Memoir

I am ready now to share my story. It won't be finished in one sitting, it will come in bits and pieces. As it flows I will share in the increments allotted me by my 14 month old who naps infrequently and plays independently less frequently. It may end for you before I have completed it, it may be too sad or too raw and you may choose to stop reading, but I will continue until I have nothing more to tell.
First an apology; I am so very sorry I never meant to make you sad or angry. I only meant to share the world; to open your eyes to the things that exist that you may never see. I wanted to show you my life; uninteresting and dangerous, joyful and pathetic. I wanted you to see that injustices exist and honest people don't always succeed. I wanted to tell you that it isn't enough to live kindly and quietly you have to trudge along and no matter what the day or the universe delivers, you must never ever give up. And eventually and honestly you have to tell your story. Here is mine.
I will start with the saddest parts and the hardest truths. Then, we can work from there. It will be easier to continue once you've had time to digest. Other people will come in and out of these pages, I hope they are not angry. I will not tell their story for it is not mine to tell, I can only tell their part in mine. I pray that they understand that they are the arms of my starfish, unnecessary in some aspects but completely necessary to the quality of my life and the completeness of my story.
I am not perfect. I am not all that I dreamed of being. I have done things I am not proud of. I have hurt those that I love. I have received assistance that could not be paid back. I have asked for help and not been grateful enough, until time passed and people left and I realized how lucky I was, ultimately until it was too late to say "thank you". I have done things that I am not ready to mention, things to painful to bear. I will carry these acts with me trying to recognize them for what they are; a part of my journey and a part of the past, the very past that I must die to if I ever wish to move on. I falter. I fail. I have failed myself and I have failed others. But I love deeply and unconditionally. I try not to judge. Most importantly I try to recognize that by the most beautiful and intricate silken thread we all share a commonality in this web of life. I try to look into your eyes and recognize that you too have a story. And I listen. I hear what you are saying and I understand. I hear your pain, sometimes I can feel your story as deeply as you do. I have been places I do not wish to mention, but I know what you speak of and I hear you. I hear you weeping softly in the middle of the night. I see you laugh while secretly your heart is breaking. I know what you are going through. I understand.
Quickly now, the baby is stirring and today's time for writing is coming to an end. I will introduce you to the characters in my story; the people in my life. I am an "almost orphan"- my mother has, for the majority of my life been present physically (with a few complete absences from time to time) but emotionally absent. I am not nor have I ever been angry or bitter; she is a product of her time, a product of the late 1950's when women graduated (sometimes barely) from high school and then had children when in fact they themselves were children. She did not want us, she did not love us, but at 18 years old she did what most of her friends were doing, she had a baby, my sister, Renee. Then times starting changing. Gloria Steinem called. Women were changing. They were voicing their desires, they were expressing that their lives weren't fulfilling, the children weren't enough. The women burnt their bras and disobeyed the rules. They walked on city halls and marched for independence, often forgetting about or leaving their children behind. In the 1970's women became powerful, they left home and got jobs, starting in menial positions that quickly turned into something much more. Women found their voices and became "somebody". It seems that everyone forgot the children. My mother was a part of this movement. I remember my father's face, his disappointment and his feelings of failure when my mother announced that she would be getting a job. I remember thinking, screaming inside "hey what about us?". We became an integral part of the "unimportant job" of running the household. My sister and I cleaned and cut the lawn, we took care of our younger brother. We prepared supper and made and packed lunches for school and work days. We did laundry. We had jobs of our own and we went to school; Renee was finishing middle school and I was just starting. We were young women who did it all. My sister deeply resented my mother. I did not care. I figured it was the way it was and it must be this way for everyone.
Our father, now recovered was a functioning alcoholic. He was tough and sarcastic. He was everything that you would imagine an Iron Worker to be - strong, handsome, and hard working. He swore like a sailer at all of us. He yelled and demanded. He whistled and pointed with 1/2 of an index finger (the other 1/2 lost in a construction accident) and directed and yelled some more. He started every day around 5 a.m. puking in the small bathroom off of the kitchen. He would then stoke the wood stove in the winter, make himself a cup of tea, return to the bathroom for his daily "moment", wake our mother and leave for work. My mother would awaken after we had gone to get the school bus. I do not ever remember my mother waking with us and helping us get ready in the mornings. I do remember my father loving my mother completely and selflessly. I remember knowing that my mother was first in my father's eyes. I remember always knowing that although often mean and always tough my father loved the 3 of us deeper and truer than my mother ever would. I knew from a very early age that my father loved his 3 children enough for both he and my mother.
Renee does not speak to me and hasn't in years. Growing up we were never close in the sense that we shared great times, we were survivors moving through an experience we both dreamed of leaving behind. In our adult lives we became inseparable. Our children were like siblings. We loved each other and needed each other and shared stories from the past. We walked through life together; her husband's illness, my mother's callousness, the death of our beloved grandfather, and failed marriages. I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, but I know that I contribute greatly to my sister's sadness. I know that in order for her to survive now, in order for her to live a complete life she must cut me loose. I will always love her. I miss her everyday. But I understand; we do what we must to go on.
