Erase and Start Over

The resurfacing memories of a woman with PTSD.

Tag Archives: old memories


by Leave a comment

My Woods

700_SF_-_Muir_Woods_Creek_P2906r

Of all the things I am thankful for, I must include that safe space of my teenage years in Kansas City, a small woods hidden less than a mile from my home. We had lived on Belvedere Parkway over a year before I found them, and I wouldn’t have found them at all if it hadn’t been for the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed. My mom had eventually handed her album down to me along with her old record player from when we were in California, and I listened to music in my room for hours – like any teenager.

“Something calls to me.

“The trees are drawing me near.

“I’ve got to find out why.

“Those gentle voices I hear,

“Explain it all with a sigh.”

I don’t know why those song lines always move me when I hear them, but they especially did so when I was a young, imaginable teen who played Dungeons & Dragons and read Tolkien over and over. I liked to imagine that the trees could talk to me, that I could understand what the leaves were whispering. I would go on long walks in the neighborhood at twilight, when the lowering sky and lengthening shadows added an air of mystery to the familiar streets and houses.

On one of those walks, I found a stretch of trees, a small woods, that developers had not yet torn down. There was a small creek that ran in front of it, with a high embankment that stood about three feet above the ground. I would scramble up the dusty embankment, finding footholds in the exposed roots from all the trees reaching toward the scurrying trail of water.

With dirty knees and fingernails, I would sit with an arm draped around a slender tree trunk, my scruffy sneakers dangling over the creek. It felt good to sit there, feeling the rough bark against my arm and torso through my thin t-shirt; listening to the birds chattering above; watching the sunlight dance to and fro across the water through the moving leaves.

The view was not that great. I was facing the houses where I came from, the very thing I was trying to escape. I didn’t want to look back, so I got up and walked deeper into the woods. The trees were spaced far enough apart that it was easy walking. There was no clear path, but I could see where other kids had been here before me. There were even bike tracks. There were dried leaves and pine needles crunching underfoot, and the breeze flowed easily through the trunks and underbrush.

I only walked about ten minutes before reaching the other end of the woods, which abruptly stopped at the edge of an expanse of meadow. One of the trees at the edge had sturdy, low branches, so I swung up into it and settled myself comfortably, leaning back into the trunk and filling my eyes with all those tall grasses and swinging wildflowers. Most of them were tiny purple things, dotted with Queen Anne’s lace and honeysuckle. It was the end of summer, and already a few leaves were starting to turn in the woods, but that sunny meadow looked like winter could never touch it.

I remember closing my eyes and smelling the warm, earthy air. I was still for so long that the squirrels came back out, climbing the tree next to me, and pausing every time I shifted my weight on that uncomfortable hard branch. I listened to every tiny rustle in the leaves and on the ground, every creak in the swaying branches, every call of each crow and sparrow. I felt far away from civilization, far away from modern times. I could imagine an elf peering at me from behind a tree, or a druid gathering stones for a mysterious circle. For those few, wonderful moments, magic was possible. I was a changeling, and my real mother – some magical being – would soon appear and take me to live with her in a far-away land.

I visited those woods often, and even stopped there to say goodbye the night I ran away from home at 17. I was so happy there, in that world where anything was possible, any dream could come true. They are gone now, developers finally built suburban homes over most of them, but I will always be thankful for the time that I was a child of those magical woods.


by Leave a comment

Losing Bill Cosby

November 20, 2014

Bill Cosby is all over news and social media for alleged sexual assaults. Alan Chartock asked this morning, on WAMC, what is the thing that draws people to this story, making it go viral?

I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, he was an icon that represented the good in my childhood. My mom had his Wonderfulness album, and we listened to that record over and over until we knew the stories by heart. We would laugh together, as a family, and it was – well – wonderfulness.

I saved my pennies and when he came to Albany, NY, I bought a ticket and went to see him at the Palace Theatre as a birthday present to myself. It felt great to sit in the same room with this man who could make my mother laugh, who unknowingly brought motherly hugs and kisses and tickles to girls who were desperate for their beautiful mother’s love, this woman whose smile could light the Empire State Building.

Even today, just thinking about Tonsils or the Chicken Heart, I feel that happy warmth of those very rare, loving hugs from Mom. But if the news about Bill Cosby is true, then a part of me will know I’m listening to the work of a rapist. My heart and prayers go out to his family and his victim(s).

