Thank you sorrow and terror and anguish
Thank you poisoned breast
And absent father
Thank you sun
And sunset
thank you eager youth so sharp
And dusty adulthood
Thank you heavy boots
And hard hands
thank you for my passion
And fierceness
And the carving deep
Into the canvas of my soul
Thank you for this breath
And for the journey.
Grant me strength to ride it out
To the very last drop
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
Growing Up Santa Cruz- Land of the Medicene Buddha
A place I have come to countless times, over the years I have lived here, and although I have brought Bella several times, this is the first time she was old enough to exclaim excitedly "Buddha!" at every serene little statue. She was a heavy haul up those steep, winding trails, but worth it. She is such a delight!
Practicing her bow :)
I spent much of my adult life pretending I was somewhere else. Like I needed some kind of buffer between me and right now. I watch a lot of foreign films, so I usually pretended I was in Europe or Istanbul, Amsterdam, India. The 40s were a favorite. For some reason, that time seems somehow kinder, more earnest, ironic since it was during one of the ugliest and most secretive wars ever. Well, maybe all wars are ugly and secretive.
I remember one time, leaving my one bedroom apartment (loved that place- I didn't have much, not even a car, but I had a big, stand alone apartment that was all mine) after watching an Italian film set in the1940s,a double fix, lol. I was filled with gentle optimism for my life. It was evening, night, really. The warm, summer air was lively, as I walked down towards the ocean. People were out at the bars and diners. I was alone.
I have this unshakeable feeling that everyone else is living their life, being normal, making and breaking friendships, lovers, stories, and I was a ghost, making nothing, but observing and sucking air and walking. Working. Living. Quietly like a veteran, just hoping for small miracles, like enough creamer until the next pay check.
And knowing there was no use trying to build meaningful bridges because my land was too different from theirs, too MUCH.
Now, with my little midget in tow, my mental space to think all about me all the time, for good or evil, has been seriously, thankfully, encroached upon. In part, replaced with the mind numbing stress of trying to keep it all from falling apart that only a single mother with no family can understand. It's precarious, fragile, and a miracle everyday the balls stay juggling in the air.
I didn't have to pretend when I was on stage, singing. Or painting. Or writing. Then, I was turning towards it, that mass of history and sorrow and longing and unfulfilled potential and the screaming and the horrible silences of boredom and waste and I wrapped it all around me and committed it. I used what often made me a servant to serve me for a change.
I remember one time, leaving my one bedroom apartment (loved that place- I didn't have much, not even a car, but I had a big, stand alone apartment that was all mine) after watching an Italian film set in the1940s,a double fix, lol. I was filled with gentle optimism for my life. It was evening, night, really. The warm, summer air was lively, as I walked down towards the ocean. People were out at the bars and diners. I was alone.
I have this unshakeable feeling that everyone else is living their life, being normal, making and breaking friendships, lovers, stories, and I was a ghost, making nothing, but observing and sucking air and walking. Working. Living. Quietly like a veteran, just hoping for small miracles, like enough creamer until the next pay check.
And knowing there was no use trying to build meaningful bridges because my land was too different from theirs, too MUCH.
Now, with my little midget in tow, my mental space to think all about me all the time, for good or evil, has been seriously, thankfully, encroached upon. In part, replaced with the mind numbing stress of trying to keep it all from falling apart that only a single mother with no family can understand. It's precarious, fragile, and a miracle everyday the balls stay juggling in the air.
I didn't have to pretend when I was on stage, singing. Or painting. Or writing. Then, I was turning towards it, that mass of history and sorrow and longing and unfulfilled potential and the screaming and the horrible silences of boredom and waste and I wrapped it all around me and committed it. I used what often made me a servant to serve me for a change.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Family
I think for many people, FAMILY is a mixed bag. No family is perfect and all family have issues, some more than others. I have always found it difficult to talk about my family precisely because it is so mind-numbingly sick in so many many ways that to discuss it all either shocks others, causes disbelief ("there's no way that's true; she must be lying"), or the opposite, it comes across negating the experiences of others or causes them to relate when few could really relate. When I say the last part, that "few could relate" I know how that sounds, like that twisted sense of pride some victims get from their wounds. I hate how it sounds. I have searched my whole life looking for ways to honor my truth AND honor everyone else's. I know suffering is a part of the human condition; I know suffering is often a part of being in a family. Even the best families make mistakes or create psychological shadows, passed on down the generational lines.
I know all this, and yet, struggle with feeling like I don't have permission to be who I am and come from all the wreckage I come from. It's like owning it makes me weak and whine-y and....
Owning it makes me a weak victim.
The truth is, I don't need anyone's permission. And the past is the past, it did happen with or without permission or validation or anyone's general audience other than my own. The past is also in the past and can not be made over. However, my Mother and Father both still exist in the present and have the ability to suck me back into old ways of being that I have fought too hard to shake.
I want to write that I am not a product of my past but that would be untrue. I am. And in some ways that I have chosen. I am a product of critical child trauma. Knowing what that feels like and all the ramifications that echo into adulthood created a dream that I am chasing, to be that knowing adult that works to protect and help children going through similar experiences, because, while I often find myself alone in my PTSD and all the other lovely lingering twists to my psyche, I am not, essentially alone. There are many children also growing up, every day, in neglect, poverty, psychological/physical/sexual abuse. There needs to be a voice who survived and healed, who can contribute to the conversation of child welfare.
I still struggle. While I haven't had to wrestle with the relationship with my mother, who is infinitely more mentally ill, since I walked away from her (for the last time) about a year ago, my biological father has been showing up this last year. He had custody of me for two years of my life, during which I lived without plumbing and endured extreme neglect. He sold drugs and partied and I, much like the two dogs that died under his care, were along for the ride. Otherwise, my relationship with him was largely an absent one, filled instead by the presence of his parents. He had visitation rights and his parents came and picked my sister and me up every summer, returning us in time for school to start. He rarely made an appearance.
