Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Scars My Mother Gave Me
My very earliest memory of life was when I was four and my brother had tried to kill me by hitting me in the head with a cinder block. I remember being rushed to the hospital and the doctor telling me to be very still so that he could put stitches in my forehead & I could stop bleeding. It is a scar I've had all my life and I still have to look at it each day, since it is at the base of my hairline right in the center of my head.
Mother used to play games with us when we were small, many of which neither of us liked. One of her favorite games was that each night only one of us would be allowed to sleep with her, leaving the other child alone and usually scared. I can remember falling asleep outside her door after long periods of crying & begging to be let in. She always ignored me and I would eventually fall asleep. I don't remember if it was that way for my brother or not, but it might possibly be the reason he hit me with the cinder block that night. His temper grew stronger and more violent over the years, as his three ex-wives can tell you. We do not speak to this day, although he is still quite close to our mother.
I grew up with a mother who was, as she always said, a gay divorcee, during a time that there weren't that many "broken homes". I always thought it was odd that my friends' parents referred to our home as broken, since I'd never noticed any signs of anything being broken. Did that mean that I was broken too? I didn't feel broken, at that time anyway. In whispers, I could always hear their "that poor little Willingham girl... she's from a broken home you know" words that never seemed to make sense to me until much later in my life. It was several years before I understood that it meant we didn't have a father in our home.
Oh, I had a father, but mother never allowed us to see him. She told us that since he didn't pay the child support that he was ordered to pay, then he wouldn't be allowed to see us. I strangely remembered my paternal grandmother telling me that he did pay child support, but our mother wasn't spending it on us. We only got to see him when we stayed with our paternal grandparents, and then it was usually brief, since he was already started on his second family. However, my father is worth an entirely separate blog. He was as crazy as my mother, or perhaps even more so, just in different ways. From a very early age she always told me that my father had raped her when they were separated, which had resulted in the accident, which had been me. That always meant that they had wanted my brother but that I was a big accident... a mistake. How's that for a confidence builder in a young child?
When I was in my 30's and had children of my own, I returned to the city of my father's birth and paid a visit to the County Clerk, in search of answers to the questions I'd had about my parents' relationship for my entire life. What I discovered was almost too incredible to believe. Yes, they had been married & divorced... six times, in fact. Six times they had filed for divorce and had finally, over a period of three years, finalized a divorce. When I finally located that docket number, I was able to discover that my father had, in fact, paid a great deal of child support over the years. All those years, she told us that we couldn't have new clothes or new shoes or a bike, because our dad didn't care about us. The truth was, she spent the money on clothes for herself and whatever other little things she needed to impress her married boyfriend of the moment.
Unfortunately for me, I was born with flat feet and Rh negative blood, which meant that I was not perfect like my mother. From the time that I could understand the spoken word, my mother told me that I'd been "stricken" with Polio at eighteen months of age, which had left me with the flat feet. She often told me that I was lucky that I wasn't walking around in leg braces. Many years later I learned that this had never happened. I was forced to wear the ugly corrective shoes all the way through high school, when everyone else was wearing penny loafers, pumps, and Keds sneakers. She always made a point of telling me that if I didn't wear the ugly corrective shoes, my feet would be gnarled & misshapen by the time I was grown and I'd never be able to wear beautiful shoes like hers. Another confidence builder, compliments of my loving mother.
In the early years, I worshipped my mother. She had a way of making me feel as if she was the most charming, beautiful, and smart Mom that there ever was. Of course, that was on her good days. I actually felt sorry for my friends because they didn't have a mother that was as funny or as beautiful as mine. Later on I came to realize that my friends' mothers were busy making them feel like the most wonderful person on earth, not the other way around. It was many years before I came to the realization that my mother was selfish that way.
Then there were the beatings. I don't remember my brother getting them as often as I, but I know he got a good amount. I got the beatings with the buckle end of the belt. My mother said it was so that all of my friends could see the blood bruises and know that I'd been bad. I was bad because I didn't have the house cleaned up by the time she got home from work, or I didn't have dinner started by then. Once, I got a severe beating for stealing 50 cents in pennies out of the bottom of her many purses to go buy candy. Another time, I received a particularly awful beating for lying to her about something, although I can't for the life of me remember what it was. By today's standards, she would have been arrested and prosecuted for child abuse, but not back then. As a result, I was never able to even so much as discipline my own children for fear of being like her.
Don't get me wrong here. She was a very lovable, popular person who always had lots of hugs & kisses for me and she always cooked wonderful meals for me. She always provided a comfortable home for me as well. However, growing up as an only child, she preferred to be the center of attention and wasn't at all happy when she wasn't the center. My brother & I spent years vying for her attention to the point that it was taken way beyond sibling rivalry, but I'll get more into that later.
