committment....

"Every old sock, meets an old shoe" - Kate Bush

My mother was a bit of a prize beauty in the small town that raised her. At 15, she fell for a very charismatic 17 year old boy and climbed into the backseat only to find herself with child and married less than a year later. Her second daughter came 15 months later…latin twins…or irish twins…depending on which catholic church you belonged to. It was shortly after that when the erratic behavior began. The mood swings, the possessiveness, the paranoia and of course, the violence. I think there were parts of their relationship that many around them chalked up to their age and lack of life experience. Three broken noses later when he began to threaten to kill them all and then himself if she ever left him she knew she had married a monster. Actually, she married undiagnosed or treated bi-polar disorder. It would take many years for that diagnosis and her ability to extract herself from the relationship.

One night he did line them all up in a fit of rage…. They stood stock still in the back room as he went off to load his gun. My mother was 7 months pregnant at the time with her third daughter. My eldest sister who was 12, had the presence of mind to ask to use the bathroom. In his state, he just waved her off. She climbed out the bathroom window, ran to the front door and rang the bell. Ran back around to the backdoor and they made their escape….on foot….down the back alley to a service station about 5 blocks away. They huddled behind the counter as the attendant called the police. They found him driving around the neighborhood with the loaded gun on the passenger seat. He never made it to jail however. Right to the county psych ward. He would disappear from their lives completely because my mother bartered the charges against him for an uncontested divorce. He agreed. They would find him, years later, murdered in an oilfield. His pickup truck riddled with bullets. His second wife and stepson were the prime suspects but their investigation found so many people had reason to want to kill him it remains a cold case.

All of this, by the way, while my father stood by and watched…what?

I am the youngest only child in my family. My parents met when my mother was 12, my father 9 and his family moved into the house across the street. Their very first introduction took place the day my father threw a rock at her and knocked her off her bike. At 15, he was just a kid to her. A 12 year old boy with a crush. She married and he was sent away to live with relatives after his mother died but they stayed in touch. He joined the service when he turned 18 and my mom made it her duty to send him care packages and he continued to confess his undying love. I wonder if this was, at times, the cause of her broken noses…I’ll never really know. I do know the tale of a poker game in which my father sat across from her first husband and told him, “Someday I’m going to marry your wife.” I’ve heard that one from several folks in attendance.

My father swept in and saved the day. sort of. If only for a couple years, but it was enough to adopt my sister that was a newborn when they married and conceive me a couple years later. My mom had gone from toxic violent relationship to that of a classic co-dependent to an alcoholic. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body but could not stay away from a pint or the ponies. After 8 or so years, she gave him the ultimatum: booze or family. You know the rest. Well, most of the rest. Here’s what happened inbetween….

My mother never remarried. He remarried a bigger co-dependent and spent the better part of 10 years drinking themselves stupid across the country. They lived wherever work took him. Motels with kitchenettes or dank little studio apartments and when he could afford to live larger, the apartments were sparsely furnished and felt hallow and awkward, like a coat that is three sizes too big. He drank, he used, he drank and used with me. He went to rehab. He failed rehab. His liver failed him twice. Whenever I happened to see my parents interact, drop offs, pick ups, and what not, I couldn’t help but see the chemistry between them. They did their best to be civil but there were times when my mother was so angry and hurt that it was all I could do to duck and cover because I happen to have his face. Then I went to rehab and I think he turned a corner. When I had about 2 years clean and sober he appeared….i came home for a weekend and found him staying with my mom. Which he had occasion to do sometimes (he could land there and she would dry him out for a day and then off he’d go) but this time was different. He was different. The next morning my mother came in my old room to wake me. In true soap opera fashion, she slowing folded the clothes I threw across a chair and said,

“Your father and I are getting back together. Would you like waffles for breakfast?”

And that was the end of that discussion. He was, for the first time in my entire life, sober. And he stayed that way for two years. It was an amazing time for me. I was able to see, as I think most do not have the joy of witnessing, my parents in love. Not the old comfortable type. I mean, love letters, flowers, the long gaze that you find yourself caught in, and a thousand little kisses a day kinda love.

They remarried in July of 1988. I was 20 years old. By the end of August he was diagnosed with cancer. He died in October, just three days before my 21st birthday. i…..i….can’t tell you much about that time shortly after that except to say that I had many moments when I wanted to drink and use but I had just witnessed the very slow and painful death of a man whose face I have. And it was like watching a little bit of me die. A little bit of me did. My mother was inconsolable. It was the kind of all encompassing grief that rolled itself into all the other losses in her life. Now she is facing a terminal lung disease. My mom is a survivor with a capital S and has carved a nice life for herself. She busies herself with a million activities and has her own chapter of The Red Hat Society. She has traveled a lot, and most recently with a gaggle of silly old women. However lately she tells me that my sons are what keep her going. When her diagnosis came, she was stoic and bravely told me she isn’t afraid of the light. She’s survived cancer three times after all. “This isn’t my first rodeo”, she says to me. So typical of my mother…..

I’ll tell you more about my mother another time, but I will say that she is my hero. She is the hero of her own story….and like most of my family history, it plays out like a novel. No one would believe it as true except it happened to her.

I will miss her in ways I cannot even put into words but I’m praying, praying, praying she will not suffer through this. She has had hardship enough for a dozen people. God, let her go to my father quickly when it’s time……