While he had bonding time with my older sister during the early years, my mother hid me from him and his family during nearly the first four-five years of my life, out of state. I received the early message, hostage taken to my mother's incomprehensible mental condition and physical and psychological abuse, that I was in the way and not wanted. This message has followed me to this very day and I fight with myself to overcome it.
I have a memory of my father. Standing against his truck in the driveway of his apartment he had with his girlfriend (and mother of his future and completely ignored third child), drinking beer with buddies. I was hanging on his arm and he was lifting me up. He smelled like beer and that foam they use to make beer cooler/cozies. He didn't pay me attention for long.
There is a video my Grandma took of me sitting on Grandpa's lap around age eight. They were getting me to talk about a McDonald's Happy Meal that my father bought me. He was not present and they were making such a big deal about the cardboard box. They had to berate him into spending anytime at all with me. My relationship with my father felt like this anguished need to be loved and somehow feeling unworthy of being loved. Or even noticed or concerned about in anyway, even when facing very real danger, like when I was in his care. No one spoke up on my behalf who saw it. Not his mother, his sisters, my mother, no one. My grandfather might have, but he was down for the count, having undergone a series of strokes. Finally, my school teacher reported him and he was investigated by a social worker. It didn't accomplish too much and soon, my mother took me back and began some serious psychological abuse, which perhaps has been the hardest to shake.
By the time my sister started having children he had slowed down a bit, but remained a large, loud, impossibly selfish and stubborn man. Very childish. The upside to that was that my older sister has always been his favorite and he spent all his inheritance on taking her and her four children to Disneyworld and Disneyland every 6 months. He had a whole tribe of amusement park playmates, now. He never did have a penny for me and my college struggles, or living struggles, or for anything for that matter. I was the only one going to school and living on my own, self-supporting, trying my damnedest to lift myself up out of the condition I was born to and into and he couldn't be bothered. I had to withdraw from school, faced homelessness several times, and a few precious times, before a damn broke, I reached out and asked for help. Nothing big, a hundred here for books, or even a twenty to eat. No, all the insurance was due on all his new cars and new Harley. And there was that last trip to Disneyland and the one coming up in two months. No, there was no extra money. And now it's gone. All gone. He gets by on his disability checks, which go quick, a good portion to my sister's kids, or her "borrowing".
Receiving a diagnosis of cirrhosis of the liver and Hep C brought the real possibility of death and his general mortality into focus. He began trying to spend even more time with his grandchildren. This did not extend to me, even after I gave birth. He was there for all four of my sister's deliveries, didn't see my daughter until she was eight or nine months old.
I've said it before, that, because my daughter has no family, when my father wanted to see her, I agreed. As long I was supervising, it seemed ok. They both enjoyed each others company, even if on his side sometimes lacked a comprehension of the needs and realities of caring for a baby/toddler. I have had a hard time navigating the family relationship with my father since being wholey present for my child sometimes/often causes conflict. Simple things, like putting her down for a nap, not feeding her a ton of junk food, needing to step away to change her diaper.
I have enjoyed watching my daughter bonding with him. And getting to know him a little better. The fact that he loves my sister more has not been in my face-until he went into the hospital this last week. She is part of the reason he was in there. While he is his own man, capable of making his own decisions, he has taken over parenting duties of her four children in many ways, well, my father and her second, unofficial boyfriend, all the while she is off with her new boyfriend.
Still, I let him back in and watched him play with my daughter. He often had two or more of sister's children, which allowed me a very belated opportunity to spend time with them as well. Family is the most important thing for me and that's a hard pill to swallow when those relationships are so painful that I have to turn away. Some might say I was too sensitive. Those would be the ones who haven't walked in my shoes. I am admittedly, emotional, even sensitive, but for good reason. Even now, I find myself getting dragged back into the old dynamics with my father and my sister, where I bend over backwards trying to support and assist him and am seen as some invisible source to take and demand from and never say thank you, never see. I can never do enough and my sister never has to do anything, she takes and takes and is favored. I give and give and am invisible.
And now that role extends to my daughter. It doesn't matter if she is tired, needs a diaper change, to nurse, to go play, it's a fight to keep her entertaining my father against her best interest and I'm wrong for doing otherwise.
The last night I went to see him, my daughter was crying, fussy, and needed to be changed. She bracketed my face in her tiny hands and peered into my eyes, calling me. Like she was bringing me into the present to give me what I needed to do what I needed to do. Its hard. Navigating family. Mine is so intense it takes people out at the knees. How many times have I seen that desperate, exhausted, pleading look that came from those nurses that night? The nurse kept whispering "I'm sorry" to me. So many stories. Needless to say, they are f*%#ing done with him being there. I've watched him make waitress quit on the spot. He is just that draining, that demanding.
Funny, it's similar to the look I get from people who have been around my mother long enough to see behind her mask and have glimpsed the crazy beneath. I have had people say "I'm so sorry" to me there too. Every. Single. Time. I just wait. In that way, my mother taught me to trust time and to persevere and do your own thing, take care of your own. People usually figure shit out. They make assumptions at first but truth always reveals itself. I have learned to be a steady, silent force that is redeemed in hindsight. But, that's more my mother and sister than my father.
He had been showing signs of potential relapse of his Hep C/liver problems. After a year of time being around him, there has been a small measure of healing that has taken place in our relationship. My daughter and I waited with him at the hospital until he was admitted and then visited him every day. It was his heart, not his liver. He will need a transplant, and even though no one is saying as much, he is not a good candidate, with his liver gone like it is. He stayed almost a weak while they diagnosed him and drained him, including his lung that was filling up.
