilet. my husband had just arrived home and was checking on me when whoosh! my water broke into the basin. i was stunned. i wasn't due for two months! except for the water breaking, i was fine - better than fine, actually, because for a few moments i realized i no longer had the other pain.

having no phone, we at least were lucky enough that our apartment complex was right next door to a convenience store. my husband ran over and called the doctor. doctor asks if i'm in pain or bleeding. no and no. he says to bring me into the hospital. in the few minutes it took for him to call, i'd gone from no pain and no bleeding to bleeding like a stuck pig. he runs back to the store and calls the doc again - now he's yelling to get me to the hospital as quickly as possible and he'll meet us there.

i didn't think i'd make it. he drove like a maniac - through town, onto the freeway - to the downtown where the hospital was. it was a good twenty minute drive if you obeyed all the laws, and i'm sure we made it in ten. i'll never know how he got all the blood out of the car.

they wisked me inside and he went to fill out forms. they were getting ready to prep me, but one look and they said, that's it... we have to go now! my beautiful baby girl was born three minutes later. 3lb 5 oz. she was the smallest baby they'd had so far (until a one pounder was born the next week). they were transferring her to a bigger hospital that had the best NICU unit in the state, but they brought her by my room so i could see her first. only thing was, i had been so sick and rushed out of the house that i didn't even have my glasses - and they couldn't take her out of the incubator. in all actuality, i didn't get to see my daughter until a few days later when they let me out of the hospital!

that was a horrible time. my parents and husband were at the other hospital with the baby. they could go into the NICU and hold her and touch her and everything, and i was stuck across town not being able to. my parents would call up and, i should hope they were well-meaning, when they would say things preparing me for her death. they were sure she wouldn't make it. the doctors said she was doing well - they only had to open her lungs up all the way and keep her under the bilirubin light, but other than that she was fine, she just needed to gain weight.

when i finally got to see her she was so tiny and beautiful. the nurses all talked about how her hair was different than any they'd ever seen - it was light brown, but when you looked at it straight on, it looked frosted! it was amazing.

for all the terrible things i had done in my life... and all the terrible things that would come back to haunt me later... this precious child, my firstborn, gave me hope. she's never stopped.

regret

a friend asked recently if i had regrets. too many to count, i replied. then i began thinking about them. i regret that my children had to live with the blowback of my abuse - it might have saved them having to grow up too soon. i regret that i didn't tell my husband what he was getting into before i married him - it might have saved him a lot of pain. i regret that i never reported the rape - i hope no other woman had to go through what i did. i regret that i had an abortion - i pray i'll get to meet my little boy some day and be able to tell him how much i loved him. i regret that i never got to know my mother - few photographs and glances in the mirror at a woman who is supposed to look just like her is not enough. i regret that i couldn't keep myself from falling into the abyss. the abyss is always there. i've just learned you can climb out.

i don't regret marrying my first husband. yes, we were young and stupid and i married him for all the wrong reasons. marrying him gave me my two oldest children who are two of the stars that circle my moon. whatever we went through in our short time together, i will never regret having them.

i don't regret yelling at my husband's father as he lay on the hospital table awaiting an angiogram and wanting to die, "you can't die. you have grandchildren who want to know their grandfather." he lived a few years longer and they got to know him well - as did i. he was a wonderful man.

i don't regret taking a chance on love when i told myself i was never getting involved again, most certainly never getting married or having more children. i went on to marry the love of my life and had two more of the most beautiful children in the universe...inside and out. two more stars in my sky.

i don't regret the decision not to take the pills that i'd saved for weeks - sneaking them out of my mother's stash of valium. i flushed them before i could change my mind.

i don't regret chosing life.
i don't regret chosing this life.

pity

she was a loner. a geek. think "the breakfast club. think ally sheedy's character. she moved through haze-ridden days. thoughts clouded with confusion. frustration. no drug in the world could help.

he was a teacher. he read her papers. she read his thoughts. he kept her after class. she ate up the attention. he worried. she flourished. he thought she was suicidal. she was. he thought she was abused. she was. he thought she was beautiful. she was.

for thirty minutes each day she became a human being. she shared. he listened.

at the end of the semester he moved overseas. she couldn't erase the look in his eyes the last day they met. pity.

