Family Secrets, Family Shame

Today, January 25th,  would have been my mother’s 71st birthday. It also happens to be my father’s 72nd birthday.

When I was a child, I used to think that everyone’s parents’ shared the same birthday; but fathers were supposed to be one year older. In my mind, I somehow made this odd coincidence into some grand scheme of how we found “the one”; you just searched the world for your “birthday mate” or something. I’ll even own up to the fact that I believed this until I was in 4th or 5th grade. I clearly remember being embarrassed by my foolishness when, walking home from school, Cindy Phister said; “Today is my mother’s birthday” and I replied “And your father’s too!” The confused look she gave me was the first clue I had that my perceived method of finding one’s true love was just a bit off.

It also marks the 20th anniversary of the last time I actually saw my mother alive. She was lying in her death bed at North Shore-LIJ Hospital. I had horridly raced down to long Island from upstate a few days previously when I got “the call” and my family had crowded around her bed for days, waiting, watching. I did get home in time to hear a few last words, though they were hardly meaningful and did not invoke an sense of peace or closure; but her actual birthday, the 25th, she was in a coma. We said our good-byes and went home to wait; the hospital vigil was, at that point, for no one’s benefit, though there is still a lingering sense of guilt that she did end up dying alone in the end.  My aunts, my uncles, my brother and my grandfather, instead, played endless rounds of Uno at my mother’s kitchen table while waiting for the hospital to call.  There was no  birthday cake the year my mother turned 51; only a funeral, days away.

The year before, when she made it to 50, there was a huge party. I have very little memory of it now, but I do know it was on SuperBowl Sunday. Years before meeting Rye and not caring about football a bit, the SuperBowl had always reminded me of both her last party and then, the actual funeral. I was glad when they moved the SuperBowl into February. It broke up that connecting of time.

I normally have these types of thoughts and memories every year. A quiet observation, this sad mental dialogue, as I watch the cold days of January pass by. First my brother’s birthday, then my parent’s and then the anniversary of my mother’s passing which will be on the 28th.  However, this year, the weight of the time passing has added to the burden; saying the words; “my mother has been dead for 20 years” can barley be thought without feeling the grief rise and cannot be said without a tear coming forth. Been playing this game with myself for over a month now and it’s still raw.

It’s odd since in many ways, the good things I do attribute to my mother fill up one spot and I fee saddened, yet there is also the newer rediscovered reality of how horribly my mother failed me when I was pregnant with Max.  Hence, the emotions vacillate; I’m sad, I cry, then I am angry and I cry.

This week coming up also marks the 20 year anniversary of the last time I actual spoke to my father.  It was my task to call him and tell him that my mother had died; though my disgust and annoyance at his response gave me reason to pass on the phone to another adult to discuss arrangements and legal details. We had waited, I recall, until after the funeral as none of us wanted him there; not that he probably would have bothered. I have not physically set eyes upon my father since I was 20; though I was able to successfully stalk him online a bit earlier this year. It was as close as I wanted to get. He is a sad, lonely sick old man with too many guns living with an ugly rat dog in a tin trailer in the middle of the desert. He can stay there.

So yeah.. it’s a time frame heavy on the memories for me. There is a  weight to it. Twenty years without any parental influence at all in my life. Though my father is still alive, I am without parents and have been for a long time. In my head, I consider myself orphaned though I guess it doesn’t count because I was not a child and I actually do have one living parent. Maybe the words “emotional orphan” would be better put as really, I don’t have much family anymore. Truth be told, looking back, emotionally, I wonder if I ever had anyone really looking out for me – especially after my grandmother died.  There was a high degree of dysfunction at home, in family overall.

My brother was born when I was almost 12, so I usually say I was raised an only child, but I have a brother.  It’s weird  because we are full siblings, born to the same parents, but we were raised in completely different households while in the same house.  My mother died when my brother was just 14, so his memories are based off his still child based point of view;  he turns to me to fill in the adult perspective.  While I was the first person to bring adoption into our family, sometimes our experiences seem so “adoptee” familiar as we try to piece things together and try to figure out the motivations and truths between oddly remembered stories and false realities. We participated, we were there, but still it is like unraveling a mystery and there are few people left to fill in the holes. At least we have each other.

Matt and I were talking recently about the feeling of dread that we both independently experienced as children when we had to ask my mother something. Like I completely remember being scared, like butterflies-in-the-stomach-dreading-upset scared, of sharing a birthday party invite with my mother or a permission slip from school. Stupid stuff, and it wasn’t like anything “bad” happened – we didn’t get beatings-  but for whatever reason, my mother invoked that response from her children; fear.

As I was  thinking over the random thoughts that have become this post, I was thinking about how I so feared asking my mother for anything. I have long since attributed some of our issues to her narcissism, and as a child of a narcissist mother, I know that we are generally ignored unless our actions or achievements can be used to better further the narcissus’ needs. in that sense, my childhood requests would be an affront to her as what I was asking would only fulfill my own desires and not contribute to hers which would have caused this great feeling of disapproval that literally emanated from her pores.

I swear I didn’t try to do this, but I managed to almost shock myself when this one repeat feeling of my childhood became, suddenly, a new contributing factor in Max’s adoption.  I was afraid of resenting my child if I parented him. In my fears, I imagined my desires to  go out with friends would conflict with the responsibilities of parenting. Chalk one up to the “not ready to parent” excuse that was easily accepted by the adoption industry, but why was this fear not further explored? Why would I think that a parent would resent their child?  Ah, that fear induced by my mother – it felt a lot like resentment. Oh, she never had to say it, but that feeling of disapproval  is aligned with resentment. I wonder how much I  unknowingly  feared not just bringing a baby into that house to be affected by her, but also a deeper fear that I would be like her and make my child feel that disapproval?

