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Demeter wept,
.
wrung her hands,
.
then went on about her own life.
.
There have been times when I have worried
my mother, and like all children, there have
been times when I have wronged her. There
have even been times when I told her that all
of my neuroses were a result of the type of
parent she was.
.
That was when I was still in elementary school.
.
There have been other times when I told her
that she had as much business having a child
as the teenagers she had counseled and
translated for at the hospital... even though
she was already 25 when I put her through
two days and one night of hell, and 30 when
my brother slid into home. I have told her
that she was selfish, thinking only of herself
on more than one occasion... do we ever
speak as cruel words as the ones we reserve
for our parents?
.
She left.
.
Not because of my harsh comments,
although guilt had them echoing in my ears
in the months after she walked away.
.
She left because she had to; because they had
only us as common ground...and because
she finally decided that "staying together for
the kids" really amounted to subjecting two
innocents to the bitter dregs of a love long
lost.
.
She left because he wouldn't, and because
she knew that she didn't have the energy or
the finances to fight over us. She stood in the
street, telling us we could go with her if we
wanted...but there was fear in her face that
told us she didn't know where she was going
or what she was doing.
.
It seemed as though my brother and I stood
there crying for an eternity, but it actually
happened quite fast...the words came from
my mouth, yet even now I can't imagine
what sort of thought processes my 11 year
old mind must have gone through in those
moments. I looked at my brother and
somehow sensed that he also saw how
precarious our position was (perhaps all he
sensed was the fact that his Transformers
were in his toy box, in his room, in this
house...where he belonged). And I made her
promise that even if we didn't go with her
just then, we would be able to see her...be
with her...soon.
.
What does a mother feel at that moment?
.
How do you respond when your children say
to you,"look, why don't you get your act
together, and then call us."
.
Mothers always seem to forgive, but how
long does does it take to forget? I'm going to
visit her in nine day's time and I wonder if
she still sees shadows of that eleven year old
when she looks at the woman I am...
.
She left, knowing that my father would be
able to feed us, and clothe us, and keep the
rent paid on the roof over our head. She
could probably have done those things too,
as she'd done it for her siblings for years
before meeting my father, but we made our
choice and she was free.
.
Her life became her own and the possibilities
suddenly seemed endless. She tried
everything...from religion, to radical
feminism... from transcendental meditation
to performance art. My brother and I were
given tastes of these experiences every
weekend. There was no visitation agreement,
as our parents had decided not to get an
actual divorce for reasons of their own...they
left any and all decisions regarding the living
arrangement up to us. We chose to spend our
weeks commuting to school from our
father's house, while weekends could find us
crashing at the Siddha Yoga Ashram in
Oakland...a commune in Mendecino...or at
my mother's home-base: an apartment
shared by four other members of the choir
she had joined.
.
Her life was an exciting place to visit, but it
still lacked the security that we had sought on
her face that day.
.
In high school, I began to spend more and
more evenings at her address...mostly for
selfish reasons like the shortened commute
in the morning and the fact that she had
moved into a remarkable apartment with a
hot tub in the garden and an expansive view
of the city...but also because the arguments
with my father were escalating to levels
reminiscent of their relationship.
.
I thought it was unfair for my brother to
constantly be subjected to our battles.
.
Persephone is most definitely her mother's
daughter.
.
My mother fell into an on-again, off-again
relationship with a photographer, and he took
her on shoots to exotic locations south of the
border. I stayed at her apartment; I was alone
and liked it that way. Even when she was
home, we lived like roommates and rarely
spent time together unless it was to watch
Moonlighting. She took a leave of absence
and spent most of my junior year travelling in
Oaxaca while I sublet her apartment.
.
I can't tell you things were perfect.
.
Independence is more often than not a
double-edged sword. The dramas and
depressions of that time took over large
portions of my life...there were no curfews,
no familial obligations...just me, me, me and
my emotions.
.
A headstart on the self-involvement most
people don't get to until college...or later.
.
Somewhere between trips, my mom came
home for a visit and I got sick...that sounds
like I caught something from her, but actually
it was the other way around...I got sick, then
she got sick. I was sick for a long time,
missed more than a month of school, and
very slowly recovered.
.
She got sick, then she got sicker. My mom
had bad lungs, she had TB as a child and I
guess you never really recover from it. The
bronchial infection totally overwhelmed her
immune system.
.
My mother has spent the last ten years trying
to recover.
.
She still seems frail to me, and I can't erase
the image of her wheeling around that oxygen
tank. It was impossible for her to continue
working at the hospital...too infectious (not
her, the hospital) so she sought refuge at a
commune north of the city where the weather
was a little drier. That helped for several
years, but she started developing new
allergies, and had to move on.
.
She tried Arizona, then Oregon...where she
was healthier than she had been in years. Not
well, necessarily, but better. She still hated the
winters (hmm...is that hereditary?), but she
found love and was able to make survival
money selling crafts and jewelry.
.
She came to visit me here in the fall of 1995,
(a birthday present from, of all people, my
dad) and on the way home she made a
stop-over in Hawaii. Well, it was supposed to
be a stop-over.
.
Instead she found an apartment and made it a
stop.
.
She was convinced she had found the
healthiest place on the planet for her to live
and breathe. Her love joined her and the two
of them took up residence on Maui.
.
So I'm off to Maui in nine day's time.
.
This year has been an amazing one for my
mother, and the culmination of a very old
court battle has resulted in a permanent home.
It is the first home anyone in my immediate
family has ever purchased.
.
She says there is a room with my name on it
for whenever I seek to escape the winter.
.
.
Demeter stands with dry eyes,
.
a bronzed and healthy goddess,
.
offering me warmth and
.
forgiveness...
.
could she have forgotten?
SMQ1996 |