That is where I was reminded again that things are still as they are. And I need to be very aware of what I choose to sign up for. I need to protect my daughter and myself from those dynamics and not extend myself or my child beyond what is reasonable and fair. I need to not jeopardize my life and home for anyone. I have another little being to fight for now, and she deserves every opportunity, every loving embrace, every conscious hands-on-deck parenting that I deserved, and, frankly, all humans deserve. I am not my father's mother. I am only mother to one little girl, my own, teeny little family. May her family shadows be small ones!
I know she will have her own. I know we will have to come to terms with "daddy-issues" eventually, which will hurt twice over because she was rejected by not just him, but his whole family. But, that bridge is not now. And the best way I can give her is the resilience to face those demons by being present for her now and to not turn away from my own demons but process them. To realize my power, to not give it away, and walk phenomenally, as best I can. To model how to walk with our shadows, not being overtaken by them but living with them, leading in the dance we all do with our shadows, learning to let the light heal us, if we let it.
Owning it makes me a weak victim.
The truth is, I don't need anyone's permission. And the past is the past, it did happen with or without permission or validation or anyone's general audience other than my own. The past is also in the past and can not be made over. However, my Mother and Father both still exist in the present and have the ability to suck me back into old ways of being that I have fought too hard to shake.
I want to write that I am not a product of my past but that would be untrue. I am. And in some ways that I have chosen. I am a product of critical child trauma. Knowing what that feels like and all the ramifications that echo into adulthood created a dream that I am chasing, to be that knowing adult that works to protect and help children going through similar experiences, because, while I often find myself alone in my PTSD and all the other lovely lingering twists to my psyche, I am not, essentially alone. There are many children also growing up, every day, in neglect, poverty, psychological/physical/sexual abuse. There needs to be a voice who survived and healed, who can contribute to the conversation of child welfare.
I still struggle. While I haven't had to wrestle with the relationship with my mother, who is infinitely more mentally ill, since I walked away from her (for the last time) about a year ago, my biological father has been showing up this last year. He had custody of me for two years of my life, during which I lived without plumbing and endured extreme neglect. He sold drugs and partied and I, much like the two dogs that died under his care, were along for the ride. Otherwise, my relationship with him was largely an absent one, filled instead by the presence of his parents. He had visitation rights and his parents came and picked my sister and me up every summer, returning us in time for school to start. He rarely made an appearance.
While he had bonding time with my older sister during the early years, my mother hid me from him and his family during nearly the first four-five years of my life, out of state. I received the early message, hostage taken to my mother's incomprehensible mental condition and physical and psychological abuse, that I was in the way and not wanted. This message has followed me to this very day and I fight with myself to overcome it.
I have a memory of my father. Standing against his truck in the driveway of his apartment he had with his girlfriend (and mother of his future and completely ignored third child), drinking beer with buddies. I was hanging on his arm and he was lifting me up. He smelled like beer and that foam they use to make beer cooler/cozies. He didn't pay me attention for long.
There is a video my Grandma took of me sitting on Grandpa's lap around age eight. They were getting me to talk about a McDonald's Happy Meal that my father bought me. He was not present and they were making such a big deal about the cardboard box. They had to berate him into spending anytime at all with me. My relationship with my father felt like this anguished need to be loved and somehow feeling unworthy of being loved. Or even noticed or concerned about in anyway, even when facing very real danger, like when I was in his care. No one spoke up on my behalf who saw it. Not his mother, his sisters, my mother, no one. My grandfather might have, but he was down for the count, having undergone a series of strokes. Finally, my school teacher reported him and he was investigated by a social worker. It didn't accomplish too much and soon, my mother took me back and began some serious psychological abuse, which perhaps has been the hardest to shake.
By the time my sister started having children he had slowed down a bit, but remained a large, loud, impossibly selfish and stubborn man. Very childish. The upside to that was that my older sister has always been his favorite and he spent all his inheritance on taking her and her four children to Disneyworld and Disneyland every 6 months. He had a whole tribe of amusement park playmates, now. He never did have a penny for me and my college struggles, or living struggles, or for anything for that matter. I was the only one going to school and living on my own, self-supporting, trying my damnedest to lift myself up out of the condition I was born to and into and he couldn't be bothered. I had to withdraw from school, faced homelessness several times, and a few precious times, before a damn broke, I reached out and asked for help. Nothing big, a hundred here for books, or even a twenty to eat. No, all the insurance was due on all his new cars and new Harley. And there was that last trip to Disneyland and the one coming up in two months. No, there was no extra money. And now it's gone. All gone. He gets by on his disability checks, which go quick, a good portion to my sister's kids, or her "borrowing".
Receiving a diagnosis of cirrhosis of the liver and Hep C brought the real possibility of death and his general mortality into focus. He began trying to spend even more time with his grandchildren. This did not extend to me, even after I gave birth. He was there for all four of my sister's deliveries, didn't see my daughter until she was eight or nine months old.
I've said it before, that, because my daughter has no family, when my father wanted to see her, I agreed. As long I was supervising, it seemed ok. They both enjoyed each others company, even if on his side sometimes lacked a comprehension of the needs and realities of caring for a baby/toddler. I have had a hard time navigating the family relationship with my father since being wholey present for my child sometimes/often causes conflict. Simple things, like putting her down for a nap, not feeding her a ton of junk food, needing to step away to change her diaper.
I have enjoyed watching my daughter bonding with him. And getting to know him a little better. The fact that he loves my sister more has not been in my face-until he went into the hospital this last week. She is part of the reason he was in there. While he is his own man, capable of making his own decisions, he has taken over parenting duties of her four children in many ways, well, my father and her second, unofficial boyfriend, all the while she is off with her new boyfriend.