I know, I know. Whatever he may have done, it doesn’t change the fact that those happy childhood moments did happen; they were real. I’ll probably get over this feeling that those memories are now tainted. But today, my visceral reaction is to wish I could punch this man in the nose for being unable to control his baser instincts. He’s a national family-man icon. He has a responsibility to behave like one, and if he can’t do that, to at least not do anything criminal.

My answer to Chartock’s question is that I’m drawn to the story because I feel betrayed by a public figure I trusted, that the little girl inside of me trusted. It is very hard to lose a childhood hero.


by Leave a comment

Checking In – La Parte Dos

shower_review_pilot_sc_florence_dsc03797

TRIGGER WARNING

Monday  June 2, 2014 12:30 p.m.

I was trembling from the time I left my office, through the cell phone calls from my car trying to find help, to the time I pulled into the garage of the medical office park. I felt physically sick and lightheaded, and my emotions were swinging from anger to trepidation to relief and back. I was going to get to talk to someone and get this all out of me, and everything would be back to normal tomorrow. I locked up the car and headed to where I thought the entrance was for the Capital District Psychiatric Center. Every step was a struggle. I wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and just cry. But I made it to the building and, after a little confusion, found the right entrance. The door was locked, so I pressed the buzzer and waited, wishing there was a bench to sit on.

The unprepossessing entrance was opened by a wary face who only let me in as far as the vestibule, his eyes looking me up and down as if I could be hiding a weapon. I lifted my eyebrows, a bit surprised, and he explained that they had to be very careful about what went past those doors. He asked my purpose, and made sure I understood that if I admitted myself, I couldn’t leave until the doctors gave permission for me to leave.

I didn’t see a problem with that – I knew I wasn’t a danger to myself or anyone else, I just needed to talk to someone and I couldn’t wait six weeks for a regular therapist to be available. I was sure I’d be out in a few hours, so I signed the book and let him look through my purse, and then he unlocked the next door and let me in, locking the door behind me.

I had never been in an emergency room like this one. Being locked in made me apprehensive enough, but the place was dingy. An old box T.V. was attached up high in one corner. The wood and cloth chairs were bolted together and to the floor. There was only one wooden table with rounded corners, also bolted to the floor. The dull fabric looked stained. The glass door behind me had small lines running through it – some kind of security glass, I guess. It was cloudy with greasy fingerprints and smudges. I wouldn’t want to touch that door handle unless I was wearing gloves. There was another door to the left, locked with a small window at eye level, and a third door just like it straight in front of me. To the right was a reception area, with a staff person sitting behind more security glass. There was a long hallway to the right, with several gray metal doors with small windows.

Everything looked grubby, and there was an occasional waft of unwashed human bodies floating in the cold air-conditioned space. Curled up on a chair near the reception desk was a woman with unkempt hair, covered in a blanket up to her chin, sleeping. There was a litter of small brown paper bags on the chair next to her, and a half-eaten apple.

The staff person who admitted me regained my attention and took me through the door straight ahead. On the other side was a row of three closet-sized rooms, each with a table and a couple chairs. He gestured to one and explained that I would begin with some paperwork, and then there would be an initial intake interview. Then he left me alone with a pen and clipboard.

I pushed back my regret as I reached for the paperwork. Finally, something that made this place feel a little more like a legitimate hospital. Of course they’d get the money-part right. I filled in my insurance, took emergency contact numbers out of my cell phone, and was just finishing up the last form when a man and a woman walked in, smiling their welcomes.

I shook their hands and they walked me through the next steps. One was a social worker, the other a staff member trained in peer counseling and emergency aid. They were both kind and intelligent, so I relaxed a bit, ready to trust the process. The relief started to outweigh the trepidation.

When they asked why I was here, I gave them the short version first as background. I was abducted by a parent at 3; we were always on the run – went to 5 elementary schools; she beat the hell out of us with a metal cooking spoon and whatever else she got her hands on; I was a teenage runaway; I got pregnant and married at 19; that marriage ended with me in the hospital and him in jail; and my real father found me when I was 21; that I’d been having nightmares my whole life.