scaredy cat

i'm afraid. i don't fear the darkness. i don't fear the sunlight. i fear other people. i fear myself. i fear the potential i have for self-destruction. the potential for lies and more lies. the fear that i will swallow myself whole and all that will be left is a stain on the floor.

i learned early to depend on no one. trust no one. hide the true self behind a mask of contentment. be the 'good girl'. my dark thoughts corner me unaware at times. they sneak up behind me like evil slayers in the horror movies that make the audience jump with their surprise attacks. i never liked those kind of movies.

i don't feel real. i think i've played this part before in some other lifetime. sometimes the deja-vu is overwhelming. i hope i'm doing better this time. the next time i would like to get it right. days get long and i get tired trying to remember the script.

i see other people who appear to be as befuddled as i. they go from day to day hiding their fears. masking their disappointments. trying to be the best they can be with what they have to work with. you can ask them if they're happy. they'll lie. we all lie.

in that still corner of my mind i wait. for what? i can't say. something to change? something to shock me out of this fugue? i've done that. i don't recommend it. still, i wait. the silence between heartbeats is deafening. the beats telling me the body is still alive, even if the spirit isn't.

angels. demons. are they really very much different? i need some hope.

getting sticky

she had always been a computer geek, even before it was fashionable. from early days of commodore 64 and moving up to a 128, she thought her calling had been answered with the first pc. then came modems and bulletin boards and games. then came aol. then came aol chatrooms.

she was addicted. people laughed. they couldn't understand how somene could sit alone in a dark room for hours typing words on a computer screen and reading the sordid tales coming across in the darkness. she poured out her soul, telling of her pain and lonliness... her inability to meet people in the real world who could be as honest with their feelings as the people she was meeting online. she felt comfortable in this new world. she didn't have to worry about what impression she would make or if she would stutter or stumble trying to get the words out. she could be witty and fun and pretty and wise.

she could be sexy. a vixen. a woman a man would desire enough to want to leave his wife for. it wasn't all good. she loved her partner and didn't want him to hurt. she didn't know how to get what she wanted without hurting him. it was just the computer, wasn't it? it wasn't like she was seeing someone in person. these people weren't real. this affair wasn't real. it couldn't be. it was like writing a story only the characters were alive and talked back to her. virtual reality compassion.

she tried to explain to her partner that the people she'd met in this dark world were helping her to deal with her tradgedies. there were people in thie darkness that had suffered, too, and were able to relate to her sadness. he couldn't understand. to him it was just a box full of lies.

one night he saw someone signing off. they said 'i love you' to her... and she replied the same. he was deeply disturbed. how could you love someone you'd never met? did she want to meet them? did she want to have an affair? did she want to leave him? no, she replied, and meant it. they only had small pieces of her - he had her heart. she tried to explain how easy it was to offer love and compassion in the void, but he could only relate to the reality of her, sitting in front of him, fading away as though turning into a ghost of herself.

she put the computer away. she cancelled her account. she quit with the pulling of a plug. she mourned for the friendships in the darkness that she would never find again. she opened the blinds and let in the sun. she started to live again.

blood

they were poor, but not in the living-on-the-street-in-the-car poor. they were living from day to day scraping pennies together from minimum wage jobs in a maximum wage town. they were young. scared. married three years with two children to show for it. people would look down their noses at two babies who were two years apart, but because the first was a premie they looked even closer in age. popping them right out, aren't you? fucking like bunnies, her father said. remember, the pill isn't 100 percent effective. no lie.

when they only had one baby, they'd moved out of town because a man decided she was stalking material. they moved into the country into an old farm house with no appliances and oil heat. the oil company needed money up front to fill the barrel. it was winter. the back porch became the refrigerator. the electric skillet her mother gave her for christmas became the main form of cooking. his family gave them a hotplate. there was an old ringer-type washing machine off the kitchen and a line to hang the wash. the heat was kept low and they lived in the front room next to the wood stove. she'd go out into the cornfields every morning and pick up corncobs to burn.

they moved back into town when spring came and they could no longer get by without a refrigerator and he was looking into a new job and the second baby was coming. they got by.

the babies were growing. babies food came first. sometimes his parents would give him a ten dollar bill. it helped. her parents thought that would spoil her, that she had to do it on her own. lots of people die on their own, right dad?