Still, I let him back in and watched him play with my daughter. He often had two or more of sister's children, which allowed me a very belated opportunity to spend time with them as well. Family is the most important thing for me and that's a hard pill to swallow when those relationships are so painful that I have to turn away. Some might say I was too sensitive. Those would be the ones who haven't walked in my shoes. I am admittedly, emotional, even sensitive, but for good reason. Even now, I find myself getting dragged back into the old dynamics with my father and my sister, where I bend over backwards trying to support and assist him and am seen as some invisible source to take and demand from and never say thank you, never see. I can never do enough and my sister never has to do anything, she takes and takes and is favored. I give and give and am invisible.
And now that role extends to my daughter. It doesn't matter if she is tired, needs a diaper change, to nurse, to go play, it's a fight to keep her entertaining my father against her best interest and I'm wrong for doing otherwise.
The last night I went to see him, my daughter was crying, fussy, and needed to be changed. She bracketed my face in her tiny hands and peered into my eyes, calling me. Like she was bringing me into the present to give me what I needed to do what I needed to do. Its hard. Navigating family. Mine is so intense it takes people out at the knees. How many times have I seen that desperate, exhausted, pleading look that came from those nurses that night? The nurse kept whispering "I'm sorry" to me. So many stories. Needless to say, they are f*%#ing done with him being there. I've watched him make waitress quit on the spot. He is just that draining, that demanding.
Funny, it's similar to the look I get from people who have been around my mother long enough to see behind her mask and have glimpsed the crazy beneath. I have had people say "I'm so sorry" to me there too. Every. Single. Time. I just wait. In that way, my mother taught me to trust time and to persevere and do your own thing, take care of your own. People usually figure shit out. They make assumptions at first but truth always reveals itself. I have learned to be a steady, silent force that is redeemed in hindsight. But, that's more my mother and sister than my father.
He had been showing signs of potential relapse of his Hep C/liver problems. After a year of time being around him, there has been a small measure of healing that has taken place in our relationship. My daughter and I waited with him at the hospital until he was admitted and then visited him every day. It was his heart, not his liver. He will need a transplant, and even though no one is saying as much, he is not a good candidate, with his liver gone like it is. He stayed almost a weak while they diagnosed him and drained him, including his lung that was filling up.
That is where I was reminded again that things are still as they are. And I need to be very aware of what I choose to sign up for. I need to protect my daughter and myself from those dynamics and not extend myself or my child beyond what is reasonable and fair. I need to not jeopardize my life and home for anyone. I have another little being to fight for now, and she deserves every opportunity, every loving embrace, every conscious hands-on-deck parenting that I deserved, and, frankly, all humans deserve. I am not my father's mother. I am only mother to one little girl, my own, teeny little family. May her family shadows be small ones!
I know she will have her own. I know we will have to come to terms with "daddy-issues" eventually, which will hurt twice over because she was rejected by not just him, but his whole family. But, that bridge is not now. And the best way I can give her is the resilience to face those demons by being present for her now and to not turn away from my own demons but process them. To realize my power, to not give it away, and walk phenomenally, as best I can. To model how to walk with our shadows, not being overtaken by them but living with them, leading in the dance we all do with our shadows, learning to let the light heal us, if we let it.
Monday, September 22, 2014
American Academy of Pediatrics website for Children, Teens, and Resiliency
http://www2.aap.org/stress/
great resource for teen and parents of teens!
Friday, September 19, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The beginning of the end for Dad
I had a dream this morning about my mother trying to break in, bloated beyond recognition, terrifying...disgusting.
I saw my father yesterday. The signs are there. Won't be long now. The death of his liver... and my father.
I never had a father.
I had "Bear". The biker. Who did what.ever. the. fuck. he. wanted.
And at least, there is a small consolation prize that that is something. Lived doing whatever he felt like, like an obnoxious, wild, headstrong 70s child. Be it cocaine or chocolate milk, beer or crank or Disneyland or maybe even heroine. He says he got Hep C from a drug transfusion, but.... well, that's what he told his mother, who has, at the time, also dieing. That has been about -what ? Five years ago?
Two rounds of painful inferion treatment later.
This last year
not till my first born (and only born) was already around at least eight or nine months old- did he start showing up- always carting around one, two, or all four of my sister's kids. A Boardwalk trip- runs to and from practice (football usually) while my sister spent her time with one of two of her boyfriends. One boyfriend who was for her- younger, in a band, good looking- and the other she met while she was single and desperate and lonely, old. Nearly our fathers age, who also carts around the kids for her.
Bear used to take my sister's kids to Disneyland every year or so. Spent thousands and thousands of dollars on them.
Couldn't be bothered to lend me 100$ to pay for books or college fees. Not even to keep me from having to withdraw from college due to financial problems. Not keep, borrow.
What I knew then and know now is that he was and always will be a child. He just was never parented into being a responsible man. Perhaps he was too stubborn to be, (very true) and raising teenagers was a skill-set his parents lacked, for all their positive attributes, and Bear was as willful as they come and needed a skillful parent.
He was at all four of my sister's children's births. I remember. I was there too. No matter how my relationship with my sister was at the time. I showed up. And held the video camera for her. And she fixed her hair and directed me. Yes. While giving birth. She may be a complete narcissist but you got to admit, that's pretty tough, directing her own birth video!
I let my father know that I gave birth on the phone. He didn't come. I had an extended hospital stay due to minor complications. Never came. I had several phone calls over the succeeding months. Nothing.
