Mother's Little Helper

Helper
Originally uploaded by Lola_TC
There's a Rolling Stones' song with the same title of this post, though it is referring to popping tranquilizers -- a very different kind of "helper". The one I am referring to is me and the collective "we" --all of the children whose parents used them to save themselves.

I had a beautiful Kabbalistic healing today with one of my classmates. I spoke about my little one and the issues I am working on presently to allow all of the voices to be heard re: my relationship with my mother. One of the voices that arose during the healing today was this one: "I could not save you, Mom."

This voice brings me incredible sadness. And anger and resentment and even compassion. All of these feelings are here.

I never had the chance to speak with my father while he was alive about why he adopted me. I did, however, get an answer to this question from my mother. During a lung cancer scare on a hospital bed beside her back in December '05, my mother shared with me that the day they brought me home, she held me in the front seat and knew that I was "special". When I heard her tell me this back then, I was deeply moved. When I put this piece of the puzzle in with the other ones I've been collecting and fitting into the bigger jigsaw picture of our relationship, this information passed on by my mother has a different flavor.

My mother had polio and scoliocis when she was a young girl. My grammy described her as a "sickly" girl on a number of occasions. She didn't get to do the things she had dreamed of, like ballet or sports or play an instrument. Partly because of being ill and partly because her family was poor.

Fast forward to the early '60's: she desperately tries to conceive a child and gets tests and my father gets tests and there is no logical reason why they can't  make a baby. Then along comes me, given up by my biological mother for reasons unknown to me and delivered to them 9 months after I am born in June of '62.

At the age of 4 going on 5, I am taken to ballet classes. My best guess would be that in my right mind, I would not have chosen these on my own ! My mother pushes me to practice and practice and I whine and moan and downright hate it. She keeps guard when I have to stand on the tips of my toe-shoes in the livingroom while she irons and I want to fire daggers out of my eyes at her. She makes sure my grammy sews my costumes and that I look "just so". When I tell her in 5th grade that I want to play softball, she does give me the choice between ballet and softball. Begrudgingly. And, suddenly, her interest and availability in her daughter playing softball, unlike ballet, has fizzled entirely. She doesn't come to a single game. Ballet=mom's dream fulfilled through me; softball=mom's dream squashed, withold attention from daughter.

At a young age, around 8 or 9, I see older kids playing instruments. I am intrigued by the viola. I love the sound. It's not as "high-pitched" as the violin and it's a bit bigger, more "meatier" to hold. I want to play this. I share this with my mother. The idea is immediately rejected. I will be supported, however, to play a "band" instrument -- marching band, that is. I am coerced into playing the saxophone. My mother insists that I have lessons. I go every week to the woman I will now refer to as the "sax Nazi" and am rattled to my core everytime I enter and leave her house as she barks commands about what I am not doing right. I hate this as much, perhaps even more, than ballet. I am told that I will play in the Junior High band and the same for the High School band. I don't want to be up at ungodly hours to arrive on a damp field to be drilled by bando military sergeants about keeping a proper height of marching step or how to sway the sax at just the right angle. I will later come to find out that my mother's push for me to keep playing the sax is so that her dream of being in a Bowl parade is fulfilled through me. I could absolutely vomit when I think about this and the countless events that I missed out on hanging out doing things I would've loved to do but instead was marching on hot pavement in an over-sized polyester uniform with a 3 point hat. After my last parade and concert in 12th grade, I never picked up that sax again.

At church, I was introduced to others by some attribute not simply as "this is my daughter, K" but rather "she's in the marching band at ______" or "she had her 1st solo recital at Miss Jean's school of dance". I was to sing in the choir and be an altar girl and when I was older, I was to be a scripture reader. I became a trophy for my mom to hold up proudly. I was a subject she could discuss with friends and family. She could show me off. And yet, I never received the accolades from her directly, but instead I was talked about in circles in the 3rd person. I served as a nice distraction to deter away from any potential discussion about her aloof, in-the-closet-drunk husband.

In my senior year in high school, I was my mother's ultimate shiny prize to show off. I was the first in my family going to college. This was told to every bank teller, cashier, postal worker, you name it. It was never, however, told to me.

Interesting in this moment to look back upon this and understand that the rages I experienced when I was drinking were often misfired at my father. It is clear to me that the surge of heat running up my neck or the tension I feel in my shoulders as I type or the tightness in my clenched jaw in recalling all of these things would be a pretty darn good indicator that I was pissed as hell at my mother ! And it was not safe and far too terrifying to have this enter my consciousness at the time. I couldn't let myself go there.

I'm aware there is a cost that is incurred when you adopt a child, far more expensive now than back then, but still substantial nonetheless. Money can't buy you happiness. Nor could it buy my mother an unsinkable life raft to keep her from drowning. But it did buy her a child to keep herself afloat for awhile.

Funny thing is, letting this particular voice be heard has dropped me, in this moment, into a place of compassion for my mother. The bitterness and anger I felt just a few paragraphs ago has faded. The storm that was raging inside had taken a turn and the winds have died down.

I am putting the puzzle pieces away, for now ...