We’re Doing So Well
Last
Saturday morning my sister, Lacy, called me. I’d just been sitting down on the
balcony of my beachfront rental with a cup of coffee. It was the first morning
of my birthday trip. I didn’t answer the first time the phone rang. Lacy had been
having a rough few weeks in her personal life and I just really needed to have
this short break, without any dramatic interludes. I had already told her to
give me a few days and I would call her on Tuesday. But she called again a
minute later. I answered, thinking I could just deal with whatever it was and
then stretch out on the beach for the rest of the day. She was crying. She
apologized for calling. She hated to do this. She cried more.
“Mom died”.
My birthday
is a blur. My sister fell apart for several days. My grandmother developed a
stoic disposition, a disconnected look in her eye. My aunts struggled to
reconcile what they knew of my mother with what was lost on Saturday. We all
fought with what was lost a long time ago. Arrangements were made. The coroner
confirmed our suspicions. We had a two-hour visitation, followed by a small
memorial service that was filled with words like “demons”, “sorry”, and
“forgiveness”. I have four level-headed, hilarious aunts, who will call me
their sister before their niece. I have one aunt who is an addict. The addict
sobbed and failed to see how much my grandmother dreads receiving another call
like the one she got for my mom. My oldest aunt sang during the service and
told a giggle-inducing story about my mom as a child, denying her guilt about
writing on a wall, but then telling my nana where she got the marker, without
realizing she was admitting guilt. I listened and smiled and tried so hard to
remember just one time that I had with my mom that didn’t involve drugs or
alcohol or abandonment. I’m still trying.
My mom lied
a lot, and she was really bad at it. She would say she hadn’t been in my
grandmother’s office and hadn’t taken the missing money- but then she would
have to go back there and retrieve her keys from where she left them on the
desk. She once told the police that she was driving erratically because I was
sick in the backseat and needed to get to the hospital. In reality, I had been
fine when we left the house, but she was high and ran off the road, causing me
to fly across the back seat and slam my head into the side of the car. I wasn’t
sick- I had a concussion. He let us go.
The
earliest memories that my aunts or grandmother have of me as a baby almost
always involve rescuing me. There was that time when I was less than a year old
and my mom showed up at my aunt’s door and asked her to babysit for the night.
I was covered head-to-toe in scabies and was very sick, but smiling. My aunt
and her husband rushed me to the doctor. My mom didn’t come back for three
months. When she did, my uncle wasn’t home and my aunt was pregnant. She pushed
past her and took me. I’ve known that story for a couple of years. A few days
ago my grandmother told me about the time when I was a toddler and my mom left
me in a trashed, hoarder house in another city and some stranger called my
grandmother and told her, “Somebody needs to come get this kid”. There are
other stories just like those.
The thing
is, I never felt sorry for myself. I didn’t know that I was trash or that
everybody could see right through my situation. I just thought it was the hand
I was dealt. I traveled all over with her. We moved to Texas and Tennessee and
Arizona- all just because she would reach a point where she had to make a fresh
start, where no one knew her. So, I would do half the driving and I would go to
the local school and enroll myself and make new friends. I eventually dropped
out of high school and got my GED and applied to college. The dorm was the
first stable home I’d had in years. I got a part time job and sent money to my
mom in a halfway house that she was in at the time.
Some of the
times we spent together were fun. When we moved to Nashville, we rode a
mechanical bull and toured some gorgeous historical properties. We sang with
the karaoke cowboys and I slept on the sofas of strangers, while she slept in
their beds. I remember other things- events and experiences- but I’ll be damned
if I can remember one single thing that doesn’t conjure an image of cans and
bottles and reckless driving, or the smell of marijuana. I can’t remember a
time when she didn’t base her personal value on her high or her man.
There were
two times when I knew how bad it really was. Once when I was 11, I found a
journal she wrote during one of her rehab stints. She wrote of regret and
abortion and she pleaded with her own mind to reconcile the past and prayed for
a better future. I found that paper on day 3 of a 5-day bender period when she
didn’t come home. I fed my 4-year-old sister plain oatmeal and a can of tuna with
mustard. She came in with groceries on the last day. The other time was when I
was 15 or 16 and I went with her to check into rehab. I sat next to her as she
told the stone-faced intake nurse the last time she’d done any of the drugs or
activities on the admit checklist: Smoked crack- last week. Cocaine- today.
Smoked pot- today. Sold sex for drugs- last month. That was the time just
before I went to college. I wish I could say things got better after that, but
nothing changed.