One time, I told him that he was choosing to show up for my sister and not me and that I was done waiting and I would not be there at his deathbed and he would only be to blame for that.
Of course, I obviously didn't mean it. I mean, I did but when he started expressing a wish to come see my daughter and hang out with her, she was about eight months and there was no family to speak of other than me. She has no father or grandparents or any family for that matter from her bio paternal side. Her biological father has forbidden all contact. And the fact that his family, particularly his parents agreed speaks volumes to me and, while it's sad for her, I gladly wash my hands of the lot. With a clean conscious, as I did everything in my power to be accommodating and welcoming to him and them. She will have her own issues when she gets older and I fear that day. But it's beyond my control. And one less thing to have to stress over on a daily basis.
My mother is a very mentally ill woman who is too manipulative and twisted to be around. I tried having contact with her, anyway, after I gave birth. It quickly escalated and became painfully obvious that I can't be Mother to a new baby and to my mother, as was expected, much to my enraged mother. I'll never forget the way she grinded her teeth at the Diner where we went out for lunch after I tried to set some boundaries around our relationship.
I was eight months pregnant, had to move into a homeless shelter because I had become too sick with the pregnancy to make enough money to pull rent and had no where to turn.
She came once during my first trimester. I was too sick to get out of bed without puking and had yet to lose my apartment I was sharing. She had brought some boxes I had stored at her house, none containing the things I asked for, many of the items broken beyond repair. She asked me to bring the boxes into the house and I did, gagging and all, demanded I thank her at least three separate times, asked me to feed her. She then took a nap, woke up and left rather angry because I didn't shower her with attention and gratitude. I wasn't rude. I acted as grateful as I could manage, but I didn't entertain her properly. I was pregnant, nauseous, and listless a mattress on the floor.
When we were at the diner, I was about eight months pregnant, feeling a little better, working again, even if it was part-time since that's all I could manage. She began telling me how I have been so wrong to her, and as her daughter, I should be taking care of her and so on. I was pregnant with a potentially fatherless child, living in a homeless shelter, trying to get everything set up so I could be ready to have a baby on my own, ready to move into our own place, trying to get a car again, a crib, furniture, baby items, and all of it. I just looked into that righteously angry face of hers, the women who is responsible for so much suffering in my life that I work so hard to overcome, the woman I continued to tolerate, forgive, make excuses for, and take care of, and I just told her that we just have different ideas of what an adult parent-child relationship should look like. That was the most mature, succinct way to put it. I did not say so much that could be said. I just laid an obvious, firm but gentle boundary that stated that I will not be available to mother her. The face she made- denture teeth grinding against each other, clenched, tense. Same face she used to make when I was a child- that would signify she was about to attack me. The face of rage. I grew up terrified of that incredibly violent and incomprehensible behavior. Often she would beat us, my older sister and I, without provocation. Just because the personality she had switched to felt like it. Absolute terror growing up. I still feel warped with the PTSD, the mind numbing anxiety that I live with because of it.
So, no. No grandmothers for Bella.
I never really knew my father. My father received visitation rights when I was about four. I spent my summers with his parents. His parents tried to get him to show interest in his two daughters during the summer visits. If he showed any interest at all it was with my sister over me. He knew her from infancy on. My mother ran away from my father when she was pregnant with me. He saw me when I was about four for the first time. He knew I was born because the child support amount went up. Throughout my life, it has punctuated with this deep, agonizing feeling to be wanted and loved.
What I know is that my father didn't know how to love. He's a child. But, he did and does love me (and my sisters- yes, there's a third- who didn't even get the benefit of this last year). He's just selfish and self-centered and immature and irresponsible. But he is my father. And he does love me.
That's not why I let him in the door this last year. It had nothing to do with me. My daughter had no family to speak of, here was my father, making an effort to know her and show up, appeared to be showing up fairly consistently and I made the decision that it was in her best interests to allow her grandfather the opportunity to know her. It was something she would benefit from. I tried to keep my own feelings about my father in check- not so much anger- but the part of me that was a little girl wanting her daddy to just want to know her too.
He was a playful dad, the few memories I do have of him. Always with a beer, and strong, beefy, carpenter arms. Chatting with a friend.
When I was real young it was like pulling teeth, trying to get him to take me for a night or two during the summer I spent at his parents.
My grandpa. I loved my grandpa. I adored him. He was big and strong and responsible. A great big iconic man. With button up shirts and white blonde hair. Freckles and a wide smile. Grinning into the sun, flipping burgers, with a deep belly laugh. I will never forget the feel of pressing up against his warm, wide chest and knowing this strong, smart, capable man was my grandpa whom loved me. To my grave, I will cherish those memories.
Perhaps, in honor of my grandpa, I gave my daughter the opportunity.
I am crying now thinking about it, about him.
Shortly after I turned nine my grandpa had his first stroke. He was never that man again. He had a stroke every year after until he spent his last month in diapers at a hospital, out of his mind, dieing of lung cancer. His class ring hung on his thin finger, like a loose gold tire, a reminder of the man he once was. An engineer from Lockheed. A whole life, gone. He didn't recognize his own children, let alone me. But I was the last of the grandkids that had memories of him, warm ones where he was that looming, booming giant of a man, against a California summer backdrop. There were many grandkids after me but none had grandpa in their hearts and minds like I did. My older sister was more closely bonded to grandma- and would continue to be closest to her, maybe even closer to grandma than grandma was to her own daughters.
Grandpa loved all his grandchildren, mind you, but, by the time the kids were old enough to develop a memorable relationship with him, he was mentally gone.
