Tobacco Stains and the Snow Plow

I decided not to go that morning. I decided not to go to see her and she died.

Because I did not go see her? Maybe. Because the survived ovarian cancer, survived breast cancer, emphysema, past fall down the stairs thanks to her drunken ex-husband culminated and said “Your coming with us now”? Likely.

Since I was born, she was there. My mom brought her home after she visited her in the nursing home and found out they were not treating her right. My grandmother. She was like another child- unable to cook, run errands, or do algebra. Her and her ex got drunk one night and he pushed her down the stairs and he caused brain damage. I never met him, but oh, oh how I hate him for that.

And also, in a weird way, I am grateful. Otherwise, I never would have gotten to grow up with a grandmother who was my equal but could remember the wars. Could remember the depression. So many stories

She was always kind, always smiling. Always smoking too. I still wake up sometimes, 10 years after her death and 15 since I have lived in the same house, smelling her Benson and Hedges Menthols. And I hug my pillow and I wish, so terribly, that her wrinkled, tan, calloused and tobacco stained hands would hug me like she always used to. Would hold me while I cried, like she used to when I would find my mother on the couch, passed out with tequila spilled on the carpet.

I was living on my own, going to college and working and living, when my father called and invited me over for dinner. My grandma seemed off that night, sad somehow. I hugged her and she told me she loved me.

Then she told me to remember that I can fly away in my dreams.

And I knew. I knew she was going to die. She used to tell me that same phrase when I would cry and sob in her arms, clutching her shoulders, sobbing into her flat double mastectomy-ied chest, because even as a child I realized what my mother was doing to herself and I wanted to run away.

And I left. And that night it snowed. And I called my Dad early and said I would not be able to make it to feed the horses because the road had not been plowed yet, and would he mind walking out back to do it this morning?

An hour later he called back, as I was settling in to study, and told me my grandmother had died last night.

And I shattered, there amongst the piles of papers, my laptop, the wet boots from my trek to the buried car that morning. I shattered.

When my mother and I drove to the ocean to spread her ashes, I could not. I could not touch the ceramic jar. The cold, dead jar. The cancer. And I fell to my knees on the wet sand.

And I was five again, wishing I could run away.

Then I smelled her cigarettes, and my head filled with memories of her hands- making clay snakes with me, frosting cakes, giving me her veggies because she hated green things…

And I wished her sweet dreams. And my mom, my mom who has been through so much, let her mother’s ashes fly away.

And I imagined that she was up in Heaven, smoking her favorite cigarette and eating cake and patting some child on the head, comforting them as she used to comfort me.

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Inspired by this from Her Bad Mother:

This post was inspired by a discussion that was shared between me and some very good friends – Lindsay, Loralee, Julie and Devra – at Mom 2.0. We curled up on the floor of the bedroom of the Four Season’s Presidential Suite during the CheeseBurgHer party and talked spirituality and faith, grief and loss, prayer and meditation and all variety of confused and confusing things. And then Lindsay decided that maybe we should explore some these questions (like the one I’m struggling with above, talking to kids about death) together, on our blogs. So we are. You’re welcome to join in. Leave me a link if you do. Or just speak your piece in the comments. Talking, maybe, will bring enlightenment. Or maybe more confusion. Either/or.

So: how do you talk to your children about death? Do you talk to your children about death? If they ask the hard questions, how do you/will you answer? Or do you, will you, like me, seek their answers, and look for comfort there?

My moment

I am going on a new pill next week. Getting off some others. It's kind of like going on a plane- you know that they hardly ever crash, but somewhere in your lizard brain you worry that the "hardly ever" will become "today" and you will go down in a hot mess of a crash.

In the meantime I have to wean off the old pill. And I am not sure what caused the moment of clarity for me, but I am going to say that it was due to me really, really paying attention to my body and thoughts this week.

I want an apology. From my parents. Thats all- three words "I am sorry".