her period was late. oh, god, we can't do this again. we don't have enough money to keep the two children we have fed and clothed like they should be. they can't live on love alone. we agonize. we weep. we know it isn't a good thing. we know we are going to feel damned for life. we just see no other way. adoption? no. she knows if she sees the child, and who can bear a child for nine months and not see it, she will never let it go. better it go to god now. she fears she wouldn't be able to eat properly and keep herself healthy enough to go to full term. she knows how terrifying it was to have a child born early and not to know if she would make it or not - and if she did, would she be okay.

they don't do it in this town. they must go across the state. three hours to think about what they are doing. the money they are spending that they can't afford, but can't afford not to spend. there is mandatory counseling. yes, she lies. yes, i'm fine with this. yes, i can live with it. yes, i want this. yes. yes. he lies too. yes.

they take her and she feels a sense of deja-vu. like birthing her babies. she's foggy. she hears voices, but doesn't follow the conversation. she hears the awful suctioning sound and imagines the tearing of little limbs and the soundless screaming of a perfect tiny mouth. the blood. the blood. her vision is red. she isn't supposed to hear them. it's a boy.

she's gone on to have beautiful children under happier circumstances and with the financial ability to buy food and diapers and toys and shower all of her children with the things and the love she felt she didn't give them in the beginning. when people ask her how many children she has, she says four... five... a whisper in her head. is there a heaven? she hopes so. someday she hopes to meet her son and be able to tell him i'm sorry.

all the anger in the world

when i was young i thought all i had to do was escape my parents. i married my first love who turned out to be a good man until the frustrations of the world became too much for him. we had no money, we were young, we had a premature baby, the stress was enormous. it started out as a game, a big Bruce Lee fan, he had always made it a teasing thing to 'pretend' kung-foo fight me. he would slap me, gently, and in the beginning that's all it would be. it would end in kisses and hugs and laughing. then as the stress got to be too much the slaps wouldn't be so gentle and the kisses and hugs and laughing disappeared and the bruises began showing up on my arms. i would wear long sleeves in the summer so no one would see. there was no one to see anyway as we weren't talking to my parents at the time.

later it became obvious that he was becoming jealous of me. i was young and tall and thin and had breasts grown by childbirth and dark hair and high cheekbones. i was told i had eyes that held a gaze until it wouldn't let go. i never realized how beautiful i really was until i wasn't anymore.

i would talk to his friends and his friends would talk to me. he accused me of flirting. we went camping one weekend when his parents watched the baby and he passed out after two beers - never one to hold his liquor. i spent the night talking to one of his best friends about his lost love that he was trying to win back. the next morning all everyone could talk about was how he and i sat up all night talking. my husband was never the same after that. he wouldn't trust me. i became untrustworthy.

we decided after a long period and another child that we weren't going to make it. we had no money, nowhere to go, no one else to turn to. we were our own best friends but should never have married. we decided we'd share the apartment, the children, and the responsibilities, but no longer the marriage bed. we'd live separate lives and let the chips fall where they may.

i didn't know how lonely it could be.

i met someone through his best friend. he was a shit. i met another person through him and went on a 'blind date'. this man seemed well groomed, responsible, nice, and we seemed to hit it off right away. he took me to dinner and said goodnight - the perfect gentleman.

we went out another time. learned a bit more about each other. meeting in public places.

we went out again and he asked me to go back to his house. he just wanted to show it to me, he said. i was foolish and naive. i agreed. i left my car at the restaurant. i've never been good about being able to keep track of where i'm at when i'm riding in a car - only if i'm driving can i pay close enough attention to get back to the place i started, or if i have a map. this time was no different. it was dark and i was lost.

he pulled into the drive of a middleclass neighborhood. well-kept, clean. he unlocked the door and led me inside. there was no furniture in the livingroom - he told me he'd just moved in and hadn't gotten much yet. he started to show me around, the kitchen, the basement rec-room. i turned, to go back up the stairs, and a hand went around my waist, another around my mouth. i was taken up the stairs and to the master bedroom. he laid me on the bed and told me i was going to be a 'good girl'. there were now two of them.