My daughter calls my father by his name (to her) "gam-pa", knows him and loves crawling all over him. She loves grabbing his cane and pounding on the floor like he showed her, or sitting in his lap while he sits in his Lincoln navigator, trying to push the horn, flipping or pushing all the available buttons and crawling all over the front seat, and sitting on his lap as he cruises down the Boardwalk in his little disability scooter. She has a bond with him. She has a Grandpa.
And all my sister's kids have a grandpa.
And I saw him yesterday, waiting for my sister's two kids, one at a football practice, the other at cheerleading practice. His stomach has become distended, rapidly, over the last month or two. To a size I have never seen before. He had been eating too many sweet lately- and being diabetic- on top of Hep C post inferion- not a good decision. But this- this was something else. His skin was yellow and gray. He can't sleep. He has new strange sharp pains.
It won't be long now.
He won't go get his liver blood test. No money for gas, he says. Meanwhile, my sister is sending him to the grave. Not once has she offered him gas money as he carts her children around- while she's out with her boyfriend -the younger one. Not working, mind you. just... y'know.... whatever it is she does with the 2,000-3,000 in child support for her 4 kids. They don't see that money, and it doesn't go to rent because she doesn't have to pay rent. Maybe I'm being too harsh. It's got to be difficult raising three boys and one girl on your own. Food is probably expensive. The child support is supposedly inconsistent. But those kids live in a house that should be condemned, wear the dirtiest, hole-y-est clothes. Her son showed up with grandpa one time with shoes that had soles worn all the way through- you could see half the bottom of his sock! Another wore flip flops so old they broke while at the Boardwalk. Funny thing, when next they showed up they had new shoes, but Grandpa bought them. I made it an issue, but not for him to take care of it. But, while I encourage him to set limits with my sister, because she is the type that will take until you are dead, he is his own man and makes his own decisions. He's not a meek man. He will do whatever he feels like doing. It's just hard watching my sister manipulate and use him like that. It's literally killing him.
I didn't realize it's been over a year since he started showing up until I realized his birthday was coming up again. Last year I took him out for a steak at the Diner, ironically the same Diner I had the fight with my mother a year prior. I told him the meal was free, like at Denny's because he didn't like me spending money on him and loves getting free stuff like that. Makes him feel special. He was thrilled, talked about that meal throughout the year. Wanted to go again but suspected the truth and made me tell him.
We still have plans to go, one way or another.
I didn't expect to see him finally turn a corner in his life during this last year, but he has.
I didn't expect my daughter to have a Grandpa, but she does, and I never thought I'd have a Dad too, but I do. Warts, wounds, history and all.
She calls her Gam-pa on her pretend phone, squeals when she sees him, climbs into his arms.
He's like a big kid, the perfect child companion. She loves his visits.
And now, the end we all knew was coming has started.
He's been terrified of it; has seen friends die of it, researched it, knows what's coming. Liver failure is an ugly, painful, horrible way to go. He's talked about it a lot over the last four/five years. Kind of stopped perseverating on it this last year. I know he hasn't forgot but maybe he was trying to forgot- or since the last dose of inferion was received and he was given an all clear, was hoping that was the end of it.
Stoic as he is, he's not "scared", oh no. But I know he is. It's why he put off getting an updated blood test for his liver/hep c levels.
I just got a Dad and now I'm going to lose him.
Not everyone is born from a force of nature. I don't feel like rebellion's daughter. I feel like my sister is,but not me. Life pounded me into stronger, wiser stuff, but I don't feel willful. I don't know. People have described me that way. Headstrong. I don't know if I believe them. I am also very easygoing and thoughtful. Too accommodating at times. My mother and sister- and even my father have given me that twist- the truncation of my own needs over others.
Coming from an immediate family that can not consider the needs of anyone but themselves, I say that's not such a bad thing, just needs balance.
In the end, this last year has allowed me to forgive my father.
I look into exhausted eyes and shaken skin
and say
you used your extra year well, Dad.
May it be a peaceful process
this inevitable letting go
that we are all headed toward
this shedding
and changing
into that energy
that hums along
neither sympathetic nor cruel
just bearing witness to itself
I saw my father yesterday. The signs are there. Won't be long now. The death of his liver... and my father.
I never had a father.
I had "Bear". The biker. Who did what.ever. the. fuck. he. wanted.
And at least, there is a small consolation prize that that is something. Lived doing whatever he felt like, like an obnoxious, wild, headstrong 70s child. Be it cocaine or chocolate milk, beer or crank or Disneyland or maybe even heroine. He says he got Hep C from a drug transfusion, but.... well, that's what he told his mother, who has, at the time, also dieing. That has been about -what ? Five years ago?
Two rounds of painful inferion treatment later.
This last year
not till my first born (and only born) was already around at least eight or nine months old- did he start showing up- always carting around one, two, or all four of my sister's kids. A Boardwalk trip- runs to and from practice (football usually) while my sister spent her time with one of two of her boyfriends. One boyfriend who was for her- younger, in a band, good looking- and the other she met while she was single and desperate and lonely, old. Nearly our fathers age, who also carts around the kids for her.
Bear used to take my sister's kids to Disneyland every year or so. Spent thousands and thousands of dollars on them.
Couldn't be bothered to lend me 100$ to pay for books or college fees. Not even to keep me from having to withdraw from college due to financial problems. Not keep, borrow.
What I knew then and know now is that he was and always will be a child. He just was never parented into being a responsible man. Perhaps he was too stubborn to be, (very true) and raising teenagers was a skill-set his parents lacked, for all their positive attributes, and Bear was as willful as they come and needed a skillful parent.
He was at all four of my sister's children's births. I remember. I was there too. No matter how my relationship with my sister was at the time. I showed up. And held the video camera for her. And she fixed her hair and directed me. Yes. While giving birth. She may be a complete narcissist but you got to admit, that's pretty tough, directing her own birth video!
