Mothers and Daughters.

So.... if you know me, you know that my relationship with my mother is not the greatest. What is sad is that my mother thinks it's wonderful. I tolerate her, sometimes rebelliously, more recently compassionately. But it's difficult getting past the history.

The world thinks of my mother as a spicy, humorous, delightful woman. I remember when I first moved back to this area, I saw Patty, a woman I knew from my church, after many years of not having seen her. One of the first things Patty did was to tell me how much she loves my mother, what a delightful person she is. I hear this all the time. My sisters and I are stunned by it. Who is this woman everyone thinks is so great? No-one we know!

My earliest childhood memories of my mother are of her knocking us around. She would knock us to the floor, then stand over us and kick us. I had it good, I was one of the younger kids. My older sisters and my brother lived a nightmare life. My brother wet the bed, so she dressed him in a girl's dress and put make up on him and tied him to the tongue of the trailer, telling all the neighborhood kids to call him "Orina" instead of "Orrin." Poor Orrin was the only boy, raised by a mother who had no brothers, and when he did normal boy things, he was punished severely. He lived and died never having overcome the effects of her abuse.

I was actually a mother before I understood that I had been abused. I thought this was how parents treated their children. When my oldest daughter was born, I sat and looked with her, and the thought of beating that sweet little baby filled me with horror. Then I knew that it wasn't normal or good.

My mother married two men who abused her children and grandchildren sexually. In both cases she protected her husband at the expense of the children. She even moved the family to another state to keep him from being caught. This was in the 50s when records were not connected, and it was easy to flee and escape responsibility. She later told her grandchildren not to tell so her husband would not go to jail. She always protected herself and her abusive husbands.

I did not cast off the effects of my mother's abuse for many years. I had low self esteem, and she intimidated me. She used many weapons to control us even into adulthood. Guilt was a major one. When you called her, she never said how nice it was to hear from you. She chastised you for not calling more. It took a lot of years to recognize her manipulation for what it was. I recognized the angry response long before I understood just why I had that response. And even recognizing it, it is still hard to deal with. She still uses it today.

My mother is dying of cancer. Last December she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and the doctor gave her 2-4 weeks to live. My daughter is a caregiver, and her patient in Washington had just died. So she decided she could spend a month of so in Arizona caring for her Grandmother. I was grateful; with my health issues, I could not handle it.

I don't know if I have EVER felt the kind of rage I felt watching my mother abuse my daughter. After a month of my mother growing more and more demanding and more and more hostile, we put her in hospice for some respite care. There she freaked out, angry at not getting enough attention, and broke out the windows to her room, yanking the telephone out of the wall to do it with. It took 4 nurses and 3 cops to sedate her. Everyone blamed the medicine... but to me, it was like a trip to the past. The entire behaviors, rude, demanding, violent, reminded me of my childhood. It was like the illness stripped her of filters she had developed as she got older. I was seeing the woman I knew, disliked, and was intimidated by.

Hospice basically kept her in a chemical straight jacket after that until they could transfer into a long term nursing facility. She has been there since January. Her condition is gradually declining. She has ceased to be hostile, and mainly now is whiny and demanding. Her attention span is short, so she hates to wait for anything. I am transferring her tomorrow to a smaller facility where she can receive more attention from the staff.

The hardest thing for me is the attention I have to give her. I wish I could just walk away, be done with her. But I am a Christian. I am bound by a commandment to honor my parents. I am obligated by rules of compassion. I am both envious and frustrated by my sisters. My older two sisters have totally broken off ties, my younger sister lives and works out of town and can only see our mother an hour or so a week. My brother is dead. So that leaves me, trying to help her final days have some measure of comfort.

I hate it. I dread it. I tell myself it's not about what kind of a mother she was, but about what kind of a daughter I am. I ask myself how I would feel if one of my beloved daughters were to decide I had been a horrible mother, and they didn't like me. I'm forcing myself to go through the motions. But I don't like it. Oh, no, I do not like it. If I have to do this, I wish I could do it more willingly, less reluctantly. I can't see that happening.

