mementos from a dialogue between mothers...

Last night, my visit with my mother was consumed with worries and regret - at least on her end of things. She obviously has been waiting to unpack the past with me, now that I am packing bags/boxes for a larger than life move.

She wanted to know about some perceived painful times in my child. Actually, she has come to realize that a chunk of my childhood was overshadowed, derailed, eclipsed by the painful, cruel, awful separation and consequential divorce of my parents. But she started earlier than that: When she worked at my father's veterinary clinic (Fremont St, Stockton) and brought me to work (putting me and my toys in a dog sized 'holding cell'), I once said plaintively, 'Can't we go home now?' I assured her that she was a good mother then and my reaction was typical for a bored child. But...really...the fact that this painfully-good-and quiet child had the courage to verbalize the request speaks volumes for the boredom, at least!

She had done the math: her seven-plus years of famine and grief over my father's betrayal and her resulting near breakdown did, in fact, correspond with a significant chunk of my formative years. She remembers me asking her why she cried all the time. 'I don't want to tell you. Why do you ask?' 'Because it's better to know why than not know anything' (I think she gives too much credit here). I do remember, as a very young child, pledging to a distraught woman that I would care for her forever and stay by her side as she went through the motions of a life with a full time job, a weekend job, and keeping a house with 'roomers' whose rent made it possible for us to stay in the home my grandfather designed and built. I also remember thinking, during one of the myriad times alone, that this young child could not take it any more...that surely, my mother, whose love I sensed went to self-sacrificial heights, would understand if I bailed...if I asked to go live with the Hume's whose home life was constantly laced with the humorous. Shy, responsible, never-wanting-to-cause-pain Brenda could not bring herself to utter those words.

Or so I thought. A few years ago, I mentioned this to my sisters and one of them said that our mother had come to her and said I had made such a request. Wow. To make that request, to verbalize it, would take extraordinary bravery on this small child's part. I was, in fact, desperate.

Still, it was the life I lived. My life. It was real. I shared a bedroom with my mother. My next-older sister entertained us with dancing, singing, and general silliness. Some of our 'roomers' were quite nice. Yes, my cat ate a valued canary possession of one! Her room's door was where I would lurk when a Barbara Streisand special was on, hoping to see some part of the show through a crack. Later, when my mother and sister went to work evenings, I would be alone with too much TV. And consumed with fear of strangers and evil ones 'trying to get me' -- thus, I would end up under the table in the far corner of the kitchen so that I could see someone coming from any angle. Yet, I'm certain, our life then was far more normal than many others.

When I was 14, my mother met a wonderful man. They later married, and he eclipsed any and all of my experiences and/or expectations of a father. And hers of a husband.

Tonight, Fr. C and I bravely went up to the room-over-the-garage -- an art studio for the previous owner. It's full of boxes taken from my mother's house, right before she went into an assisted living apartment. Appropriately, some of the boxes contain remnants of her tools, supplies, inspiration for painting. One precious box took much of my attention and energy: mementos of a life I have little memory of. Pictures of my parents, viewed through my now-knowing eyes, thinking of the meltdown to come. But a glimpse of normalcy and, to be sure, great love.

I told her she was a good mother. And I meant it. She did whatever she could to keep life going for us, and she did it well. And now, she still cares, still wants to make sure I don't suffer at all, in the move or the life to come. Through sheer grace she joyfully supports our life-to-come. And with amazing family members close at hand, I know she will be well taken care of.