I let my father know that I gave birth on the phone. He didn't come. I had an extended hospital stay due to minor complications. Never came. I had several phone calls over the succeeding months. Nothing.
One time, I told him that he was choosing to show up for my sister and not me and that I was done waiting and I would not be there at his deathbed and he would only be to blame for that.
Of course, I obviously didn't mean it. I mean, I did but when he started expressing a wish to come see my daughter and hang out with her, she was about eight months and there was no family to speak of other than me. She has no father or grandparents or any family for that matter from her bio paternal side. Her biological father has forbidden all contact. And the fact that his family, particularly his parents agreed speaks volumes to me and, while it's sad for her, I gladly wash my hands of the lot. With a clean conscious, as I did everything in my power to be accommodating and welcoming to him and them. She will have her own issues when she gets older and I fear that day. But it's beyond my control. And one less thing to have to stress over on a daily basis.
My mother is a very mentally ill woman who is too manipulative and twisted to be around. I tried having contact with her, anyway, after I gave birth. It quickly escalated and became painfully obvious that I can't be Mother to a new baby and to my mother, as was expected, much to my enraged mother. I'll never forget the way she grinded her teeth at the Diner where we went out for lunch after I tried to set some boundaries around our relationship.
I was eight months pregnant, had to move into a homeless shelter because I had become too sick with the pregnancy to make enough money to pull rent and had no where to turn.
She came once during my first trimester. I was too sick to get out of bed without puking and had yet to lose my apartment I was sharing. She had brought some boxes I had stored at her house, none containing the things I asked for, many of the items broken beyond repair. She asked me to bring the boxes into the house and I did, gagging and all, demanded I thank her at least three separate times, asked me to feed her. She then took a nap, woke up and left rather angry because I didn't shower her with attention and gratitude. I wasn't rude. I acted as grateful as I could manage, but I didn't entertain her properly. I was pregnant, nauseous, and listless a mattress on the floor.
When we were at the diner, I was about eight months pregnant, feeling a little better, working again, even if it was part-time since that's all I could manage. She began telling me how I have been so wrong to her, and as her daughter, I should be taking care of her and so on. I was pregnant with a potentially fatherless child, living in a homeless shelter, trying to get everything set up so I could be ready to have a baby on my own, ready to move into our own place, trying to get a car again, a crib, furniture, baby items, and all of it. I just looked into that righteously angry face of hers, the women who is responsible for so much suffering in my life that I work so hard to overcome, the woman I continued to tolerate, forgive, make excuses for, and take care of, and I just told her that we just have different ideas of what an adult parent-child relationship should look like. That was the most mature, succinct way to put it. I did not say so much that could be said. I just laid an obvious, firm but gentle boundary that stated that I will not be available to mother her. The face she made- denture teeth grinding against each other, clenched, tense. Same face she used to make when I was a child- that would signify she was about to attack me. The face of rage. I grew up terrified of that incredibly violent and incomprehensible behavior. Often she would beat us, my older sister and I, without provocation. Just because the personality she had switched to felt like it. Absolute terror growing up. I still feel warped with the PTSD, the mind numbing anxiety that I live with because of it.
So, no. No grandmothers for Bella.
I never really knew my father. My father received visitation rights when I was about four. I spent my summers with his parents. His parents tried to get him to show interest in his two daughters during the summer visits. If he showed any interest at all it was with my sister over me. He knew her from infancy on. My mother ran away from my father when she was pregnant with me. He saw me when I was about four for the first time. He knew I was born because the child support amount went up. Throughout my life, it has punctuated with this deep, agonizing feeling to be wanted and loved.
What I know is that my father didn't know how to love. He's a child. But, he did and does love me (and my sisters- yes, there's a third- who didn't even get the benefit of this last year). He's just selfish and self-centered and immature and irresponsible. But he is my father. And he does love me.
That's not why I let him in the door this last year. It had nothing to do with me. My daughter had no family to speak of, here was my father, making an effort to know her and show up, appeared to be showing up fairly consistently and I made the decision that it was in her best interests to allow her grandfather the opportunity to know her. It was something she would benefit from. I tried to keep my own feelings about my father in check- not so much anger- but the part of me that was a little girl wanting her daddy to just want to know her too.
He was a playful dad, the few memories I do have of him. Always with a beer, and strong, beefy, carpenter arms. Chatting with a friend.
When I was real young it was like pulling teeth, trying to get him to take me for a night or two during the summer I spent at his parents.
My grandpa. I loved my grandpa. I adored him. He was big and strong and responsible. A great big iconic man. With button up shirts and white blonde hair. Freckles and a wide smile. Grinning into the sun, flipping burgers, with a deep belly laugh. I will never forget the feel of pressing up against his warm, wide chest and knowing this strong, smart, capable man was my grandpa whom loved me. To my grave, I will cherish those memories.
Perhaps, in honor of my grandpa, I gave my daughter the opportunity.
I am crying now thinking about it, about him.
Shortly after I turned nine my grandpa had his first stroke. He was never that man again. He had a stroke every year after until he spent his last month in diapers at a hospital, out of his mind, dieing of lung cancer. His class ring hung on his thin finger, like a loose gold tire, a reminder of the man he once was. An engineer from Lockheed. A whole life, gone. He didn't recognize his own children, let alone me. But I was the last of the grandkids that had memories of him, warm ones where he was that looming, booming giant of a man, against a California summer backdrop. There were many grandkids after me but none had grandpa in their hearts and minds like I did. My older sister was more closely bonded to grandma- and would continue to be closest to her, maybe even closer to grandma than grandma was to her own daughters.
Grandpa loved all his grandchildren, mind you, but, by the time the kids were old enough to develop a memorable relationship with him, he was mentally gone.