it was a long night. i began bleeding at one point and tried to convince him i was pregnant and i was worried i might be losing the baby. he let me go into the bathroom to clean up, but stayed just outside the open door. it was confusing. the were attacking me, raping me, but there was no yelling or hitting - they were talking in very calm voices as though they were discussing the weather. i prayed they'd let me go.

afterwards they took me in the kitchen and had me put my clothes back on. they discussed what they were going to do with me and gave me some soda. they tried to explain that i really had asked for it... i'd asked for it... i'd asked for it... it took me twenty years to get that out of my head.

they treated me like this had all been consensual. that i hadn't begged and pleaded and fought and cried. they took me out into the chill night air and drove me back to my car. he said he'd call me again. i got our phone number unlisted.

i started getting phone calls. i knew it was him. i had our number changed. i kept getting phone calls. i talked to the person who had given him my name in the first place. i found out he worked for the phone company. there was no place to hide. i had the phone disconnected.

we moved out of town a couple of months later. i never did go to the police. i never reported it to any authorities, never went to the doctor, never told my husband. after all, i'd asked for it.

dream

i have always dreamed and most of the in color. some of them are soothing, some rage, some make me laugh out loud or try to scream - only a squeek escaping my lips. occasionally i get the 'wet dream' - yea, even girls get those. when i was young i had a re-occuring dream. i dreamed my mother who died was on a ship just off shore. it was the old clipper-ship type as i remember the sails in the moonlight. a full moon. a soft beach. my beagle was with me, as he always was. the ship was close enough i could see my mother's face. she was on the bow, beckoning me toward the water, toward her. i couldn't go. i was frozen in place. i wanted to go, but i was afraid. something came out of the water and grabbed my dog. i was terrified. i couldn't see what it was, only that my dog was yelping and crying for help. the ship was drifting away. i had to decide if i was going to save my dog or go to my mother. i saved my dog. when i got back on shore, i turned around and the ship was a dot on the horizon. i always woke up crying.

eight years old

i was frozen in time at eight years old. that was what an aunt told me once after she spoke with my parents about how they treated their teen-aged daughter. she didn't know the half of it.

i was a teenager in a fairly well-to-do part of town with a large group of classmates and very few friends. we'd moved in three years before, but i'm not one to make friends easily and was still pretty-much an 'outsider'. i've said it before, but i was very much like ally sheedy in 'the breakfast club'. aloof, moody, painfully shy, smart but not aware. i hid in layers of homemade clothing and tried to melt into the walls. writing became my salvation and school my shelter. i loved school, but hated the people.

my parents didn't understand teenagers. they weren't exceptionally old when they had me, but perhaps a bit older than some. remember, in their eyes i wasn't a teenager anyway, but an eight-year-old.

i was not allowed to have store-bought clothing. this was at a time when jeans were the thing to wear to school. preppie was far away in years. jeans should be grungy looking, too, and have large bell-bottoms - bigger the better. if you wore skirts, minis were in. i wore home-made jeans that looked homemade. i didn't wear skirts often, because i would have to go to school and roll them up at the top to make them short enough to be acceptable to the others. this was uncomfortable and didn't look very good unless you had the right top. i was incredibly tall and incredibly skinny - about the time twiggy came into fashion. i know now that i was pretty, even behind the coke-bottle glasses and the bad skin. i couldn't see it then.

i would sit in my room for hours rocking back and forth in a rocking chair - a hold-over from my childhood days living with my grandparents when i would sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and rock. i would stare into a mirror over my dresser while i rocked and try to see into my soul - to see the evil i was sure must be there, for why else would my parents treat me so?

i was not allowed to leave my house for most of my childhood. when i was very young, my mom would kick me out of the cool basement into the heat of the summer and tell me to 'get some fresh air'. i would go out and plant weeds in my sandbox and play with my dog... waiting until i could sneak back into the basement with my toys and my music.

when i was a bit older i was allowed to take my dog for walks each day. that became my escape.
when home, i had chores like picking up all the rotten apples that fell off the tree in the backyard every day. cleaning up the dog poop out of the yard. taking out the garbage. weeding the vegetable garden (the very large garden).