Testing, testing, 1...2...3...

Okay, so Marie has convinced me to start blogging. I make no promises about the brilliance of my writing, but I have been trying to ignite myself into getting back to writing. So here I go.

Today I will start by reporting the facebook post that made Marie tell me to come here and blog. I wrote it an hour ago, so it's fairly current, at least! Then... who knows??

Raptured into the Twilight Zone??

by Kathy Blakeney Thompson on Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 2:23pm

Last night my husband took a trip to the Twilight Zone.

We had gone to Safeway, but as we sat in the parking lot, realized that they would not have what we wanted. So we left and went to Wal-Mart. Jack was tired and decided he would just wait in the car. I suggested that he stop at Home Depot, just a mile or two away, and pick something up while I shopped at Wal-Mart. So he left for Home Depot.

I was having a little too fun shopping, and instead of picking up the two items I came for, I spent about an hour in Wal-Mart. I figured my husband would be happily sleeping in the parking lot, as he had been tired. So I go outside.. I’m riding the little handicapped cart, and… he’s not there! I rode that cart all over that huge Wal-Mart parking lot…. No Jack anywhere.

So there was this little stand in front of Wal-Mart selling hot dogs and stuff. The guys were tearing it down, and we began to talk. They teased me about my missing husband who wasn’t answering his cell phone. After an hour or so of waiting, one of them offered to give me a ride to look for him. I was very hesitant, not wanting to climb into a vehicle with strangers.

I was desperately praying, hoping that he hadn’t been in an accident. I figured the car was probably broken down and hoped to see him walking up any minute. Time passed… still no Jack.

A smiling face from one of my branch members was a lifeline. Wayne talked a minute and then went into Wal-mart, reassuring me that if Jack wasn’t there when he came out, he would take me to find him. A few minutes later, I climbed into Wayne’s vehicle and we drove to Home Depot, checking carefully along the route. No Jack. So we drove it again, looking in all the parking lots along the way. No Jack. By this time my imagination was beginning to go wild. It was past broken down cars and accidents. I called the police, and they said there had been no accidents. So then I KNEW some druggie had kidnapped my husband to get our 22 year old beat up car. They were taking him into the mountains to do terrible things. I was outwardly calm, but inwardly totally eaten with fear. Two hours had passed waiting for my husband, not knowing where he was!

Suddenly my cell phone rang… it was Jack. I answered but could hear nothing. So again I knew the bad guys had him up in the hills where the reception was bad, and they were trying to kill him and Jack was desperately trying to get help. After a minute the phone disconnected. I called it back.

My husband answered. Where are you? I asked. “Where are you?” he responded. “In the Wal-Mart Parking lot!” I answered. “Oh, no!” he moaned. “I’m at Safeway! I’ll be right there!”

A few minutes later, Jack rushed up and said, “I feel like I’ve been in the Twilight Zone! I looked all over Safeway twice. Then I sat patiently in the car and napped for 30 minutes. You didn’t show up, so I walked all over Safeway again. When I couldn’t find you still, I went home to get my cell phone to try and call you. I kept feeling surreal, and thought if I called our daughter to say you were missing, she would say, “Who are you?” Then when he had his phone and tried to call, he had the mute button pushed, so I couldn’t hear him.

It is hilarious today. It was frightening yesterday. I was blessed by the comfort of friends who helped reassure me, and probably kept me from hysteria. I was so grateful that he was okay that I couldn’t even feel annoyed when he made it to the right parking lot! He was grateful to NOT be in the Twilight Zone, and I was grateful he hadn’t been kidnapped and murdered. LOL.

The 26 year old cop who came out just as Jack arrived was carefully checking to make sure he wasn’t drunk or anything. I wanted to reassure him, “No officer, he’s just 60. Someday you will do something this dumb, too!” LOL.