Then I told them what was new that brought me in here: that my step-father had died the week before, and I went to visit my estranged mother at my sisters’ request. That my sisters and I had gotten to talking, and that one sister revealed she had been raped – in our mother’s presence – when she was 9 years old. And after that I began having memories I had never had before. That I was afraid I might have been there when it happened. That I was so angry and had all these emotions I was struggling to control. I told them I just needed to talk to someone and get it all out because I felt completely wrong, like I would explode if I didn’t do something, anything.

They asked me if I had ever contemplated suicide, and I told them of course, just like anyone else, but I wouldn’t do it because I have two children I’m responsible for. That worried them at first, but once I explained that Demi was 29 and Daisy would be 16 in a few days, and that Demi and my ex-husband could take care of Daisy in my absence, then they were reassured. I did say that sometimes I thought that if I could just hang on for two more years, until Daisy went to college, then I could go away, perhaps forever. And that was partly why I was here, so I could make it the next two years, because the way I had been feeling and acting this past weekend, since Meg’s revelation, I wasn’t sure I could make it two weeks, much less two years.

As I’m writing this, I realize how dramatic that sounds, but when I was facing those two people, I didn’t want to hide anything. I wanted help, real help, so I quietly told them the truth. I tried not to cry, but I did reach for a tissue and did my best to keep my cheeks dry and speak calmly. I wished ruefully that someone else would take care of me for awhile. I have been taking care of someone else since I was six years old. I was just so tired, too tired to be a strong, normal, responsible person anymore.

They took plenty of notes but still managed to give me their full attention. They made me feel like they really heard me and they cared. I felt like I was finally going to get help. They said I would need to wait in the waiting room for a little bit, while they reached out to my primary care physician. They also took my purse and cell phone, apologizing and explaining that they would be locked up safe and that they couldn’t have those things in with other patients. They would try not to be too long and would come back to me with some next steps.

So I went back out to the waiting room, relieved and obedient. An hour later, I was a little impatient but amused. Just like a hospital, the wait is always longer than the doctor visit. I watched other patients come and go, some staying with me waiting. A couple of them spoke with me, freely telling me their stories. I have a neon sign on my forehead that says “I want to hear your life story” and often people obey that sign, even if all I want to do is crawl under a rock and deal with my own problems.

I was surprised to still be in that small room with people who were quietly rocking or walking and talking to themselves at 5 p.m., when they handed out brown paper bags of cheese sandwiches and applesauce. I asked if I could call my daughters at that point, because they were expecting me home from work soon. They let me get the numbers off my cell phone, but I had to wait while someone fetched it, then I had to keep my hands and cell phone inside the tiny window on the receptionist’s desk. No cells allowed for a single second in the waiting room. I used the landline provided for patients to call my girls and explain where I was. I promised I’d call them as soon as I knew anything further.

I went to use the bathroom and immediately knew I had made a mistake. No way did I belong in this place. This wasn’t a hospital, it was a minimum security prison. There was a shower in there with a torn black curtain and a floor that was too grimy for bare feet. There was toilet paper but no trash can and no paper towels and no mirror and – what was worse – no lock on the door. I went back to the receptionist to explain I was on my period but there was no trash can, and he told me I had to wrap my ladies things in toilet paper and put it in the cardboard box of trash under the TV in the waiting room, the worst place for privately throwing something away because the whole room was facing that direction. He handed me a tiny bar of soap, like what you’d get in a hotel, and a rough white washcloth he said I could use to dry my hands. He said to just leave it in the bathroom.

I was in that waiting room a total of seven hours before one of the intake staffers spoke to me again. By then, my anxiety was higher than it was when I had walked in.


by Leave a comment

Being Revealing

I was interviewed yesterday by a small local magazine about the missing-child part of my story. We met at the gala Friday night in Saratoga Springs, NY to benefit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. She and my dad (my real father) got to talking, but I was busy helping the gala chair make sure everything went smoothly, so she took my number and called me yesterday.

After I gave her the Reader’s Digest version of my story, the reporter asked what it’s like, sharing a story that’s so personal and revealing. I’ve been getting that question here about my blog, too.

Well, frankly, it’s like stripping. I remember that first time I got up on that stage at the Pink Garter. The lights were not strong like the stage lights in my high school plays, so I could see the audience as clearly as they could see me. I remember trying to simultaneously smile at them and not look at them. I was nervous as hell, and couldn’t believe I was seriously going to stand up in front of these strange men and take my clothes off down to pasties and a g-string. I glanced nervously at my friend, Gigi, by the jukebox who had talked me into this, and she nodded and smiled and clapped, encouraging the audience to give a welcoming clap, too, as the music started.