Once when I was in 5th grade, I had the birthday party of a friend to go to after school. As soon as school was out, I raced home to our apartment to grab the birthday present before racing on my bicycle to make the party on time. When I arrived home I discovered that my mother had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Not sure what to do, I called my grandfather who was at least 250 miles away, then waited for him to get there. In the meantime, he called the police and an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital. I was told to go on to my party, but by then it was over so I just went out and rode my bike around for a few hours. My mother had taken an overdose of pills because her married boyfriend had dumped her, not caring what would become of us, her children. That was quite some fact for a ten year old to swallow & digest.
I could never seem to understand why we packed our things in the middle of the night and moved to a new town, a new school, and new friends. It was many years before I learned the truth and why I had been so scarred from it all. Thirteen schools in eight years was a lot for kids to handle. At the start, I was a friendly, out-going kid but by the time I was a teenager, I was shy, overweight, miserable, and hated myself more than anyone could imagine. For extra effect, my mother constantly told me that I was fat, stupid and ugly, just like my father. She would then go a step further and tell me to be sure and learn how to take care of kids, clean house , and cook, because I'd never be able to do any more than that. I was only 12 years old when that spin began, but I never did attend more than two semesters of college. Go figure.
However, my mother was a true artist when it came to making us think we were off on a wonderful new adventure when everything was thrown into our Renault Dauphine. Once we hit the road, we'd sing all the songs she had taught us on the road, learning to harmonize as well. We played lots of road games and always thought we were having so much fun. We actually believed that each & every time we moved was a new start for all of us. Although, I always did wonder why I needed to make a new start, since I had been happy & liked my old friends. Still, she made a new adventure sound quite alluring to a child, squashing any questions that might arise from either of us kids.
Unfortunately, by the time we were teenagers, we no longer fell for her promises that a move would give all of us new life. We had friends and schools that we refused to leave. She tried beating us into submission but my brother went after her with a cast iron skillet and all I could do was scream that I hated her over & over. She became enraged and sent my brother to live with my dad and sent me off to Catholic boarding school. Little did I know or understand at the time, that this was the most wonderful gift that she could have ever given me. Life away from her. All the time she thought she was punishing me, I was actually learning how to be a real person of my own and nothing like her.
So, these were the earliest memories, the scars that were so intricately woven into the deepest recesses of my mind and my soul.
Posted by Liz Chancellor at 10:42 AM 0 comments
Labels: Earliest Memories
Mother used to play games with us when we were small, many of which neither of us liked. One of her favorite games was that each night only one of us would be allowed to sleep with her, leaving the other child alone and usually scared. I can remember falling asleep outside her door after long periods of crying & begging to be let in. She always ignored me and I would eventually fall asleep. I don't remember if it was that way for my brother or not, but it might possibly be the reason he hit me with the cinder block that night. His temper grew stronger and more violent over the years, as his three ex-wives can tell you. We do not speak to this day, although he is still quite close to our mother.
I grew up with a mother who was, as she always said, a gay divorcee, during a time that there weren't that many "broken homes". I always thought it was odd that my friends' parents referred to our home as broken, since I'd never noticed any signs of anything being broken. Did that mean that I was broken too? I didn't feel broken, at that time anyway. In whispers, I could always hear their "that poor little Willingham girl... she's from a broken home you know" words that never seemed to make sense to me until much later in my life. It was several years before I understood that it meant we didn't have a father in our home.
Oh, I had a father, but mother never allowed us to see him. She told us that since he didn't pay the child support that he was ordered to pay, then he wouldn't be allowed to see us. I strangely remembered my paternal grandmother telling me that he did pay child support, but our mother wasn't spending it on us. We only got to see him when we stayed with our paternal grandparents, and then it was usually brief, since he was already started on his second family. However, my father is worth an entirely separate blog. He was as crazy as my mother, or perhaps even more so, just in different ways. From a very early age she always told me that my father had raped her when they were separated, which had resulted in the accident, which had been me. That always meant that they had wanted my brother but that I was a big accident... a mistake. How's that for a confidence builder in a young child?
When I was in my 30's and had children of my own, I returned to the city of my father's birth and paid a visit to the County Clerk, in search of answers to the questions I'd had about my parents' relationship for my entire life. What I discovered was almost too incredible to believe. Yes, they had been married & divorced... six times, in fact. Six times they had filed for divorce and had finally, over a period of three years, finalized a divorce. When I finally located that docket number, I was able to discover that my father had, in fact, paid a great deal of child support over the years. All those years, she told us that we couldn't have new clothes or new shoes or a bike, because our dad didn't care about us. The truth was, she spent the money on clothes for herself and whatever other little things she needed to impress her married boyfriend of the moment.