My sister
lived with her dad during those years. She didn’t know the full story about
mom until she was much older. She didn’t live in the midst of it all until she
was in her 20s. By then, I was out. I met my husband when I was 19 and moved
three hours away to New Orleans. I was sad when I had my first child and my mom
didn’t come to the hospital. My grandmother drove down and offered to pick my
mother up on her way out of town, but mom said she couldn’t come- something
came up. When that baby turned three, I asked my mom to come to his birthday
party. My then-teenage sister was in town for the summer and came with her for
the party. I was 6 months pregnant. Mom said they would be more comfortable at
a hotel. They stayed at the house for a couple of hours and then drove to a hotel
where my mother left my young sister in the room, in a strange city, and went
to two different hospitals claiming to have fallen down the stairs and asking
for morphine. They were supposed to come have breakfast and go with me to see my
new house- the first that I’d ever owned and hadn’t even moved into yet- but
they left town without a word. I knew a little about what happened from my
sister and I was so hurt for both of us. Mom didn’t come to the hospital when I
had my second child three months later.
Something
happened when I had kids. I would think about having to see my mother, either
because I would visit my family near her or because she would talk of coming to
my house, and I would get really mad and protective. I stopped seeing her or
letting her know when I went to my grandmother’s house or the town where she
lived. It made my grandmother sad and she would always say the words that
worked my nerves like nails on a chalkboard- “She’s doing so good”. Oh! Those
words!! Is she a fucking toddler learning to hold a fork? Is she getting good
grades in school?.. In the meantime, I would hear the drug stories from her
friends and other relatives. Once in a while, I’d run into her. The rapidity of
her aging was just astonishing. She very quickly began to look older than her
mother. My own skin got thicker. When I would think about the things that I saw
and experienced as a child, I would become enraged at the thought of my
children even knowing that circumstances like those existed.
As my boys
got older, they began to ask questions about my mom- why they didn’t know her,
etc. I never lied. I told them that my mom drank a lot of alcohol and was on
drugs and that it wasn’t healthy for them to be around her. I told them that
drugs destroy lives and families. My husband and I told them of professional
athletes and promising young people who tried drugs just one time and died.
Slowly, I gave them information that painted an image of what happens to your
life if you survive the first high and search for the next one. I protected
them from witnessing it for themselves. I shut off the valve of pain and
embarrassment and guilt that plagued me in my attempts to look away from the
train wreck.
One week ago today, my mom took a Fentanyl patch from an elderly lady that she had been sitting with and put it in her mouth. She was found face down on the floor.
It’s so
bizarre to have people look at you and wonder how you feel and how you’ll react
when something this big has just happened. My estrangement from my mother was
13 years long when she died. In the last three years, I’ve seen her twice- once
for a funeral and once for a wedding. We spoke. We hugged. I tried to stay away
from her. She was always loaded. I worried more about her talking to my kids.
They knew she was messed up and they were able to see all of the things that
I’d tried to teach them over the years. It was After School Special-level
education. In both instances, we all got back in the car and drove away from
that troublesome situation as soon as the opportunity presented itself. I hated
to hurt my grandmother and my sister- who now lives near her and tried desperately to help mom in the last 5 years of her life- but I made that
decision for my boys and for my own sanity and it was the right choice- no
doubt about it. Then she died. I’m not sure if people thought that I would
regret the distance between us or if they thought that I would feel nothing at
all, but they definitely expected something close to one of those reactions.
I sat there
on the balcony that morning and made some necessary calls and wept. Then I
pulled it together and went inside. I put one foot in front of the other,
sometimes even managing a smile, and sat on the beach until the evening and
then excused myself to my room to rest and make a call. And then I fell apart.
I shook and cried so loudly that I was sure the walls would come down. There
was no controlling it. And there was no sleep to be had at the end of it.
You see,
for all of the years that I protected my kids from the pain and uncertainty
that comes with a loved one’s addiction, I stayed strong. I didn’t know it. I
didn’t feel it. I just did it. The day I laid that shield down, I hurt so
badly. I desperately mourned the relationship that addiction took away from me
so damn long ago. All of the things that I thought would make her clean up- my
love, my kids, her health, my sister- didn’t make a dent in the addictive shell that she hid inside of. I would see her and she would slur, “I’m doing so well”. And I
would grind my fucking teeth. So, I don’t know what they- whoever all the
“Theys” are- thought they would see in me when she died, but they saw anger and
grief and disgust and abandonment. In my very dark humor (hi- nice to meet
you), I said to my sister that, if I had to have a 2-hour visitation for my
mom’s friends, I would stand at the door greeting people and introducing them
to their future. Of course, I smiled and thanked them for coming.
I wish I
could say you should reconcile your relationships and hold your loved ones
close, but I don’t regret not watching her descend into who she was just before
the end. Instead, my wish is for the addicts: I don’t know why my mom never
decided that sobriety was what she truly wanted for the rest of her life. I do
know that no one can help you if you don’t desperately want help from the
bottom of your soul. So, for those who think it never affects others- that it
is just them judging you and trying to tell you how to live your life- my wish
is that you find the piece of your puzzle that helps you see the truth, makes
you crave a clear sober future, and allows you to value yourself as much as the
rest of us wish you would let us value you.
Mom- 1993
Mom- 2016