My brother, Austin could not for a very long time, step in shit if he was walking through a field crowded by cows and dogs and horses. He married his best friend, one of the most beautiful woman I have ever met in person. They shared the same love of the sea and fishing. They worked hard and bought a huge house on the water. They moored their boat in the backyard, like a painting, only prettier. They had 2 beautiful sunkissed children, small and smart, cookie cut-outs of themselves. Their life seemed perfect. Austin had a successful business and his wife quit her high paying position to be with the children. And slowly the shit got deeper. He started with pot. Then beer. Lots and lots of beer. He started hanging out with losers that his wife could not stand and refused to socialize with. More pot. More beer; earlier each day and more frequently. He stayed out late at night. Then he met coke. His wife had an affair. Everything gets messy here. She left. The house was sold. More pot. More beer. More and more coke. More losers. Another house, not as nice as the first, but on the sea and pretty. He hid his sadness in his work. But then he let his guard down. The shit got deeper and the field got smaller. Less beer. Less pot. More coke. And some crack. Only a little at first, to numb everything. And people starting leaving. The business started failing. First the boat, then the van, then the girlfriend. Bye-bye. A few arrests, minor stuff - shoplifting, traffic violations. Deeper shit. Less beer. No pot. Coke. More crack. The business is gone. Jail time, briefly given up for rehab. Arrearages in child support. Sprung from rehab. Absolutely no visitation with the children. Pot. Crack. Pot. Crack. Ecstasy. Crack. Crack. Crack. House gone. Boat, kids, wife, van, life...gone gone gone. He tried to cling to life for a little while. He worked odd jobs and found a loser girlfriend who turned him on to summer concerts and the ecstasy. He worked less. He stopped seeing the children. He stopped calling us. He stopped existing. More minor arrests. Now he is doing 6 months in a maximum security facility in Massachusetts. Covered in shit. He doesn't care. His plan is to get out, go on welfare, qualify for food stamps, and pay the Massachusett's minimum of $18 per month in child support. "Fuck the kids, I mean, they're young, they'll get over it" he told me in a collect phone call from jail "when I get out I'm living life on life's terms. Gotta stay away from the pipe man, it ruins lives. A little beer. A little pot. Fuck the ex-wife, fuckin' bitch and fuck the kids". The shit came in fast and hard.
My best friend has lung cancer. The best mother I have ever known - the person I modeled many of my traditions and mothering after has a terminal illness. And every day she lives. Every day she fights oozing eyes that get "stuck" closed, bloody sores on her head and nose and ears and sores festering on her feet that render her almost unable to walk. Every day she gets up and LIVES. She laughs and loves. She NEVER complains. She worries about everybody else. She worries that she has made people sad; as if she became sick on purpose. She apologizes if she cannot keep up. She apologizes if she briefly expresses discomfort. She gets me through every day. She is my rock. I look for her every morning and every afternoon. I know exactly what her day entails, what she is doing, what she is making for supper. I live vicariously through her.
If a fairy came into my apartment right now and offered me one wish, it would be that Janet's lungs would heal themselves; that in her next PET scan miraculously the cancer would be gone and her lung regenerated. That would be my one wish. That is how very much I love the friend that is a mother and sister, the only family I really have. If I could trade places, which would make much more sense considering she never smoked a day in her life and I smoked on and off twice, once in my youth and after my divorce, I would. I would take her lungs as my own and give her mine; she is after all a much better mother wife daughter and friend. But life isn't fair like that, cancer doesn't ask for volunteers. It cannot be returned or regifted. Although Janet and I came up with the perfect plan.
My grandmother is 88 years of misery and suffering. The woman hates life. She is vital and strong and healthy. She lives alone on her own. She walks faster than most 20 year olds, she does laundry and food shops. She drives but, "only during the day and only on secondary roads" (as if these day secondary road traveling fools have lives of lesser value than those night moving highway riding souls). She complains relentlessly. Most conversations start out on a positive note, but always end with crying in which she claims "I just want to go home, I want to see my husband". I can tell you this, it will be a long hot ride to visit that man, I loved him so, but an angel he was not. I can also tell you that he is not sitting around counting the minutes until his beloved Lee joins him, he is moving and shaking, drinking and singing LOUDLY. He is crossing his fingers making deals with Lucifer, "keep her up there, keep her there, please....please...". She wants to go, Janet does not. Simple enough. How about we take Janet's cancer, put it in a pretty gift bag with a bow and little card saying something like "here's something you said you really wanted" and we give it to my grandmother? Why isn't that a choice?
My grandfather, God rest his poor emotionally beaten soul was not a good man. I loved him. Desperately. And he made it clear, very early on that the feelings were not mutual. He loved pretty things. Women. My mother. My sister. I was not pretty and he did not love me (not yet, the love came much much later, when he needed me). He was very handsome, often mistaken for Clark Gable. He was very funny. He was tall. He could sing. He had charisma. He was a bigot. He was a bastard. He was not faithful. He was perfect and imperfect. He loved life. To its absolute fullest. He loved his house, it was pretty. He loved his yard, it was pretty. He loved his pool, it was very pretty. He loved himself. He loved flags. At first it was the flag with the martini glass on it that he would raise every day at 4 o'clock, indicating cocktail time had arrived. Then he loved the flagpole on his front lawn, he was a very proud American, drunkenly true to the flag, never leaving it outside overnight (it was not lit) taking us with him to ceremoniously take it down and fold it each dusk. Explaining to us that it was imperative that we never let it touch the ground and we never leave it out in bad weather. He further explained that if tattered it must be brought to the Veteran's Hall to be properly burned and disposed of. He collected the flags of other countries (they were pretty) possessing hundreds at the time of his death. He was proud of this country it was pretty. He served in the Navy during WWII, "the fucking German Asshole didn't see battle" according to my grandmother, he had pretty jobs stationed in Oklahoma and then Hawaii, inspecting fighter engines and airplane parts; pretty unimportant stuff like that. One day while returning from the funeral of a friend "the fucking German Asshole" fell, and failing to put out his arms to break his fall, he hit his head. Hard. He went into a coma and died of complications a week later. I believe he chose to die for 2 reasons; first, my mother and grandmother had started sending him to rehabilitation clinics to overcome his alcoholism (never too late, even at 79, right?), and secondly, he fell a few days after voting in the November elections between Gore & Bush and that whole political un-pretty debacle. He never recovered to learn the truth. Perfect timing.