Pieces

Sept. 6, 2008

It’s February 3,1983. I’m thirteen. 4:00 am. I can’t sleep. I put my thumb back in my mouth. There’s a feeling in my guts that won’t go away. Like butterflies or a motor running. I sense that my dad isn’t there. I slip out of bed and look out my window. His truck is gone. I go out to the living room and sit on the couch to read my book. I ‘ve got this neurotic habit of rocking back and forth on the couch while I moan and chant. My little sister has the same habit. Everyone called us the “Bouncy Twins.” Trying to make light of our obvious dysfunction. I don’t know how many couches we have destroyed by this point. She was always yelling at me for it. I couldn’t sit still on the couch no matter what the consequences were. She told me I was retarded and maybe I should think about stopping because other people would find out. I became so self-conscious about it that I would try to stop if I heard someone coming. Sometimes all I could do was mange to stop the moaning/chanting and slow the full swing rocking to just a small movement back and forth.

On this February morning as I’m on the couch reading and rocking I hear the storm door open and click shut. I know its only going to be 15 seconds before I hear the key in the lock. I slow down my rock as my Dad is opening the door. I come to a dead stop when I see the flower arrangements my sister and I had made for her a few days earlier. “She’s dead isn’t she? What time?” “I’m sorry babe,” he said “right around 5:30“. “I need to get ready for school.” I said. He said I wouldn’t be going for a while. “How long?” I ask. “As long as it takes.” I started rocking again and crying, in part because of the unexpected compassion in his voice.

I wasn’t prepared for her death. I mean we all knew it was coming but I wasn’t done hating her yet. Hating her for being sick, for everything that she did and didn’t do .I hated her just because of who she was. I knew I was supposed to love her no matter what. I couldn’t wrap my mind around losing her while I still felt this way.

It’s the Christmas before she dies. Our Hospice Nurse took us shopping to buy a gift for her. She took us to The Lantern, a Christian bookstore in Urbandale. I remember the spray on snow in the windows. Everything looked so warm and fuzzy. The happy faces of the shoppers. Caroles playing. My little sister the loyal one, excited to buy her something. I felt so much like the old cliché, “on the outside looking in.” I was certain that we were the only ones in the store whose mother was dying. Perhaps I was the only one in the world who hated their mother as she was.

I found a wall plaque that said, “ I asked Jesus how much He loved me and He spread His arms wide and said “I love you this much!” The minute I saw it I knew that was the gift. Until she opened it that is. She was so frail and skinny. Her knobby fingers tore away the paper. I waited in anticipation. Hoping that for once I could please her. She just sobbed when she read it. I didn’t know what to do. I had obviously made a mistake. I started crying too. I was going to leave but then she looked me in the eye and said, “Thank you” and as she glanced away she said, “I love you” I don’t remember her telling me that before. I don’t mean to say that she never spoke those words to me. I truly wouldn’t know. It just happens to be the only time I remember her saying it. Her actions on any given day for the most part spoke something all together contrary.

It’s not that I got beat everyday because I didn’t. But everyday I got beat it just seemed so random and it came with no warning. My memory isn’t complete on a lot of the details. Especially the part I played in it. Funny how that is. On this particular occasion she had just had her teeth pulled because she was getting dentures. I remember being in the kitchen and she was angry. She was trying to swallow her pain pills but her lips wouldn’t grip the straw. She asked me if I was lying. About what I don’t remember. The next thing I know my head is bouncing off the cinder block wall repeatedly. I was screaming for her to stop as she was screaming “Jesus fucking Christ I hate you! Don’t ever lie to me again! I wish you would go to hell!” She didn’t stop slamming my head into the wall until I screamed, “ I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding please Mom stop!” The mention of blood caught her attention and she stopped to look at my head. It turns out that what I thought was blood was just the sweat of panic. An over reaction on my part I guess. She grabbed me by the hair and pushed me against the wall as my head bounced for the last time. She told me to go to my room. It was over.

I remembered this incident the day I bought the plaque as she lay in her bed slowly dying, barely 75 lbs. Some how I knew that as much as we were different there was a part of me that was the same as her. We understood what it was like to pay for someone else’s sins. I guess we had that in common with Him (not exactly the co-inheritance of Christ). Our responses just happened to be different I guess. She carried on the tradition. I abandoned my children so it wouldn’t continue. He remained sinless. I wanted to be sinless too, but I just couldn’t. There is still that part of me that wants to be a saint. To remain unaffected. To love and understand and be willing to take the hits for the team. My humanity won’t let me.



There are numerous episodes like this one. To many to recall. The lines have blurred together over time. Sometimes I’m not sure who was getting beat or accosted. One of my siblings or myself. It’s almost as if we are all one melded together. I’ve tried to separate myself from my childhood, from my family. It’s like trying to remove my skin or draining the blood from my veins. I need these things to be, just as my past makes me who I am. At the same time when I recall these memories it is much like dragging around an amputated limb. It doesn’t function and if there is any flesh left on it, it just stinks. People can tell.

The worst wasn’t necessarily being beat. I t was the verbal blows that came with each strike of the fist, and the remorse that would strike her later. I would always betray myself and fall into her arms and sob while she stroked the hair on the head that she just beat and told me how sorry she was. These were the only times I received affection from her. I hated myself for falling for this again. She didn’t mean it. She’d try harder next time. I still believe that.


A few years ago I started praying for understanding. Largely because of my own inept parenting skills. I’ve had enough counseling to know that there is a connection. Although I don’t beat my children or call them names, I lack the coping skills necessary to deal with them effectively. I started asking questions of relatives about my mother. I was almost fourteen when she died. I don’t really know much about her other than my own experiences with her. I’m old enough and aware enough to know that my perceptions and knowledge are very limited, and her life was comprised of more than just the time frame that we knew each other. From what I’ve gathered my mother grew up in foster homes and orphanages. No one is clear on the circumstances as to why she ended up there. I do know that she suffered serious abuse. She was called a niger wop while she was being beat. That is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s also the extent of my knowledge of her childhood.

The bitch about understanding is this. I understand. Limited yes, but I understand. Pieces of the puzzle fall into place and I say, “No wonder, it wouldn’t make sense any other way.” Suddenly the Blame Thrower malfunctions in my grip and I find myself burned. Responsible for my actions although still unaware of what or how to change them.

No longer justified in my own mind, the realization came that I’m a broken vessel, trying to glue my pieces back together. Some pieces represent love. Some pieces represent hate.

Sometimes, to me, these pieces….They look the same.