In the middle of a conversation, I didn’t react at first to the tinny rendition of the New World Symphony emanating from the sleeve pocket of my old army winter parka. I am new to ringtones and it still takes me a second to realize that Dvorak in the air means someone wants to talk to me. The other truth is that I don’t like to talk on the phone much and most of the people I know recognize that fact. It actually startles people when my phone is actually on and I actually answer it. For some inexplicable reason, I left my phone on. Because the ringtone had already interrupted the conversation, I went to answer the phone.
I retrieved the phone out of the handy sleeve pocket and looked at the small screen on the backside of the phone. (No, I don’t have an iPhone. Yes, I recognize that once again I am going to be the last one on the planet to join the technological vanguard of smart phones.) The little screen informed me that the caller was using a New Mexico prefix. My heart stopped when I read the caller id. Do I answer or not? My mother was calling.
My mother did not abuse me while I was growing up. You could make the argument that she did an outstanding job rearing my siblings and me. As far as fulfilling the requirements of being a parent, my siblings and I were always fed, clothed, housed, and educated. When a doctor was needed, we went to the doctor. In my more charitable moments, I can remember the times my mother supported each of us in our extra-curricular pursuits. I think my mother attended everyone of my brother’s high school plays. My mother shuttled my sister and me around town to different sports competitions, orchestra rehearsals, private lessons, dance recitals (my sister not me), and various educational enrichment programs. Yet, I am almost never charitable in my feelings towards my mother.
I feel guilty about not feeling guilty about how much I dislike my mother. The truth is, my mother is a very mean woman. The most important thing to know about my mother is that she is a woman scorned. We all know about hell having no fury like a woman scorned.
My mother’s anger is justified. During my parents’ marriage and my father’s subsequent marriage to my step mother, my father was a poor excuse for a husband. If monagamy were an infection, my dad would be immune. This metaphor is especially ironic for my father’s numerous liaisons have resulted in several anti-biotic treatments over the years. In spite of the fact that I know my father’s inability to keep it zipped ruined my childhood home, seriously screwed up my half-sister, and disrupted several other families around the world (I am not exaggerating – he used to live in Germany), I can still enjoy my father’s company. Perhaps that is why he has been such a successful ladies man (at least initially), because he is someone whom people feel comfortable around. My mother is the exact opposite.
There are four things you have to know about my mother:
It’s always about her.
She never forgets.
She never forgives.
She always gets revenge.
Here is an example. That I was sixteen and lacked money is still not an excuse for ignoring my mother’s birthday. Both my sister and I were still living at home and we just allowed my mother’s birthday to pass without doing anything special for her. I’d like to think we cleaned the house or did some small token, but I think that is just wishful thinking. The absolute truth is that we honestly didn’t do enough for her. She didn’t say anything to us, but we knew we had screwed up.
When my birthday came around at the end of summer, I knew not to even think about asking for a birthday present. I was just hoping the day would pass by unnoticed and her justified revenge would be served. I remember for my 17th birthday, my last birthday living at home, I ate a tuna fish sandwich. Around eight that evening, my mother came to my room and presented me with a birthday card. My mother is especially good at crafting her revenge. Instead of a standard birthday card that one finds in the grocery store, my mother had saved one of those tiny tags that comes with packages of gift wrap. She handed me the 2 inch by 3 inch card and with a look of hard resovle said, “happy birthday.” Getting a card laced with spite is worse than getting nothing at all. It stung the more I thought about how she had set aside this miserable little card expressly to reap her vengeance. My mother always gets her payback.
That is just one petty example of my mother’s sense of retribution. My infancy is another example of how my mother likes to get even. My father was sent to Viet Nam right after my brother was born. My mother was extremely irritated that she had to deal with caring for my brother alone. When she became pregnant with me, she declared that my father was going to be responsible for my infancy. As much as possible, my dad was the one who was to change me, feed me, stay up at night with me. My mother was going to teach my father a lesson about having to deal with babies. Ultimately, I think this backfired on my mother because I have always had a fantastic relationship with my father.