Africa. I was dancing to Africa by Toto. I picked it because that was the song that a different friend and I stripped to at the after-party among the cast and crew of Camelot, our last play before we graduated. We were a bunch of drama club high-schoolers gathered at my new apartment with that older friend of mine who took me in after I ran away from home. Yep, there was alcohol, and yep, we all got silly, and before we knew it, me and Sandy were giggling in our bras and underwear, running screeching from the room when the song ended to put our clothes back on. I had just turned 18 a couple weeks earlier.

Well, Gigi, my future maid of honor (who knew that I would be married less than a year from that night? Certainly not me!) was an exotic dancer part time, and she knew I was struggling to make money at Taco Via and pay rent while going to school, so she convinced me that if I was brave enough to strip in front of my friends, I could certainly do it at the Garter. She told me that some girls made over $1,000 a week. Back in ’83, that was a whole lotta money.

On that postage-stamp-sized stage, though, it seemed like a very bad idea. The room was dark, dingy and smokey. The audience was dressed in thrift shop clothes for the most part, although there were a couple of suits. Lots of unkempt hair and beards out there beyond the lights. Some looked like they hadn’t bathed in a while. Not the people I was used to seeing in suburbia, where I had just graduated two weeks earlier. I definitely didn’t feel safe, but that I was used to. I had long since given up looking for safety. There was no such thing.

So I stayed right on that stage, without the false courage of a Fuzzy Navel, but with the real courage that survival gives to desperate young women. My roommate didn’t take me in out of the goodness of her heart. She expected to be paid my share of the rent or she would sell my stuff and throw me out. How can an inexperienced 18-year old high school graduate make enough money to pay for rent, food, and car insurance? Taco Via and Pizza Hut were the extent of my skills, unless you count the Star Wars fan fiction I had written. Much as my friends liked it, no one offered to pay me for it. I could thread a needle, too, but everyone could do that. I couldn’t waitress because the only places that paid decent money (what I now know to be a living wage) sold alcohol, and I had to be 21 to serve it. Until then, all I had was a pretty face and a Bunny figure, plus my friends told me I was a good dancer, so how bad could this be?

Grown men liked me. They would chuck my chin and “accidently” brush a hand across my chest or bottom. They’d laugh and call me “jailbait”. I took it as a compliment. I was a powerless girl, suddenly getting a feeling of power. And now I was told my adult curves would also bring me money. My mother didn’t teach me about morals or values, but she sure taught me about men and opportunity. It didn’t matter that some of my friends and family would judge me if they found out. This was an opportunity to support myself, to become independent and maybe make enough money to get an apartment on my own, one that I could share with my sisters, freeing them from my mom’s metal cooking spoon. So what if I had to expose myself to do it? There were bouncers to make sure there would be no touching, so what’s the big deal if foolish men wanted to pay good money just to look? No skin off my nose.

So, yes, I stayed right there, dancing like I was in one of those new MTV videos, and revealing more of myself than I ever thought I would to strangers who just sat there, watching, without the laughing cheers or teasing catcalls of my friends at school. I avoided those silent, cool, assessing eyes and pretended I was surrounded by choreographers and make-up artists and an adoring audience, maybe even a talent scout, all clapping just for me.

Then I went into the dressing room and met the other dancers. One was hooked on drugs, sporting a bad bruise on her upper arm that make-up couldn’t quite hide. Another was a very petite 31-year-old woman who was supporting both a child and a sick mother, and scared to death that her height wasn’t going to make her seem young enough to keep this job for much longer. There was a former Las Vegas showgirl who had long since aged out, but she was a friend of the owner and had glamourous outfits, so she had job security. And then there was Star, who was just as cool and assessing as the men in the bar. She said she was 22, and that was the most personal information she ever gave me. Looking back, it wouldn’t surprise me if she were an undercover cop. I’ll never forget the desperation and showy bravado of that tiny back room. Just a handful of women who had each other’s backs because they all knew nobody else would.

I made fifty bucks in tips that night. I went home, gave it to my roommate, showered, crawled into bed, and cried. The world was just as bad as my mother always said it would be. My heart shrunk a size smaller that day.