saturday mornings meant cartoons and lazy pajama breakfasts for most kids. i never saw a cartoon on a saturday until i was married with kids. saturday was cleaning day. my mother was a perfectionist. i am too, but now i try and control it. the house was cleaned from top to bottom and bathrooms were scoured with toothbrushes. by afternoon, if i was lucky, i managed to sneak into the basement and watch american bandstand for 30 minutes before being whisked away for some other task.

as a teenager, my parents became even more protective. i was sitting on the front step one beautiful afternoon doing my homework when my mother came out and accused me of 'flaunting myself' and 'watching for the boys to go by'. i was sent to my room and for several months never left the house except for school. i went to a sleepover at a girlfriends' house one time and one time she came to mine. that pretty much did it. i loved it. she hated it. big surprise.

i walked to school. no matter what. no matter if the neighbor lady offered me a ride when it was -10 degrees. no matter if it rained, sleeted, snowed, beat down 102 degree sunshine. i walked to school. one time i actually counted out how many blocks it was when i was an adult. it was 12 blocks. that doesn't seem like much until it is one of those mid-west blizzards and you are huddled in an extra 20lbs of clothing and your glasses fog over with each step. god forbid you should cut across your backyard and along the empty lot behind your house to save yourself a few steps.

on top of the walk, there was the time limit. 15 minutes. no more, no less. if you weren't to school in the allotted 15 minutes, you'd be tardy. if you were later than 15 minutes coming home you were punished. punishment ranged from screaming to slapping to worse. once i had to stay after school for a special project and got home 30 minutes late. that was the time i got knocked into the kitchen cupboard, my glasses spilling off into space.

i started to lie. again.

i wasn't allowed to wear makeup, so i began sneaking around - running most of the way to school so i'd have time to slip into the bathroom and put it on before school, and running most of the way home so i could wash it off before i left. i was allowed to get a part-time job after school (as long as my grades stayed good) and saved enough to buy my first pair of jeans and a crop-top. my mom wouldn't allow me to wear them to school, so i would sneak them, too. finally, i asked my mom if i could shave my legs. remember, this is when i was in 9th grade. she said no. you never asked 'why not'.

i was in band one day and happened to wear a skirt when one of the 'cool' girls noticed that not only was i not wearing hose (another inappropriate thing, according to my mother) but oh.my.god. look at the hair on her legs. if i could have made myself invisible at that moment i would have. i took an old-fashioned razor from my parents bathroom that neither of them used (the kind that uses the double-edge blades) and shaved that night. cut the hell out of myself. got found out. tried to explain, then gave up. that was usually what happened. i just gave up.

one thing after another. i finally was able to get contacts. the craters that were errupting on my face decided to ease off a bit, and a boy in band noticed me.

i stayed after school to talk to him. i got in trouble. i lied.

'wait 'til your father gets home'.

father got home. at 16 years of age my father took me in my bedroom and told me to strip. everything. naked in my shame, he made me lay on my bed and beat me with his belt. i bit into the bedspread, tears pouring out of my eyes as i swore to myself i would not let him hear me made a sound. i know it made him angrier because he couldn't get me to respond, so he hit me harder and faster. i could hear the effort he was making in the grunts. the pain was unbelievable. i don't handle pain well. i amazed even myself.

i swore i would lie whenever possible.

i never forgot.

the devil's in the details

when i was young my parents were overprotective to the point of suffocation. i don't think they even realized at the time that what they were doing may have been considered abuse. i think now they did the best they could. i thought then they were the devil.

i grew up in several towns in the midwest. most were small and pretty tight communities. these were the days when my homemaker mother went to 'coffee' with the neighbor ladies.
one such woman and my mother got to be good friends. her husband eventually became my father's best friend. they lived a few doors down from us and had two daughters, one a couple of years older than me, one a year younger. i played with them both at various times, but never with both at the same time - they didn't get along very well with each other.

it was a time that i thought i was the happiest. i had a girl who lived next door who became my best friend and was in my class at school, and another one a few doors up the street who would play with us, too. one of us was always on the 'outs' with the other ones. it seemed it was always two against one and usually i was the one, since i was the new girl. when that happened, i would go down the block and play with the other girls - my parents' friends.

one hot summer day my parents and their friends were going to be gone for the day. i was supposed to stay at the other people's house where the older girl was going to babysit us younger ones. we were in fourth grade, so not totally helpless. the neighbors were going to have a backyard carnival and we were going to work on decorating while our parents were gone.

