Lead A Normal Life

Another late night spent reading, my favorite activity, spiriting me away from life’s pain and tribulations delivering me unto the sanctuary of my imagination. The only truly safe place I have known since departing my mother’s womb. Even at fourteen I had discovered the immense capacity people have for cruelty.

Mindlessly lashing out, injuring for it’s own sake, defining themselves by denigrating the fragile constructs of hopeful minds, eager for validation. Every perpetrator toiling under the same burden of existence, yet rabidly falling on each other over the slightest flaw. A roll of the chromosome bones and your branded, singled out, and rejected for the unpardonable sin of otherness.

I never considered myself deserving of this treatment, yet given the chance I would scar another, willingly. Criticizing their awkward speech or unsightly physical dimensions. Enjoying the feeling of acceptance, even at the cost of another’s suffering, was worth the hypocrisy and guilt I felt. The guilt lingered on while the elation faded under the cacophony of scorn raining down on me in a cold hail of intolerance.

The social interactions of grade school left much to be desired. I found solace during recess by climbing up into the oasis of a tree my book in hand worn as my ability to withstand their insults. Away from my unbearable reality and into the dream of another, sharing their vision and reveling in empathetic joy with the exploits of their creations. These ink scratches on fiber slates were more precious to me then the shrieking howl of my peers or their superficial friendships, precarious at best.

When I returned home from school, home to my family, returning to the wellspring of my aspirations, I felt secure.

And it was good.

I lay in my room, a tome by Tolkien at my side, traversing past midnight’s division into the realm of the night. Another journey into myself, alone with my thoughts, at peace with my world. I was content feeling the hours inch past engraving their lesson on my consciousness: patience.

The difficulties I had been forced to handle were being exasperated by my body’s development. It insisted on growing up dragging me through puberty and the yawning chasm of banality called high school.

I had always been able to count on the guidance and experience of my parents, eternally forgiving me of my transgressions and encouraging me to learn and grow. In particular my mom had imparted to me a fierce sense of self- reliance and the ability people have to overcome life’s adversity. This night in particular I was ruminating on my past and the future I envisioned for myself. Despite my familiarity with life’s negative side I had developed a complacency in my belief that the world’s challenges and outcomes could be reasonably predicted and met.

I believed that this night belonged to me alone but I was mistaken. I ventured to the bathroom to urinate and I heard my mother meditating in her room. As I walked past her door on the way back to my room she walked out and greeted me in the hall.

“Hi, Ange so your up too,” She bore a bundle of pictures and letters in her arms.

“I was just up reading Mom, one of my all-nighters. What are you doing up? It’s pretty late.” I was unaccustomed to any member of my family being awake during my sojourns with Orpheus and his attendant Muses.

“Oh not much, just looking through some photos and thinking about my childhood growing up in this house.(We lived in the home my Grandfather had built and raised my mother and uncle in.) Would you like to see some of them and hear about your grandfather?”

“Yeah that would be cool! (He had died years before I was born.) Why don’t you get them all and we can look at them in my room.” I always enjoyed talking to people one on one and I particularly liked spending time with my mother.

She had imbued in me many of my ideals of how to lead a successful life: questing for spiritual growth; appreciation of academic and artistic endeavors; progressive social beliefs; respect for divergent opinions and cultures; and the intrinsic value of life for it’s own sake. She was my mentor and I viewed her living example as a worthy model for emulation in my own life’s development.
We stayed up throughout the night discussing the pictures of relatives I never knew, what it was like to grow up in the forties, how much the world and country had changed, and what her childhood had been like.

“Your Grandfather was a great man he took care of us and my Uncle’s family during the depression on his salary alone. He taught your Uncle and I to respect our Cherokee ancestry and the importance of working together as a family unit,” She was vibrant and animated throughout our discussion and it rubbed off on me like an infectious disease.

We were going through two sides of the same biological coin; I was entering puberty and she was dealing with her menopause. Enter stage left and exit stage right, a coincidence of fate timing and our individual biological processes.

“Mom do you think that we’re going to be alright? I mean the world and everything, it sure is looking bleak, sometimes I’m afraid and I don’t now how to deal with it!” I waited expectantly for her response anticipating reassurance and comforting optimism.

“I don’t really know, when I was a little girl I used to think the Bomb was going to be used and it scared me so much I would lie awake at night with the sheets over my head! I wish I could reassure you but honestly it scares me still!” There was something apprehensive and tragic in my mother’s tone. At the moment I attributed it to the subject we were discussing, unfortunately I ran out of time before realizing the truth.

The first light of the new day cracked through the window of my sanctuary and I heard my father and siblings awakening to continue our life’s routine. I sensed a loss and wanted to express my gratitude to my mother. For spending the night with me, contemplating our twined existence, and sharing her childhood with her son.