It’s now 31 years later, and a reporter wants to know what it’s like to be writing and sharing my very personal story with the public. I told her it’s like stripping. Revealing way more than most people ever would, knowing I’ll be criticized for it, knowing I’ll hate myself at times for saying too much, and knowing I’ll have to wrap a tight band around my heart to get through it. But in spite of all that, there’s no question that this is an opportunity to reach other young women, somewhere out there, who think survival is up to each of them alone. They’re not alone. I never did go back to rescue my sisters, but there are many more out there still silently desperate for help. In the end, we’re all sisters. My story is not rare to happen, it’s just rare to be revealed.


by 2 Comments

Knock, Knock, Knocking on …

TRIGGER WARNING

Looking back on that Sunday, June 1st, I don’t remember much, but I know the overwhelm took me. I didn’t give in to it – I know what giving in feels like. Giving in is when you come home with drive-thru nachos and microwavable kettle corn, turn on Netflix and binge watch for eight hours. Giving in is my mother with red wine swirling in her morning orange juice. Giving in to overwhelm is a conscious decision to put the world on hold and self-medicate for awhile. It’s a miracle that I prefer salt over alcohol in my worst state. I tell myself that whenever I take my blood pressure medicine. It could be worse.

No, on that particular Sunday the overwhelm took me, without my permission.

My girls say it seemed as though I had the flu pretty bad that day. My walk was unsteady whenever I got up for the bathroom or water, I had no appetite, I was alternating freezing cold and sweating hot, and I mostly slept.

I remember there were nightmares. I think I cycled through just about every recurring nightmare I’ve ever had and then some. My first husband’s fingers around my throat. My sisters screaming. Running and running but not able to get anywhere.

My waking moments were all memories:

Me, falling out of bed and getting my lip split on the corner of the nightstand. Getting stitches. I was 3.

Mom, sitting dejectedly on the end of the couch, cigarette smoke making rings around her tousled hair, her make-up-smeared eyes red and bleary. I had stayed home from school to make sure she didn’t carry out her threat to kill herself that day. I was 16.

Walking stiffly for a drink at the water fountain in the police station, my uniformed escort asking me why I was so formal, and me telling him I was not going to cry. I was 25.

Being slammed into the bathroom wall of the Pink Garter, a stranger’s lips forcibly taking mine. She had followed me in and had me pinned, her whole big, muscular body crushing me against the wall. I struggled and fought and was thankfully released to run when someone else walked in. I never thought a woman would ever do such a thing. I was 18.

Mom, kicking me as I lay curled up in a sleeping bag on the floor in my room. Kicking me again and again, screaming horrible insults at me. I was 15.

A door being slammed in my face. More stitches. I was 7.

Carrying a ringed pillow from class to class in junior high, telling everyone I had chipped my tailbone from a fall off my roller skates. I was 13.

Daddy #3’s finger in my face, threatening me literally into a corner, and Mom behind him telling me to just say yes, daddy. I was 17.

The videographer who offered to drive me home from an evening SCA event, pulling into the back of a grocery store and telling me he was in pain and only I could help him. He unzipped his pants. I convinced him that I was on my period. He said that’s okay, I could still help him and I wasn’t going home until I did. It was him or face a metal cooking spoon for missing my curfew. I was 14.

Walking six miles in the middle of the night, jumping into shadows any time a car came by, not knowing if my parents were after me. I carried a small bag of clothes and was headed to an older friend’s apartment. I didn’t know where I would go from there, but I was never, ever, going home again, not until I had made enough money to rescue my sisters. I was 17.

My sisters and I, all neatly dressed and sitting on the couch facing the CPS investigator. We told her we were fine, happy, that there was nothing wrong. No way were we going to let this stranger separate us girls from each other. I was 15.

Being slammed into the coat closet door and then rocked onto the living room carpet. Being straddled with his hips on my thighs and his knees on my hands and his hands around my throat, squeezing and squeezing until the black cloud came and I knew I was dying, knew I would never see my little girl or my sisters again. I was 25.