How this truly corrupted our relationship, the one between my mother and me, is that I was always my father’s son. After my parents’ divorce, my mother retained custody of all of us, over my spoken objections. (I later found out my brother had also voiced his objection to remaining with my mother.)
My mother possessed, and still possesses, a great deal of hatred (I admit it is somewhat justified) towards my father. Unfortunately for me, her hatred manifested itself in objects which reminded her of my father. Being my father’s son in my mother’s house was a definite disadvantage. I clearly remember my mother being very upset with my father over some phone call. I had needed some assistance from my mother and approached her about something. Apparently I said something or made a similar gesture that my father normally made and my mother told me that I reminded her of my father. I can see now that just thinking about my father put my mother on edge. So I can realize now that saying anything about my father would trigger the iritation she must have felt about whatever had happened on the phone call. Unfortunately as a ten year old, I was not privvy to her mental processes. I just heard her tell me “you remind me of your father” followed by a grimace and her uttering “your father is such a turd.”
But I was not the only victim of my mother’s erratic behavior. In 2003, my sister had become engaged and was to get married that November. I was unable to attend the wedding as I was in Baghdad in the first year of the war. At 2 am in Baghdad, I was able to call my father’s cell phone and talk to my sister on her wedding day. In her official wedding portrait of the family, my dad is holding up his cell phone (that is how I am in the picture). While talking on the phone with my sister, I found out my mother was not at the wedding.
My mother claimed some sort of health issue was preventing her from attending the wedding. My aunt (the same one from yesterday’s post) told me that even if she was on her deathbed she would drag herself to attend her only daughter’s wedding. My mother was not in the hospital, nor was she going to the emergency room. Instead she sat at home and did not attend the wedding. This is made especially painful for my sister in that she was living with my mother at the time. My sister was in a bit of a shock and was at a loss of words to explain the whereabouts of my mother when my sister’s invited guests would inquire about mom.
My brother was forced to become my mother’s confidant as she dealt with the separation and divorce. My brother was forced to hear things about his parents that no teen age child should have to hear. For a period of about a year when my mother took a job working evenings, my brother served as the sole parental figure in the house. My brother has only recently forgiven my father for leaving him in the custody of our mother. (This change of heart has more to do with being in a financially precarious position rather than any new found love.)
My mother did not limit her strange interractions to just the children she could dominate at home. My most vivid memory of my mother losing it was the day my sister brought one of her little friends home from kindergarten. When the child’s mother came to retrieve her daughter, my mother barred entry to the house and demanded that the woman show identification. The scene ended when the woman pulled out family pictures to prove that the girl was her daughter. Needless to say, we didn’t invite many of our friends to our house after that.
So my phone was ringing and my mother was on the other end. I made the mistake of answering the phone. It is not that I am not speaking with her, rather I am just not making any effort to speak to her. If she sends me an email, then I reply. If she calls, then I speak. For me to do anything more than that would be to perpetuate a lie. So she calls, I decide to speak.
I say, “hello?”
She says, “hello and happy new years. I was just calling to say happy new years. Okay, goodbye” and she hangs up.
So for the past day and a half I have been wondering why the hell she does what she does. I know she wants me to call her back and tease out why her feelings have been hurt and then ultimately for me to offer whatever she deems to be an appropriate apology. But I don’t do that…
I am no longer the child she can threaten with slapping…
I am no longer under her dominion. The rush I had to get out of the house wasn’t because I craved independence for independence’s sake. No, I wanted my freedom to escape her domestic tyranny. I sold myself into slavery with the US military to get away from her. I am a bit of a cold hearted bastard because of that woman.
I respect and honor the woman that gave birth to me. I do not have to like the woman. I try to limit my contacts to people who make me feel better about myself and exclude those people who make me feel small and petty. Just because I am related to you doesn’t mean I will make an exception.
A little bit of Mischief... 