“Thank you Mother, I can’t tell you how much you mean to me, and how grateful I am for all you’ve done to make me a strong person!” I had a feeling that something had changed and it scared me profoundly, I couldn’t place it but I felt it to the root of my soul!

“No. Thank you Ange, I really enjoyed spending this time with you! We should do it more often...”

“Time to go, come on boys hurry up or you’ll be late to school.” My father voice interrupted us, prompting us kids to begin the new day and start to leave for school.

“I don’t want to go to school today Dad, I want to stay home with Mom! Okay?” The feeling of encroaching danger had suddenly intensified and I knew I should stay home and be with my mother.

“Come on now, you just started high school, this is no way to begin a new year. Unless your sick there’s no reason to stay home.” My father was right but I didn’t want to ignore my intuitive feeling. I was about to argue my point when my mother interjected.

“I appreciate your wanting to stay with me but you should go to school, I’ll see you when you get home! Okay?” I wasn’t convinced but I succumbed to their prompting to fulfill the drudgery of my responsibilities.

My sister had recently had a baby boy and had moved to an nearby apartment, as we prepared to leave she came up to the door.

“Good morning! Mom, will you still be able to babysit for me today?” My sister had to finish night school, work to support her child by herself, and often enlisted my parent’s willing aid.

“Of course I will, just drop me off at your apartment and I’ll watch him for the day.” I still felt uneasy as my sister turned to go and my mother left me.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I was sitting in my forth period class ignoring the teacher and concentrating on the body of the girl a few seats up from me. It astounded me that women could look as appealing sitting down as they did walking around. I noticed this quite a bit more at this point in my life then I ever had before. I had allot of visual boldness but was decidedly timid in acting on my emerging thoughts.

Part way through the class my sister walked in through the door. At first this didn’t surprise me because she had graduated the year before I entered high school. She walked up to my teacher and told him something beyond the reach of my hearing.

“Come on let’s go, Dad is waiting at home for us!” Her eyes looked puffy and her voice was trembling. I followed her outside curious as to why she had pulled me from my class.

“Sue, what’s up? Why are you picking me up early?” A complex look flashed across her face then her features set in a stern grimace.

“Just hurry up we have to get home and take Mom to the hospital.” Her voice had been uncharacteristically devoid of emotion. I immediately thought of the feeling I had had in the morning.

“What’s wrong with Mom? Why are we taking her to the hospital?” I was experiencing a sinking feeling like I had fallen forward and just kept on dropping through the earth!

“I’ll let Dad explain it to you.” Her tone suggested that I drop the subject and wait for clarification. I stared out the window watching the world glide by and shutter to a halt every third block as the light decreed.

Upon arriving home I noticed that everything looked normal, just as it had when I left this morning, the door opened and my fathers features loomed out from the haloing light behind him. I watched him cross the threshold beckoning me to follow him back into our home.

I entered my sanctuary turning to see my mother who was looking off towards the wall talking to someone outside of my view. I walked around to the front of her looked upon her etched face.

“Hi, Mom! What’s up, are you ok?” She continued to talk to someone beyond me calling out her father’s name. She was having a normal conversation but to unseen listeners, who were replying to her, judging from the cadence of her words.

“Dad, what’s wrong with Mom? Why isn’t she responding to my presence?” I was thoroughly baffled and frightened.

“Help me get your mother up, we’re taking her to the hospital.” He proceeded to lift my mother up into a standing posture then I took one of her arms and we walked her to the car.

As we left the house my mother grew quiet once inside the car she began to become self aware.

“Mom, are you okay what’s wrong?” I hoped for an answer.

“It’s alright Ange, I’m just playing a part I learned from an aardvark in the park!” She looked at me with a terribly sad, hopeful look. Striking me to the bone!

“Jesus Christ Mom, What is that supposed to mean? What are you talking about? She addressed me again but the words were incoherent and jumbled. The car fell into silence.

We dropped her off at the psychiatric hospital where she stayed for what seemed like three years, it’s hard to tell really.

I would visit her occasionally, but I hate hospitals, and I had a difficult time accepting her illness. I mean to say my mother’s illness but I separated the two.

My mother died that day as surely as if we had driven her to the morgue. Different sized boxes with essentially the same purpose. Convenience for the unaffected but sparsity for the occupants.

I treated her in the first few years as if she wasn’t my mother. I’ve plenty of excuses...defense mechanisms and what not!

In the end the reality came to me and I took it in, yet I only adapted to this new person in my mothers form.

I missed my mother very much even when she was living with us again. At times she had lucid moments during which the women I had grow to love looked out at me again from the stranger’s eyes.

It was at these moments that I felt the sharpest pains of loss.

Over time I grew inside and found room in my heart and mind to reintegrate the two women who I’ve called mother.

And it is good!

Dedicated to Luana (R.I.P.)
With out whose help this narrative would not exist!