Tag Archives: childhood

appreciation, families, Love, mothers

Mom

I don’t know how to talk about her.   I never have.   My love for her grows up from such a deep place within me that words have always seemed elusive.  Few others matter as much as her.  Still, the words to describe how I feel about her, seem to slip away before I can pin them down.   Perhaps others might feel this as well?  There’s just something about mothers that make them so significant that they evade definition by the sheer magnitude of their importance.

I used to write about my Dad all the time.  Especially when he was alive.  Birthdays, Father’s Day and any other holiday that might require a gift of words.    It was easy to gift him this.  I could write pages about him.   The words flowed easily and often.   He was larger than life.   And he loved the words.  Loved to hear how he was seen.  How he was loved.

My mother asked me once, why I didn’t often write things about her?   She misunderstood it, I think, to mean that she meant less.   But the opposite was true.   She meant so much more, that my heart wouldn’t allow me the words to describe it.   She isn’t larger than life, she is life.

But she’s turning 86 this week.  And I know I can’t avoid it forever.   I don’t want the first words I write about her to be a eulogy.   I want her to KNOW.   So here is what feels like a feeble attempt at describing what she means to me.

I think, perhaps I can explain some of it through who I have become by being loved by her.  If you are my husband, or child and you are sick.   I am there for you.   I will climb mountains, sacrifice both my own health and my sleep, pray deeply and spare no expense…to do all within my power to restore you to health.  I will not think twice about this.   I consider it my greatest honor and my duty to be able to love you.  For when you are hurt I am hurt.   This I learned watching my mother.

Thinking back to the times when I was sick during my childhood, I can still hear my father in the middle of the night, waking up my mother….”Beverly, she’s calling you….”   I never called for him.   Always her.   She knew how to soothe.  How to comfort.   Her hands were always cool and refreshing to a fevered brow.   It seemed she could make me better just by willing it to be so.

When I grew and left home, it took me years of dealing with late night illnesses, before I stopped longing for her presence when I was sick.  It was one of the hardest things to give up when I moved away.

And my mother KNOWS things.   She always has.   Still to this day even.   “Are you alright?” she’ll ask.   I have revealed nothing, yet she knows.   I love that.   It’s an instinct she has.   Cultivated over years of having to read between the lines with her children.  And no matter her age, this instinct is as sharp as ever.

My mother is a part of everything I have become.   When I am like my dad, I am noticed.  But when I am like my mother, I am loved.  People just love her.   She’s the person you bump into in the grocery store and end up telling your life story to.   You don’t know why you did it, she didn’t ask, but something about her openness compels you.  She is a safe place to reveal yourself.   This is part of what always made her a great secret keeper!   I could tell her anything.

The funny thing about my mother is that she doesn’t even grasp how much she is loved.  She struggles with feelings of unworthiness.  Her life long focus has always been so much on others that her world is off kilter when the emphasis is on her. She often thinks people are catering to her out of the goodness of their hearts.   When the truth is they are responding to her in love and with love – a love that is just for her.

I can’t change this about her, but I have tried.  I’ve tried to impress upon her the significance she plays in her children’s lives…but she can’t hold on to it.  She struggles to understand her own great worthiness. Recently she said to me, “Won’t you be so glad when I’m gone?   You’ll have some free time!”   These words hurt, but she doesn’t mean them to.   She hates to impose.  Hates to take.   And she so values me and my time that taking up some of it feels like a tremendous burden to her.

Will I be happier when she’s gone?  Not a chance.   There is not one moment of time that I have spent with her that I would exchange for something else.   And I know, no matter how many more moments I have, there will never be enough time with her.   I will always want more.

I grew up being told by her (repeatedly!!), “You should never hate anyone.”   I was the dramatic child who hated everyone and everything when frustrated.   Her words drove me crazy.   Didn’t she understand, some things deserved to be hated?  But I regularly hear her saying that in my head these days and the older, less drama driven version of myself, recognizes the beauty in what she tried to impress upon me.   She was right.  Little did I know, she was shaping how I see others.

But she has also shaped how I see myself.  I showed her something I wrote the other day.  She read it, smiled and responded with , “You are really something!!”  And when she says it, I believe it.  I feel like something.   Who else on this planet thinks of me and thinks, “She is really something!!” in the way my mother does?  All blinders to my faults, seeing only the good…..when she says it, you know it’s only a part of who you are but she sees the best part.   And it makes you want to be even better.

My mother has always been a kind, gentle soul.  A fierce protector of those she loves.  There have been moments though, where she has had to rise to tough challenges.   Like the time when I was hit by a car at 16.   My leg was shattered.  One bone in a million little pieces and the other coming right out of my leg.   My foot torn up so much that the bones could be seen.  My mother entered the emergency room and the doctor put her to work.  I don’t know where the rest of the staff were that day, but while I lie awake on a table, the doctor and my mother proceed to clean my leg.  It was a slow, painstaking process.   I know I was in agonizing pain but I don’t remember the pain.  What I remember from that moment was my mother.  She was a rock!  She assisted the surgeon, did everything he asked and did it well.  How on earth, did she do it?  I still don’t know.   But the image of the strength she portrayed that day has stayed with me ever since.

Yes, she’s a kind, gentle soul who did whatever she needed to do for those she loved.  I’ve been the beneficiary of that love and devotion my entire life.  So when I’m spending time with her, I’m not thinking about where I might rather be or what else I could be doing.  Instead, I’m thinking….I love this woman.   Every moment with her is a gift.  And it’s a gift I can never get enough of

Happy Birthday Mom.  I love you.