I think sometimes that I have managed to polish over, in my mind, some of the rough truths of my childhood. Selective memory perhaps, the sanctity of the dead, editing the narrative or what have you; there is a lot of crap I have forgotten or perhaps never really examined deeply at the time.

Over Thanksgiving, we were talking about something I noted at the time of my mother’s death, but never really paid any mind. Now, though, the complete weirdness of my mother’s actions are even more befuddling, yet so telling.

Yeah, this happened exactly 20 years ago, too.

So my mother is dying  in the hospital. She’s been sick with cancer for the last two years, but we are not prepared by any means because she effectively controlled all communication between family members, so we are scrambling. She’s been working at an insurance agency for like the last four-five years and I knew them best, so I called her work friend Bernice.

Now, to my knowledge, Bernice is my mother’s BFF at the office. They have been friends for years. They do lunch, they shop around sometimes, my mother was always talking about Bernice. So I call this woman and I am telling her the update –  that my mother is expected to pass any minute now – and she asks me of the arrangements, next steps etc. So I remember saying to her how I left in such a rush, Garin (who was 3 1/2 ) stayed back with his father, so I was hoping that Pat would be cool and just bring him down in time for his grandmother’s funeral.

And she sounded really confused and asked me “Who is Garin?”.

Because my mother, who seemingly adored being a grandmother, hadn’t bother getting around to telling best friend at work about her grandchild. She hid this fact for over 3 years. Bernice was genuinely shocked to find out I had a son. I guess there was never a picture of us on her desk at the office. The story bothers me more now, then it did at the time. I’m not sure why it was such a bad thing that my mother felt the need to keep Garin’s existence a secret; I was married! I did it the “right” way – and still, there was shame? It really does completely perplex me. Why was there a need to cover up the existence of a completely legitimate grandchild? Who does that? And is there any other way that it can be seen other than seriously messed up?

I don’t think I ever really looked at the huge undercurrent of shame that was in my home growing up, but this recent bout of adding up clues and discussion it has me noting some new places here I can see the tentacles of shame enveloping my life.

I can prescribe to the fact that I do believe that my parents were damaged in their own ways. I don’t think we will ever have a clear picture of exactly what the root of their problems were. My father we now chalk up to some form of mental illness, though exactly what shall be a mystery. My childhood memories are not enough to form a diagnosis. While I can concur that I don’t think my mother ever really knew how to be happy, Matt was asking if I thought she was depressed and while logical, again my memories don’t support that. At least I can say that she didn’t sleep all day or act weepy and sad;  my mother was very disciplined and regimental in her cleaning routine and other exciting aspects of laundry. I would question now how  what she felt was required to contribute; did a clean house make her worthy?  One cannot vacuum up shame like dog hair.

I am, however, confident that my mother felt shame in her life and had self esteem issues. I had long though there was a incident of sexual abuse  hinted at once or twice by her, but never openly discussed. My brother’s questions have indeed produced that hint as fact; apparently my great grandfather was known in the family as a pedophile who went after the granddaughters. Thank you, family secrets, yes, I can attest again that they continue to wreck havoc and cause pain long after the perpetrators are gone. I often wonder what it would have been like to be raised by a mother who was more whole and not carrying her own demons.

It’s almost weird now, taking stock of the true level of dysfunction and seeing how it unknowingly paved one’s path.  Like my brother telling me that the whole family thought my dad was seriously mentally ill made me ask out loud, “well why the hell did no one bother to check in more often on me?”  I mean, granted I think I was a happy enough child, but by time I was a teenager, clearly by parenting standards I was “acting out”. I was “rebelling” and my gothic appearance could be seen as “looking for attention”.  Extended family saw this, as even in our messed up heads, we all saw each other weekly! I was made fun of for my hair, my friends, my music, my clothes by everyone in my extended family. As I type this right now, it has occurred to me that I do not recall one single time when any one of my family members ever sat down with me and really asked how I was doing.  Not even after I ran away and my whole family was involved in that. No wonder  I was looking for love in the wrong places and I ran into the arms of that adoption agency. At least they acted like they cared and I was literally starving.

Man, it’s so frustrating. Once again, I can see how in some ways this is like an adoptee might feel searching for their own truth. You can’t really understand the full picture of who you are and what has influenced your life without being able to understand the other forces that went into other’s actions. My brother and I are trying to piece together what has made us who we are, yet again, there are more questions than answers. And while it is tempting to just write it all off as unknown and declare that it was the past, the fact is it does affected who I have become and the influences on my life and actions, so in that vein, it is vital.

And then there is the undeniable fact that even with the knowledge of these wrongs, her failings, the damage wrought; I continue to miss my mother. There is a deep part of me that could just weep in longing; that deepest desire to be loved in the way a mother should, unconditionally, based on the very existence of your being created via her body is missing. And while perhaps, it was never truly there nor realized in a way that would have been needed by me as a child, my soul still craves it. The grief and loss of her death only makes it an impossibility due to death that I am missing a mother’s love in my life  and compounds the fact that her affections were warped by her own wounds, but does not removed the need in my own heart.

So perhaps, it is not just the weight of time that makes me weep. It is not just that my mother has been gone for 20 years now, but that in many ways family failed me a long time ago. I’m not 100% sure why I cry now, but the tears don’t care and they continue to fall.