Most of you will smile to yourselves and think "oh, she is so young, she has so much to learn about the world" Yeah? Try raising your sister, placating your father by holding flashlights while working on stupid cars in a freezing garage, and prying the bottle out of mommy's hand at night, then tell me I need to grow up. My sister is graduating medical school this year, so I guess I did alright there.

What I have NEVER gotten was an apology. Not for my mom busting my nose, not for...so much. So very, very much.

So while I am still to chicken shit to demand it from them...thats what I want. That's the only thing I want from them. Instead I will get a care package for my birthday and Christmas...and while I pretend that those presents carry a hint of apology...well I can only pretend for so long.

It is hard, not feeling close to your parents. It's even harder to explain to people that I would rather be just about anywhere else then in a room with both of them.

Maybe I should change this website to "How I hate my parents" with how much I am writing about them lately. Stick with me reader, if anyone is reading. I promise that soon, oh so soon, I will be on a new pill and I am sure the hilarity will ensue

Thanks Mom and Dad, couldn't have done it without y'all

I don’t like my parents.

Not in the teenage they just took away my new moon poster kind of way. I really don’t like them. Sometimes I find it very hard to speak to them on the phone, and I never, ever want to take my vacation to visit them.

My mom is a recovering alcoholic. She stopped drinking right after I turned 16. Why you ask? Well, I had to wrestle her to the ground one night when she was plastered and wanted more smokes. She busted my nose with her head. I moved out the next day. I guess she decided it was time to start being a sober mommy after that, she has not drank ethanol since. She smoked and drank while pregnant with my sister and I, and I think that’s where my anger with her began.

My dad…where do I start? He is the reason I have to take pills to keep my brain chemicals in check. He is the reason that I cannot sit still while at home and enjoy a movie or silence without feeling guilty that I am not doing something productive. He is the reason that even when I do really good at something, all I hear is his voice in my head well, do better next time.

Hate did not begin to describe how I felt about them in my early twenties. Counseling helped me bring it to hate. Pills helped me not cry about it all the time. Anti-anxiety meds helped me stop having night terrors about the night my mom took my sister and I to our first movie (age 6 and 7), got wasted at the bar next to the movie theater, and got in a crash with us.

No matter what a counselor says or how many pills I take I cannot find it within myself to forgive them. I am confident the reason that I cannot forgive them is because I don’t want them off the hook. I know I need to lay it out there, everything, let them know how I feel. But I just see no point.

My dad the workaholic manic depressive, my mom the alcoholic unhappy housewife that gave up being a hippie for kids. Their marriage is a joke to me really. Dad yells at mom all the time, mom goes into la-la land and no one every talks about, well, anything. So I don’t call.

I called this past Thanksgiving. Hubs, great man that he is, has not met my parents so he is ignorant. I cannot blame him for chastising me for not wanting to call them. I mean, his parents are normal Southern people. So I call, with him right there to hear the version 2.0 of Hell that is a phone call with them.

I tell them that I am pursuing the dream that I was convinced out of in high school (long story, another post) and changing my major to English and becoming a teacher, eventually a professor. So they said “well, that’s ok we suppose Housewife, we could never see you being a nurse, so we are glad you came around”. Laughter. Evil-flying-monkeys-from-wizard-of-Oz laughter. I held on to the call, because a part of me was hoping that it would be different. Oh no, not this year kids.

Grandma Jane is bedridden and childlike. They don’t think she will make it much longer. Well, thankssomuch for that happy bit of news on THANKSGIVING. So glad I made this call. Yeah, and so you should try to get to California before she goes, she had asked about you awhile ago, we told her you were busy…

I’m sorry, you did WHAT?! (I think I shot a lightning bolt out of my eye into the dashboard of the car, I can't remember) On what planet do you tell a dying woman that her granddaughter (not by blood, again, another long story) that said granddaughter is to busy to come see you. Nice. Really niiiiiice.

Hanging up, I looked over at Hubs (I let him listen via speaker since he wanted this phone call to happen so much) and I give him the “are you fucking happy now?” look. Silence.

“See honey, don’t you feel better now that you called?”

That’s when I turned into a raging demon gorilla and beat him into the dashboard of his Honda.