 

 

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Me too, Uncategorized

“Me too”

The current “Me Too” movement and it’s focus on sexual assault, and harassment has had me thinking back.   Being born in the 60’s and growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, sexual innuendo permeated the culture.   Love American Style, Love Boat and Fantasy Island were the shows I grew up on.   Sex seemed to be everywhere and what is now understood to be harassment was in general, seen and accepted then, as ‘suggestive’ talk.

I am fascinated that the “Me too” movement has gained so much traction.   Fascinated and glad.  Growing up in the time I did, it never occurred to me that unwanted suggestive talk or advances was anything more than a troubling annoyance.   Something one expects and deals with (silently).   And as for dealing with abuse and abusers publicly, wow!  Today’s women are heroes.

So here’s my story.   It’s not truly a “Me too” story because it’s not related to workplace harassment.   Although I have had those experiences.   But it is related to the Me Too movement by a culture that encourages silence and a shared feeling of powerlessness.    It’s related by what can happen when people listen to others stories, believe them and take action.

All through my childhood we vacationed in a place called The Elms.   It was a cozy, little resort nestled in Goff Falls, NH.   I loved it there and counted down the days throughout the year until we would return for our week in the summer.   It was an idyllic place where children were allowed to roam freely, without supervision.   Parents were everywhere and everyone’s parents looked out for everyone’s kids.

But no matter what the time period or culture, kids left alone can find trouble.   And we did!  But for the most part, it was harmless fun or at least fun that fortunately didn’t end in harm.

Until that one night….  The Elms held a movie night, once a week in their dance hall.  The summer that I was ten, the movie was Disney’s, Million Dollar Duck.  Lots of people, both kids and adults would go. I went with a friend and we settled down to watch the movie.

At some point, two young men walked into the movie and one of them sat down in the chair right next to mine.  He was very tall and broad, with a short buzz cut.  He was not very good looking, but his friend was cute.  My friend and I giggled as they sat down next to us.   To ten year old girls, 20 year old men are quite exciting.

The guy next to me told me his name was Steve.   I knew he was a marine but I can’t remember how I knew that.  And then he put his hand on my leg.  It’s funny the things you remember in times like this.   I had worn a pair of yellow shorts with green trim to the movie.   On the leg was the words, “Girl Power”.   Ironic.  I liked those shorts.   In them I felt sassy and powerful.   More irony.

My first response was good.   I jumped up and dragged my friend to the bathroom.   I told her what he had done.   She was appropriately horrified.  But I was curious.  We went back and sat down in our seats and he got bolder, sliding his hand further up my leg and just for a moment, under my shorts.   At this point, my curiosity was replaced with fear and my friend and I fled.

But I didn’t tell anyone.   It was too embarrassing.

The next night, the resort had one of their regular dances in the dance hall.  It was a always a good time with young and old, together having fun.  And then Steve appeared.  He began to hang around where I was dancing.  A slow song began to play and he took my hand and said we should dance.   My parents were at this dance but weren’t alarmed by his dancing with me, I’m not sure if they even noticed.  After all, everyone got along with everyone here….

Fortunately one of my friends fathers noticed and cut in.   He said I looked uncomfortable and asked me if everything was alright?  Wasn’t he wonderful?!   I thought so.   He had saved me!   I don’t know what I said to him, though I am sure I denied there was any problem.   I stayed close to my parents after that.

The next day I was out walking alone when Steve and his friend approached me.   He asked me if I wanted to meet him that afternoon in the woods.   I don’t remember my response but I remember his friend with him saying, “Steve!  Come on!”  In a way that told me his friend didn’t understand Steve’s interest in me.  And his friend was right to be concerned.   I wasn’t only ten, I looked ten.   Pigtails, freckles….even too young for braces.   I was not some well developed ten year old who could pass for older.   I was clearly a kid.  I muttered something and ran off.

But the fear!   I was wracked with it.   Clearly he could find me anywhere.  He no longer seemed interesting to me but now, was very, very obviously creepy.   I was petrified.  And I did something that still amazes me to this day.   I went and told my father.

And here’s where the real story lies.

My father didn’t say much when I told him.   But as I write this, I am grinning at what I so clearly remember happening next.   My father went and found Steve (I watched from a safe distance).   My dad was in his 50’s, with the extra weight of comfortable living around his belly.  My dad, who was approximately 5’8” tall, went and confronted this 6 foot plus, big, buff, marine guy.

I can still see it.   I could hear my father say, “I want to talk to you, come over here.” And he led him away from where people were to a secluded spot by some trees.   I couldn’t hear anything else but I could see my father telling him something and I could practically see the sweat break out on Steve’s face.  The next thing I knew, Steve was getting into his car and tearing out of the parking lot.   I never saw him again.

I don’t know if my father ever reported it, but he wasn’t one to let things go easily.   Now I recognize that Steve was a pedophile.  I don’t think we had that name for it then.   I hope for other people’s sake, that my dad reported him.

Here’s what I do know.   My father loved me.   He was able to stand up to someone bigger and stronger than himself and come out the victor.  He never once made me feel bad for not telling him sooner.   When he was talking to that man by the trees, my father never looked taller!

So, yes, I also have “Me too” stories.   But I shrug most of them off as the time I grew up in. I didn’t know enough to be offended or to speak up.   I’m glad though that the times are changing.  Glad for my kids.   Glad for future generations.

And thankful, that even in a culture and time of great ignorance, I had a dad who believed me instantly, who stood up for me strongly and in doing so helped me to start to see my worth.  He didn’t know it, but he was teaching me to not only stand up for myself but for others as well.   That’s the part of the story worth remembering.

 

 

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