the older girl had some girlfriends over to help, too, and together we were all getting along pretty well decorating. at least i thought we were. As i mentioned before, it was a very hot day and the older girls decided to go inside and make some lemonade. after awhile, when they didn't reappear, the younger one suggested i go inside and see what the hold up was.

things went downhill from there.

i went inside, but instead of finding them in the kitchen, they were in the basement. i heard whispers and giggles as i headed down the basement stairs, wondering what they were up to. the lights were off, but there was enough sunlight sifting through the dirty windows to see them all huddled in a corner of the room, hunched together like some strange beast. i made some comment and it startled them, the oldest hiding something behind her back. i told them we were waiting for them to come back up and help....

to this day i don't know what they were looking at or why they turned on me. i can only speculate they'd found one of their father's playboy's or a hustler magazine. all i know is when i tried to turn around and go back up the stairs, a couple of them blocked me. the older girl that i knew had a strange look on her face - a grin that suddenly seemed cold. she looked at all the other girls and they started laughing and shaking their heads yes...yes...yes...

"we'll let you go back upstairs if you take your clothes off", she said.
"what?!?!" i replied
"you heard me. we want you to take your clothes off."
"no."

i tried to push through the girls, but i was a pretty scrawny thing for my age and even then a couch potato. i fought with two of them as the other three started pulling at my clothes. someone got my shorts down, then my underwear. i was too young to wear a bra, so there wasn't much to getting my t-shirt off. i was exposed. in the scuffle i lost my glasses, but i wouldn't have been able to see with them anyway, my eyes were so full of tears. i sobbed and curled in on myself and they called me 'baby' and 'sissy' and 'stupid' and 'cunt'. my mind was reeling - wondering what i had done to bring this down on myself.

they laughed as they went up the basement stairs, back into the daylight.

i found my glasses and put on my clothes. going up the stairs as quietly as possible, i went around to the front door and slipped out without them seeing me. i ran home to my empty house and waited shivering in my bed for my parents to come home.

when my parents came home a couple of hours later, i never got to tell them what happened. my father started yelling at me for coming home early and not helping the others with the carnival preparations. he called me 'lazy' and 'stupid' and 'unreliable' and 'bad'.

several months later when the neighbors went on vacation i was to watch their cat. i was to go to their house every day and feed it and water it. when they came home the older girl told her mother i'd stolen some money out of her room. she got me once again.

my parents believed me to be a liar and a thief. that brand stayed with me for the rest of my childhood.

hide the knives

i used to think i was nuts. i would ride around on the lawn mower, mowing our 5 acre lawn, and the entire time i was trying to think of the best way to leave my family. i would just think of getting in the car and driving as far as i could - not thinking of ever coming back. i'm sure my family may have missed me and i probably would have missed them, but at the time i saw no downside to the trip. these dark thoughts filled most of my waking moments, but not every day.

i finally got to the point i went to the doctor to see if i was going crazy. this was in the 80's when pms wasn't really very talked about and people were just starting to figure out this may be why crazy great-aunt anne was really crazy. the doctor didn't ask me specific questions, just basically let me talk and tell him what was going on with me.

after we concluded our conversation and he'd given me a physical, he suggested that I should start taking some estrogen to try and level out my moods. unfortunately, they didn't have specific dosages, so it was going to be a trial and error type of thing.

the doctor verified that i did, indeed, have pms. he told me there were three levels: the first is where the woman/wife kills her husband and has no clue she's done it. the second is where she gets the knife, wants to kill him, but stops herself. The third is the mildest where she just wants to kill him but doesn't go for a weapon. he told me i was the second type.

from that day forward, my wise husband began not to ask me if it was 'that time of the month' or 'are you pms-ing?'... but rather, 'is it time to hide the knives?' he got a much better response that way.

i found the estrogen made me a zombie. it just made me lethargic. i finally asked my husband if he would rather have me bitchy or a zombie and he agreed the bitch was much better - at least he was familiar with her and knew what to expect. gotcha.

i have a sneaking suspicion my condition contributed to my first marriage sinking. i'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with the terrible mood swings i had in the early days of my second marriage. i'm very grateful that my husband is such a patient man and knew it was going to be a long haul, but he's here. i'm much better now.