That’s but a handful of the memories I cycled through that day. And now I had four new memories:

1. Me in the pool, looking up at my naked, nine-year-old sister on the diving board.

2. Me, ten, running from the pool, tripping, hearing men’s laughter.

3. Mom, sitting in a pale pink wrap in the patio set by the pool, smoking and saying “just say yes daddy” over and over.

4. A man standing by the pool, between the diving board and the patio set. But that’s for tomorrow’s post.

One night, when I was 15, I knelt before my bedroom window, looking up at a full moon. The house was quiet. My youngest sister, Beth, silent in the next room. They had beat her hard that night. Her screams and sobs still rang in my ears today, but all was quiet and the house was dark at that moment in my memory. I remember kneeling there with my hands folded in prayer, appealing to the distant, peaceful orb that hung in the night as if that were God’s face, blurred by my powerless tears, and not the man in the moon.

Please, God. Please don’t let me wake up tomorrow. Please, take me to heaven tonight. Please. I can’t do this anymore.

That’s how I felt on June 1st, 2014. But in my despair that overwhelming Sunday, I knew then what I didn’t know for sure at 15. The morning was coming, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was going to wake up.


by Leave a comment

Tumbling Downhill

At this point, I wasn’t stepping toward the hospital, I was tumbling uncontrollably downhill toward it.

TRIGGER WARNING

Saturday, May 31, 2014   2:00 a.m.

I woke up drenched in sweat, breathing heavily and my heart pounding as if I had been running a marathon. My jaw hurt, and I forced myself to stop clenching my teeth. My ears were ringing with screams, even though my small bedroom was dark and silent as the grave. I rolled onto my back, kicking off my sheets, and just lay there for a bit, letting the nightmare finish receding.

Another nightmare. Again. How many nightmares have I had? How many more will I have?

The ebbing fear was being replaced by rising anger. I pulled the spare pillow into my arms and squeezed it punishingly, my arms becoming boa constrictors, reveling in the pain of unaccustomed muscle strain. My throat was tightly holding back my voice, my limbs were consciously keeping me in my bed, but every other part of me wanted to stand up and scream into the blackness – she was raped! and Mom just watched!

But of course, I didn’t. It would wake my daughters. Thinking about them had a calming effect, and I could feel my anger relax into cynicism. Bad things happen to children all the time, and this news was forty years old. Can’t do anything about old news but set it aside and forget about it. Anger was a waste of time. Statute of limitations was long gone, and who would put a new widow in jail for something that happened so long ago? Certainly not Meg. If she were to press charges, she would have done it already. No, there was nothing that could be done. This was old news. Children were raped all the time, were probably raped today, even this very minute. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.

The pillow slid to the floor, and the tears came.

P.S.

In less than an hour, I cycled from fear to anger to helplessness to depression. Worse than that. I went from bone-crushing fear to violent anger to a puddle of helplessness to the bleakest depression. The difference? It was just as much in my body as it was in my mind and soul. Adrenaline, blood pressure, heart rate, muscle contraction, even sweat glands – dozens of physical responses to dozens of emotions were tumbling uncontrollably downhill together, and all I knew was that something wasn’t quite right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.


by Leave a comment

Hanging On by a Thread

TRIGGER WARNING

Friday, May 30, 2014

Beth’s flight was delayed, which would have put her behind for work, so she and I drove back up the East coast together. I was working on about four hours of sleep after hearing what Meg had to say, and by this point, Meg had told Beth. As you can imagine, it was part of the conversation on our way home.

We told each other that we didn’t remember it ever happening to us in childhood, but shared stories of incidents that had happened in our teenage years. One thing that has often puzzled me, is the question – is it rape if it doesn’t physically hurt?

My second year of marriage, my husband and I had a pretty strained relationship. He had put a sledgehammer into the dining room walls and told me that if I ever disobeyed him again, I would be next. I had left him the next day when that happened, but as a young mom with an infant, I had nowhere to go and very little money, so I went back to him.

Anyway, I was pretty scared of him and terrified of sleeping in the same bed, but equally terrified not to. Every morning, he would have sex with me, and I would lay there pretending to be asleep. I’d be laying on my side, facing the wall, keeping my eyes closed and my breathing as even as possible while he did what he needed to do. Then he got up to take a shower, and I cried quietly.

It didn’t hurt. I don’t know if it was because I had a baby by then and I was bigger than before, or if it was because he was a fairly small man, as those things go (I have no idea why I’m trying to be delicate, habit I suppose), but whatever the case, the only thing that hurt was my heart. I was 20 years old and felt completely powerless, too scared to say no, and feeling I had no right to say no even if I could say it out loud.

