I am swimming down Da Nial. In and out I go from the stream to the land of the living where I find myself talking to my dead mother. My mother always talked to her dead sister, mother, brothers. I use to hate it. Now, it is my turn. I made fun of her. Who is going to make fun of me? Roberta, of course, because that is what best friends are for. They make each other laugh to numb the pain. Laughter is the Great Novocaine. Best friends distract you from the pain and the sadness so you can catch your emotional breath and go on to the business of living. More and More I think of how hard I was on my mother. I can only hope Bernice, her best friend, was able to distract her from any pain I may have caused. I often asked "Where were you all those years I needed guidance and braces, and directions for how to navigate through the wild forests of West Rogers Park which really was just a wholesome neighborhood made up of alleys, gangways and laundry rooms and basements where kids played, and hid, and sometimes smoked cigarettes or made out. I never made out back then, okay once maybe in Eileen D.’s basement but I kept my lips tightly closed, I swear. Cigarettes, now they showed up in our own little apartment thanks to my older brother. My mom did not fight with us or kick us out when we started smoking. My mom also did not take me to an orthodontist until I asked her. And then she found a friend of my Uncles who turned out to be a lousy orthodontist. Why wasn’t she more “on top of things”? I was always demanding an explanation for decades after my childhood had evaporated. " Didn’t you realize the responsibility of parenting?" It always seemed to my childish mind that my mother had no idea as to what to do to make sure I was going to live up to the grand potential I had deluded myself into thinking was my birthright.
It took several years of therapy, not to mention the road of trying on different therapists until I found the one that fit, before I was finally able to look in the rear view mirror and see what really happened. Life is a metaphor for driving and I did not learn how to drive until I was 25. I did not understand the need for side mirrors or a rear view mirror. But “life is a highway” and you are going need to merge and change lanes, and suddenly, those mirrors can make the difference between life and death. My mother never learned how to drive, yet, she managed to do a great deal of traveling over a long period of time. Perhaps she really was a soul from way beyond who did not need those mirrors to get her to her destination.
My mother must have felt like she got run over by a truck when my dad died. It was only one year after her sister died. Her sister, the oldest of the five, was more like her mother. I know with the certainty that only a daughter can have, losing her sister was the greater loss of the two. And there I was always criticizing, demanding, expecting. Now as I alternately bathe myself in the Rivers of Da Nial and Sa Row I cannot fathom how my mom even made it through one day. I always wanted her to move forward and more importantly to look at me. I was what mattered. The past was gone. The dead are gone forever.
So why in the world am I sitting here stuck and wanting to drown myself in the River of Sa Row. I have two children, a loving husband, great friends, a cute dog, and I can’t figure out how to register my daughter for Fall Soccer on Line. The frustration leads me to want to dump the responsibility of even this tiny task on my husband’s already overflowing cart. I have to get my son nice shoes, and it is just another chore that suddenly seems overwhelming because my mother passed away on April 20, 2010.
I miss her so much and I know I can never live up to what an incredible woman she was. I did not do enough for her to let her know. I pushed her all the time, to move on, to forget about it, to suck it up. She wanted praise, attention and love and I kept hounding her to just be there for me, do this for me, think about me. We were wrapped around each other like a braided rope so we could pull more weight behind us and now I am only half as thick and no longer as strong without her. I keep imagining the sand colored rope tightly twisted. It unraveled as she slowly lost her battle to live and breathless. How much weight can I bear without her?
I need to cry for a 1,000 years and yet, I can only allow myself stolen minutes when no one is around because I know better. My children need me. I have to buy my son shoes and get my daughter signed up for soccer. What will they say about me one day when they look back? Will they say " I needed her and she was so wrapped up in her own grief from losing her mother she could barely be there for me. Why didn’t she go out and get a job so I would not have to take out student loans for college? How hard could it have been? Other mother’s worked. I know the economy was bad at the time, but she seemed smart and resourceful, so what was the problem?” I will point them to the drawers filled with my journals, and pray they can find it in their hearts to forgive me.
I miss my mother but what I miss more is that I don’t think I lavished enough praise on her for what she accomplished in life and I fear she did not know how incredible I thought she was and how I realize now all the mountains she had to climb to get us to where we last saw each other. She has left me alone up here on the top looking across the landscape of our lives. Up here I should be able to see 360 degree around. I am afraid because the path behind is clear but the view ahead is covered in clouds and now I have to climb down by myself. I am frightened my one strand of the rope will not hold me or prevent me from tumbling down.
My mother was so remarkable. I keep hearing stories of people whose lives spiraled out of control, who cannot afford medicine, or their own home or even money for food. My mother made sure she had enough money to never be a burden. She took care of herself, and still had enough to be generous to others. I have beautiful straight teeth. Did it really matter how I got them? She paid for all of it. She could not go around networking with other mothers to find the best orthodontist because she was too busy making sure we all were safe and comfortable. And we were. I have to try harder to be more like her. Funny, I grew up wanting not to be like her at all. I resented so many things and now I see how a child’s view of an adult's struggles is a lot like trying keep your eyes open under water. It burns so you either get goggles or keep your lids closed tightly. I must have been closing my eyes.
To the rest of the world it was quite apparent that my mother and I were exactly alike. It never was to either of us. It was not that we were identical. It was that we were simply two pieces of the same braid, woven together so we could bear more weight, pull more hope out of life, and move up the mountains. In gym I never was able to climb the rope, but in life, my mother and I were the rope. Is she ringing the bell at the top for us to let me know she got there okay? I can’t hear a thing under the water in the River of Sa Row.
I am all that is left of you Becky. I want to go back to our building, our Tara and think about us and look in the windows where the bedrooms we shared were and remember every moment, good and bad, and whisper to the yellow bricks, we are still inside, together, forever. Don’t ever let that building fall down or crumble to the ground dear lord. It is a sacred place in my heart and soul. It was “The Building” and Becky was the “Landlord.”. I am beyond the block now, on a mountain where it is cold and the ground is rocky. I hope my pen can become a staff to help me steady my self on the way down.
BLOCKS
.
I grew up on the 6200 Block of North Rockwell in Chicago
I am a Chip off the Old Block
And now I have Writer’s Block.
On the Block where I lived were bungalows and apartment buildings
Block by Block an entire Neighborhood was formed
Brick by Brick the bungalows and apartment buildings became containers for lives, and stories blocking the view inside from the outside world.
Blocked views meant secrets could be formed and secrets are dangerous like cancer because they can lay dormant for years before they begin spreading.
A blocked view prevents you from seeing so how will you know which way to go?
What if the Road you need is Blocked Off?
You will find yourself searching for unmarked Detours in order to get to your destination.
This Road I am on now is Blocked Off.
Is the sorrow blocking my view?
Blocks can be toys or learning tools too.
Children playing with blocks create Towers and Tunnels
Blocks with letters and numbers build words and equations
B A T or 1 + 2 = 3, or 3 – 2 = 1
Blocks of Ice
Minute by minute
Melting
Water flowing
Back into the streams of denial and sorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment