In the beginning . . .
February 23, 2007
It was always apparent that Mom’s child-raising techniques were shaky. My brother, sister & I all have some qualities that would only make us appropriate for the deeply discounted fruit section of the supermarket. My own life theories & child-rearing beliefs, juxtaposed against my mother’s eccentricities, make me seem whiny & dramatic.
Example: Mom gave her third husband a gun for Christmas not long after I noticed bullet holes in their bedroom window. I asked a few questions and learned that Mom had recently actually fired her own gun in his direction and missed. I disagree with her decision to provide him with the ability to return fire. However, if I look at it from her perspective, I am selfish. The fair and thoughtful thing to do was equal the playing field.
This is one minor situation in an enormous cache of material that I may or may not document on this blog in the future.
Recently a family crisis has arisen & it trumps the old stuff for today. It all began when my sister’s daughter, at age 19, moved into a trailer and begin living with a 45-year old Mexican named Oscar. Next, my nephew began living with a girl whose parents are both in prison for murder, her father on Alabama’s death row. I really wondered how much further this fantastical story could spiral.
The niece, Samantha, decided that rearing only one baby lacked credibility in the trailer park, so when her daughter was 11-months old she bore Oscar a son. Then the trailer caught fire. “Wow,” you may be thinking, that’s crazy. But that’s not the crazy part. Everyone was feeling very sympathetic, donations were pouring in, clothes and money from churches & the Red Cross.
As the trailer fire sympathy reached a crescendo, she was arrested for picking up a 42-pound package of marijuana. It was described by police as being “recliner-sized.” She was even stealing her own mother’s plastic baggies for the distribution, which was really a level of inconsideration that I think was unnecessary. The feds didn’t even bother to arrest her the first time, when the package was only 20 some pounds (perhaps the size of an ottoman?)
Since these events began unfolding, I have spoken with my family more in the last month than in the last decade. I started making excuses why I should be more understanding toward my mother, now a senior citizen. But I was particularly disturbed by her attitude about drug distribution: ”Well, I think anybody would do the same thing if they were sure they could get away with it.” What?
Picture the scenario for our telephone conversation: My mother has had a balloon inserted into her stomach because of an inability to control her desire for food. She is choking on the other end of the phone because she inserted a piece of chicken tender into her mouth and swallowed it whole. She is beating herself on the chest, trying to make it go up or down, as she attempts to continue the conversation. She is wheezing from her allergy to the four dogs that live in her house. She has lost weight and is now down to 250.
I continue to be surprised that my mother is both a financial genius and a moron. As we talked it became clear that her real disappointment was that my niece did not handle the business end of this deal properly and the pay was not what it should have been. Mom claims that everyone does drugs, they should be legalized, and that’s that.
So on Christmas Eve she bailed my niece out of jail ($5,000/10%) because, “Somebody’s got to take care of these fucking kids.” These are the kind of sweet nothings my mother has screamed at the top of her lungs my entire life. If my niece takes off, Mom owes $45,000.
Three days after my niece was released from jail my nephew received a 45-day jail term for flunking his own urine test.
Today I live across the country in an average loving home with my husband, son & daughter. But I grew up with my mother, I entered this world through her, and I am still fascinated by her lunacy. I carry some of it with me in my brain, in my DNA, in my occasional lapses into very poor behavior. A part of me still craves the dysfunction, the hitting, the screaming, the adrenaline rush of a sick family.
March 2, 2008 at 9:17 am
Re-reading this, it’s still funny, and still painful. I don’t know, should I be jealous that your family seems even more dysfunctional than mine? “Hey she has better material, of course she’s funnier!”
Ugh. I’ve been addicted to crisis, over the years. I’ve created them, walked into them when I should have known better, and felt uneasy when there was no crisis.
My mom’s house is still a screaming zone, with all the people my brother has moved in there – his girlfriend, her niece, and her nephew. They came “temporarily,” one at a time, starting about 16 years ago. The nephew is 8. The girlfriend screams at my mother and my mother screams back, and the girlfriend swears at the niece who flees to her grandmother’s. The grandmother was living in a No-tell Motel with her first cousin, last I heard. Srsly.
These kids have different father (one of whom was stabbed to death outside a bar, and one of whom was in jail when the baby was born) as does the third child the mother had. That kid went to the grandparents (well it turned out their son was not really the dad, but bless their heart they still wanted the baby anyway.)
My mother’s house has two bedrooms and one bathroom. My brother built a one room shack in the back yard and goes out there a lot. He does not pay rent, but he has a cabin (near some fishing!) that he owes more on than he could get for it.
I moved. I don’t go up there. My mom won’t drive on the freeway so I see her every few years, even though it’s a two hour drive.
I talk to her on the phone about 5 times a year, during which conversation she tells me something is about to change. She’s going to sell the house, or they’re going to move, or…. or… NOT, mom. Give it up. It’s been 16 years.