If he had tried to wake me up, whispered my name or shook me or something, I would have pretended to wake up and pretended to enjoy it. I learned at a very early age how to tell what someone else was feeling or what they wanted, and to respond in kind so as to appease. Appeasing people is the best way to avoid pain. I know different now, but back then, obedience and a believable smile was my M.O. for survival.

Anyway, on the drive home from North Carolina, Beth tactfully told me she thought what he had done was certainly a violation. (Guess where she learned tact? From the same metal cooking spoon that I did.) We shared other stories of rape and molestation that had happened to us at various ages (statistically, it’s not uncommon for women to be assaulted more than once in a lifetime – no, it doesn’t just happen in crime-ridden urban streets or third-world countries).

And, we talked about Mom. Imagine a 12-year-old girl in the mid-1950’s living in rural Spokane, her mother was in and out of the hospital with who knows what, and her father could only visit her once a week. I have no idea why. I never met my mother’s parents. I don’t even know their names, and I don’t even know if they are alive. Mom doesn’t know either, although in 2014, it’s pretty sure they aren’t alive now. Anyway, this girl was raised by her grandmother, a strict Victorian-like woman who believed children should be seen and not heard. Who made Mom go out to the backyard and pick the branch that she would be beaten with. Who turned a blind eye whenever her son would come for a visit and spend time alone with his little girl sitting on his lap.

(At least, this is what we think happened to her, based on bits and pieces she’s said to us over the years. Not everything she said matched with what she said at different times to each of us, but so far this much seems to be true. We don’t know enough family on her side to know for sure what happened. She didn’t like us to be in touch with anyone on her side of the family.)

I have no problem feeling compassion for my mother. Even if her story isn’t true, I know enough about human nature to know that something terrible happened to her. No way could she be like this and have had a loving, safe, childhood. No way. I completely understand why she spent the rest of her life self-medicating with alcohol and feeling less than whole without a man. I even understand why she beat her children. Given all that, my sisters don’t understand why I struggle to forgive her. With the new information that she stood by and allowed a man to rape Meg made me even more angry with her, and less inclined to forgive her – ever. And Beth and I spoke a lot about that on the way home.

I can’t do it because her life got better, and she did nothing to heal. Her fourth marriage was comfortable. No children, a good middle-class income, travel, a garden, great health care, and no worries. Plenty of time to get counseling, join AA, get to know her children as the bright, successful women they turned out to be.

She didn’t do any of that. She wallowed in self-pity. She snapped and criticized her girls, and criticized the way we raised our own children. She would be drunk by noon, making it pointless to call her because she wouldn’t remember the conversation anyway. My sisters and I led this horse to water time and again for decades, and she refused to drink it. She prefers to believe she never beat us, she never caused us any harm, she doesn’t have a drinking problem, and her life is just fine, thank you very much, and we should butt out.

Three of us girls have children, and we have never left our children alone with this woman. No way. And, we have never beaten our children. We don’t even spank them. And guess what? The kids – most of them are adults now – are really great people who do good in the world. Spare the rod and spoil the child? You bet. If providing a loving, safe, encouraging, filled-with-laughter home is spoiling a child, you bet. We did it, and we’d do it again. Yes, I hold Mom to my standard. I grew up in violence, too, but I didn’t take it out on my kids.

My mother belongs in jail, and I said as much to Beth. I believe what she did to us was criminal. And if the only way I can hold her accountable is to insist that she speak to me with respect or not speak to me at all, then so be it. If I decided to cut her off from her grandchildren because her drinking is inappropriate, so be it. My sisters disagree and believe that her tragedies grant her compassion and leeway. I grant her the compassion, but not the leeway.

I dropped Beth off at her car at the airport, and pulled into a nearby restaurant to sit quietly and think.  I thought about Meg and the diving board. I thought about Mom. I thought about my two marriages. I thought about my conversation with Beth and her reaction. My mind chased thought after thought, as if there was some kind of answer in the muddle, but the clouds just got thicker, darker. There was a hot, angry storm on the horizon, but I kept averting my eyes, holding onto the numb cold.