Unfortunately for me, I was born with flat feet and Rh negative blood, which meant that I was not perfect like my mother. From the time that I could understand the spoken word, my mother told me that I'd been "stricken" with Polio at eighteen months of age, which had left me with the flat feet. She often told me that I was lucky that I wasn't walking around in leg braces. Many years later I learned that this had never happened. I was forced to wear the ugly corrective shoes all the way through high school, when everyone else was wearing penny loafers, pumps, and Keds sneakers. She always made a point of telling me that if I didn't wear the ugly corrective shoes, my feet would be gnarled & misshapen by the time I was grown and I'd never be able to wear beautiful shoes like hers. Another confidence builder, compliments of my loving mother.
In the early years, I worshipped my mother. She had a way of making me feel as if she was the most charming, beautiful, and smart Mom that there ever was. Of course, that was on her good days. I actually felt sorry for my friends because they didn't have a mother that was as funny or as beautiful as mine. Later on I came to realize that my friends' mothers were busy making them feel like the most wonderful person on earth, not the other way around. It was many years before I came to the realization that my mother was selfish that way.
Then there were the beatings. I don't remember my brother getting them as often as I, but I know he got a good amount. I got the beatings with the buckle end of the belt. My mother said it was so that all of my friends could see the blood bruises and know that I'd been bad. I was bad because I didn't have the house cleaned up by the time she got home from work, or I didn't have dinner started by then. Once, I got a severe beating for stealing 50 cents in pennies out of the bottom of her many purses to go buy candy. Another time, I received a particularly awful beating for lying to her about something, although I can't for the life of me remember what it was. By today's standards, she would have been arrested and prosecuted for child abuse, but not back then. As a result, I was never able to even so much as discipline my own children for fear of being like her.
Don't get me wrong here. She was a very lovable, popular person who always had lots of hugs & kisses for me and she always cooked wonderful meals for me. She always provided a comfortable home for me as well. However, growing up as an only child, she preferred to be the center of attention and wasn't at all happy when she wasn't the center. My brother & I spent years vying for her attention to the point that it was taken way beyond sibling rivalry, but I'll get more into that later.
Once when I was in 5th grade, I had the birthday party of a friend to go to after school. As soon as school was out, I raced home to our apartment to grab the birthday present before racing on my bicycle to make the party on time. When I arrived home I discovered that my mother had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Not sure what to do, I called my grandfather who was at least 250 miles away, then waited for him to get there. In the meantime, he called the police and an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital. I was told to go on to my party, but by then it was over so I just went out and rode my bike around for a few hours. My mother had taken an overdose of pills because her married boyfriend had dumped her, not caring what would become of us, her children. That was quite some fact for a ten year old to swallow & digest.
I could never seem to understand why we packed our things in the middle of the night and moved to a new town, a new school, and new friends. It was many years before I learned the truth and why I had been so scarred from it all. Thirteen schools in eight years was a lot for kids to handle. At the start, I was a friendly, out-going kid but by the time I was a teenager, I was shy, overweight, miserable, and hated myself more than anyone could imagine. For extra effect, my mother constantly told me that I was fat, stupid and ugly, just like my father. She would then go a step further and tell me to be sure and learn how to take care of kids, clean house , and cook, because I'd never be able to do any more than that. I was only 12 years old when that spin began, but I never did attend more than two semesters of college. Go figure.
However, my mother was a true artist when it came to making us think we were off on a wonderful new adventure when everything was thrown into our Renault Dauphine. Once we hit the road, we'd sing all the songs she had taught us on the road, learning to harmonize as well. We played lots of road games and always thought we were having so much fun. We actually believed that each & every time we moved was a new start for all of us. Although, I always did wonder why I needed to make a new start, since I had been happy & liked my old friends. Still, she made a new adventure sound quite alluring to a child, squashing any questions that might arise from either of us kids.
Unfortunately, by the time we were teenagers, we no longer fell for her promises that a move would give all of us new life. We had friends and schools that we refused to leave. She tried beating us into submission but my brother went after her with a cast iron skillet and all I could do was scream that I hated her over & over. She became enraged and sent my brother to live with my dad and sent me off to Catholic boarding school. Little did I know or understand at the time, that this was the most wonderful gift that she could have ever given me. Life away from her. All the time she thought she was punishing me, I was actually learning how to be a real person of my own and nothing like her.
So, these were the earliest memories, the scars that were so intricately woven into the deepest recesses of my mind and my soul.
Posted by Liz Chancellor at 10:42 AM 0 comments
Labels: Earliest Memories
