ElleSpeak

For most of my childhood and well into my adulthood I often wished fervently that some other woman had given birth to me. My mother, Maxine, was a very pretty woman whose behavior at times was unpredictable, argumentative, self-righteous, often inappropriate, and oddly weird, but she was just as often childlike in the most beautiful way, with love and kindness radiating from the center of her great big, beautiful heart, and shining through her dark brown eyes.

Her inappropriate talk of sex around me and my brothers, and sometimes around our friends would cause me to blush deeply with shame and make me wish I could disappear with a snap of my fingers, like a magician. Other times she would look at me, her face all lit up with the purest, most joyful smile of anyone I’ve ever known, making me feel like I was the only thing in the world she cared about, and when she wrapped her arms around me to give me a hug, they felt like the wings of an angel holding me close, protecting me and keeping me safe.

Many years later I would discover that my mother was someone who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. That information would eventually give me a greater understanding of her behavior. However, as a child and a young woman, I did not have the benefit of that knowledge.

My parents divorced when I was 12 years old and my father was given custody of me and my two brothers. We were living in Indiana and she was living in Florida so we saw each other infrequently. I deeply missed her presence in my life when she was gone, but never really enjoyed the rare occasions she came to visit. Her visits were usually unannounced and always accompanied by a carload of unpleasant drama, making the time she was here uncomfortable for everyone.

Later, as a young woman living on my own I decided to do my best to be as unlike her as possible, eventually making life decisions based not on what would be best for me, but rather what would keep me from living a life like hers, complicated, drama-filled, lonely and unfulfilled.

When I was in my mid-twenties she and I had a frank, but traumatic telephone conversation about my parents’ divorce. After years of listening to her and never taking sides I broke my silence. I finally told her how I really felt, and what I believed to be true. I told her she needed to quit blaming my father and begin to accept some of the responsibility for the failure of their marriage. She replied, “If that’s how you feel then I disown you as a daughter”. I heard a click on the other end and the call was ended, and so was our relationship…for a very long time.

I didn’t hear from her…not a birthday card, not a Christmas card, not a letter, and not another phone call…for 25 years. During those years there was a part of me that was devastated, and another part of me that was secretly thrilled that this unpredictable, difficult woman had banished herself from my life. I put that mixed bag of emotions on the highest shelf I could find in my closet of secrets, knowing that sooner or later I would have to bring it back down into the light and examine it closely.

25 years later she mentioned in one of the letters she occasionally wrote to my younger brother that she was living in a homeless shelter in Phoenix, Arizona. She wasn’t asking for help, at least not directly, but he asked me to go to Phoenix with him to see if we could help her; but, that’s another story for another time. Eventually, she moved back to Indianapolis to complete the cycle of her life, and that’s where this story begins.

When Mom returned to Indianapolis her health was in serious decline. We moved her into a one bedroom apartment about 10 minutes away from where I was living. She and I had found our way to a new beginning when my brother Gene and I had gone to Phoenix to try to help her, and we both wanted to heal the open wound we had been carrying around for 25 years.

At first, we danced around each other carefully, politely trying to get to know each other again, trying to come to some sort of understanding; but, occasionally the old wound would burst open and spew its’ rotten venom into the air between us, hot, loud, and dangerous. There were days when I just turned myself around and walked out the door a few moments after arriving, trying to avoid irreparable damage to the healing that had begun.

Eventually, I found I could remove my troublesome ego, like a hat, and leave it at Mom’s front door along with the years of loss, hurt, and pain that it wanted to cling to. My personal agenda disappeared along with the ego and that gave me the gift of being entirely open to what each moment might bring to us in the present, rather than dwelling on the past. At first I actually made the motion of lifting off my ego from the top of my head and setting it down before entering her door, later it would happen easily the moment my foot touched her doorstep.

Holding onto the thread of love that had always connected us, no matter how distant, we began to find our way back to each other, and as we got closer we discovered that we enjoyed each other’s company. Little by little we created a relationship fashioned from memories of the first 12 years of my life spent living with her in our house on Chester Street, and the healing moments we were sharing in the present.

Occasionally, I would get a call from Mom reminding me that the Hallmark movie was going to be on TV that night. We liked to watch it and then talk about it when we got together again. Sometimes when I checked my voicemail after being away from home for a day I would hear her voice singing to me, “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray”. I saved that message and listened to it over and over again for a long, long time.

Mondays were my day, a day to do whatever I wanted to do and whatever I needed to do for the coming week of work. Often, I would pick up Mom and we would spend an afternoon together, running errands, eating lunch, and shopping for groceries.

Sometimes we would go to Entenmann’s and buy loaves and loaves of day old bread she would store in her freezer to feed the birds, or we might visit an antique mall or consignment store, walking up and down the aisles slowly, searching for a small treasure, or perhaps for a familiar artifact from our good old days. Other times we would sit and tell each other the stories of our lives, filling in all the years we had missed.

In the summer months we frequently enjoyed shopping at the local fruit and vegetable stand. On this particular Monday the clouds were whiter than white and drifted slowly across the blue, blue sky, and the sunshine was bright and warm, an altogether perfect day! Our first stop was at a nearby roadside stand where we bought fragrant melons, red ripe tomatoes, fresh green beans, and two pounds of ripe Michigan cherries. I put our luscious loot next to Mom in the backseat where she liked to ride, and helped her fasten her seat belt before pulling out and heading for our next errand.

I heard the rustle of paper as Mom opened the bag of cherries and passed me a few of the sweet, dark red globes. As I drove we chitter chattered happily back and forth between mouthfuls of sweet cherry flesh, stopping only to spit out the tiny pits into a napkin. Our next stop was the drugstore, then more chitter and more cherries, the beauty supply house, more chatter and more cherries, Macy’s for a quick look at the big sale, more twittering and more cherries, and finally the grocery store. Heading back to Mom’s apartment we easily finished the last few cherries, and giggled guiltily as we realized we had eaten an entire two pound bag of cherries we had bought only a few hours ago.

With each bite of cherries, the bitterness and pain of so many lost years fell away,
leaving only the beauty of a special day, the feelings of love and gratitude, and the sweetness of life to be savored. We had both greedily devoured the delicious cherries, but what we were really devouring that day were all the special moments we had created together as mother and daughter. We were celebrating the forgiveness, the triumph, and the joy of love. It was quite a day!

Mom and I had two and a half years together before she passed away and I lost her again. Those years were some of the best years of my life, and I’m glad for every moment we had together, the good and the bad. I’ve brought down that mixed bag of emotions from the highest shelf in my closet of secrets, and I’m still examining its’ contents, but I do it now with the love and clear sightedness that the passage of time can bring. As I sift through the hard won jewels in the bag I see that I learned a lot about my mother, and even more about me during the time we spent together, and I’m forever grateful that she was the woman who gave birth to me.