After about an hour of staring at the menu and nibbling on french fries, I got back in the car and drove the rest of the three hours home. I walked in the door, was hugged by my daughters, and burst into tears. And it wasn’t because of the 14-hour drive, lack of sleep, or the funeral. I was safe, loved, not required to be responsible for anything, and my mind and body knew it. Now I could collapse.


by Leave a comment

Simply Grateful

Grandpa's backyard

I remember helping Grandma hang clothes out to dry in this backyard. I remember Grandpa setting up a badminton set, and my sisters and I gamefully trying to hit the birdie. I remember Grandma teaching me to sing those old Croatian songs she loved so well, and Grandpa letting me stand on his toes as he taught me to dance to them.

I have several very happy memories from my childhood, and I promise to do my best to post them here, so this blog does not become filled with gloom, despair, and agony on me – woe!

I didn’t meet my real grandparents until I was in my late 20’s, but thankfully, these two wonderful people (who were the parents of my mother’s third husband) stepped up to the plate and treated me and my sisters like their own ever since I met them when I was 11 years old. Grandma taught us to bake apple strudel; Grandpa taught us to fish and play pool; and they both taught us the importance of family gatherings around the table, with cards and popcorn and plenty of laughter.

I am simply grateful for the love and influence of these two good souls in my life, who have now joined the angels. I love you Grandma and Grandpa.


by Leave a comment

Work Ethic

I have a Swiss cheese memory of the past. My sisters remember way more than I do. I don’t remember a single birthday or Christmas, even though I know we had them. I have some wonderful memories, scary memories, and glimpses of scenes about nothing in particular. I have many memories of beatings. This is one of them:

I loved the soap bubbles in the sink. They were so bright and they caught the light with greasy rainbows. I took off one of the rubber gloves so I could catch the floating ones with a bare hand. My sister, Meg, was standing on her tippy toes next to the sink, hands clutching a dish towel under her chin against the sink’s edge, round eyes smiling at the bubbles, too. We had already filled the rolling dishwasher, but were now washing the things that wouldn’t fit by hand. Mom had left us to watch T.V. in her room some time ago, and it felt good, just the two of us, to giggle over bubbles.

I lifted a dishcloth to watch the soapy water run off of it from as high as I could reach, which was pretty high given the chair I stood on. Meg laughed out loud as it splashed some bubbles onto her face, and she slapped the water so I would get wet, too.

“What the hell is going on in there?”

We both froze, six- and five-year-old eyes locking. I wanted to quickly pick up something to wash, but I made the mistake of glancing over at the door from her room to the dining room, across from the kitchen where we were. She had yanked it open and stood there, with glowering eyes and hair standing all over from her head, the most terrifying monster I had ever seen in my frequent imagination. I just stood there, completely frozen. I could her Meg quietly whimper, “no, Mommy”, behind me.

“You are not done yet?!” she screeched terribly, striding over to us and reaching into the dishwasher. We both knew what that meant, but neither of us could move. Meg had backed into a kitchen corner, and I shrunk down into the chair, trying to make myself as small as possible without leaving the spot. “You think this is a joke? I give you a simple chore to do, and you think it’s funny?”

And there it was. The large, metal cooking spoon with slight scraps of buttery mashed potatoes still clinging to it. I screamed before it even landed, covering my head and sliding off the chair, hoping to get away. I felt her strong grip on the top of my arm, pulling me back into her iron hold as that spoon came down, again and again, on whatever part of me was exposed.

Meg was trapped – mom, me, and the chair I was standing on all blocking her way out of the kitchen. Not that it mattered. Mom would have followed us down the hall and cornered us in our rooms. There was no escape. I felt her release me, and I fell to the floor, sobbing and too frightened to move. I could hear Meg screaming, knew she was being beaten, but my arms and legs were like heavy lumps of ice, a snow girl with soft bubbles breaking on her yellow glove, who could do nothing but lay there on the floor, battered and unable to block out her sister’s cries and screams. I heard Meg being thrown into the lower cabinets, and felt that iron grip pulling me up from the scruff of my tied-dyed t-shirt collar, baring my back and shoulders and behind to that spoon again.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I can tell you that, as an adult, I am the most thorough and quick dishwasher you will ever meet. I have never owned a metal cooking spoon. And as soon as I can afford it, I will hire my very own Alice Brady, and never, ever, pick up a broom or scrub a pot again.