My daughter calls my father by his name (to her) "gam-pa", knows him and loves crawling all over him. She loves grabbing his cane and pounding on the floor like he showed her, or sitting in his lap while he sits in his Lincoln navigator, trying to push the horn, flipping or pushing all the available buttons and crawling all over the front seat, and sitting on his lap as he cruises down the Boardwalk in his little disability scooter. She has a bond with him. She has a Grandpa.
And all my sister's kids have a grandpa.
And I saw him yesterday, waiting for my sister's two kids, one at a football practice, the other at cheerleading practice. His stomach has become distended, rapidly, over the last month or two. To a size I have never seen before. He had been eating too many sweet lately- and being diabetic- on top of Hep C post inferion- not a good decision. But this- this was something else. His skin was yellow and gray. He can't sleep. He has new strange sharp pains.
It won't be long now.
He won't go get his liver blood test. No money for gas, he says. Meanwhile, my sister is sending him to the grave. Not once has she offered him gas money as he carts her children around- while she's out with her boyfriend -the younger one. Not working, mind you. just... y'know.... whatever it is she does with the 2,000-3,000 in child support for her 4 kids. They don't see that money, and it doesn't go to rent because she doesn't have to pay rent. Maybe I'm being too harsh. It's got to be difficult raising three boys and one girl on your own. Food is probably expensive. The child support is supposedly inconsistent. But those kids live in a house that should be condemned, wear the dirtiest, hole-y-est clothes. Her son showed up with grandpa one time with shoes that had soles worn all the way through- you could see half the bottom of his sock! Another wore flip flops so old they broke while at the Boardwalk. Funny thing, when next they showed up they had new shoes, but Grandpa bought them. I made it an issue, but not for him to take care of it. But, while I encourage him to set limits with my sister, because she is the type that will take until you are dead, he is his own man and makes his own decisions. He's not a meek man. He will do whatever he feels like doing. It's just hard watching my sister manipulate and use him like that. It's literally killing him.
I didn't realize it's been over a year since he started showing up until I realized his birthday was coming up again. Last year I took him out for a steak at the Diner, ironically the same Diner I had the fight with my mother a year prior. I told him the meal was free, like at Denny's because he didn't like me spending money on him and loves getting free stuff like that. Makes him feel special. He was thrilled, talked about that meal throughout the year. Wanted to go again but suspected the truth and made me tell him.
We still have plans to go, one way or another.
I didn't expect to see him finally turn a corner in his life during this last year, but he has.
I didn't expect my daughter to have a Grandpa, but she does, and I never thought I'd have a Dad too, but I do. Warts, wounds, history and all.
She calls her Gam-pa on her pretend phone, squeals when she sees him, climbs into his arms.
He's like a big kid, the perfect child companion. She loves his visits.
And now, the end we all knew was coming has started.
He's been terrified of it; has seen friends die of it, researched it, knows what's coming. Liver failure is an ugly, painful, horrible way to go. He's talked about it a lot over the last four/five years. Kind of stopped perseverating on it this last year. I know he hasn't forgot but maybe he was trying to forgot- or since the last dose of inferion was received and he was given an all clear, was hoping that was the end of it.
Stoic as he is, he's not "scared", oh no. But I know he is. It's why he put off getting an updated blood test for his liver/hep c levels.
I just got a Dad and now I'm going to lose him.
Not everyone is born from a force of nature. I don't feel like rebellion's daughter. I feel like my sister is,but not me. Life pounded me into stronger, wiser stuff, but I don't feel willful. I don't know. People have described me that way. Headstrong. I don't know if I believe them. I am also very easygoing and thoughtful. Too accommodating at times. My mother and sister- and even my father have given me that twist- the truncation of my own needs over others.
Coming from an immediate family that can not consider the needs of anyone but themselves, I say that's not such a bad thing, just needs balance.
In the end, this last year has allowed me to forgive my father.
I look into exhausted eyes and shaken skin
and say
you used your extra year well, Dad.
May it be a peaceful process
this inevitable letting go
that we are all headed toward
this shedding
and changing
into that energy
that hums along
neither sympathetic nor cruel
just bearing witness to itself
Saturday, September 13, 2014
The Joy of Walking
Annabella Mae was breach, lodged under the right side of my ribcage and grew (organically, I like to say) with a condition called Torticollus. The muscles from ears to collarbones were affected, one side weak, the other short, giving her a tilted head. Every day, three times a day and more, we would tirelessly go through her series of exercises. When I went back to work, I would take my lunchbreaks and go to her daycare, breastfeed her then do her exercises. Because of how it affected her balance, all her gross motor skill milestones were behind her peers. She was slow to sit on her own, slow to roll over, crawl, and yes, walk. I became almost embarrassed having a toddler who wasn't toddling (and I KNOW better, getting my degree in Child Development!!!) People would ask how old she was and when I told them, reluctantly sometimes, I could hear the politely unsaid response, or at least I imagined what could be said. Still, I tried hard not to push her, only support her progress and effort and celebrate both her attempts, successes, and persistence.
She did finally start walking. She was 19 months old. The far side of normal. She is overjoyed at her new mobility. Her condition caused her to be more observant and consequently, she is quite cognitively and socio-emotionally advanced.
She is who she is. And I love her more than life itself. All of her, whoever that is and evolves into being. And walking or not, I AM proud of her.
She did finally start walking. She was 19 months old. The far side of normal. She is overjoyed at her new mobility. Her condition caused her to be more observant and consequently, she is quite cognitively and socio-emotionally advanced.
She is who she is. And I love her more than life itself. All of her, whoever that is and evolves into being. And walking or not, I AM proud of her.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)