My Life in Words, Part Four: She went home to her family

My mom's life story continues, Part three here

There was an ugly side to my birth as well.  I have to believe that my mother wanted to grow up and be the mature wife and mother that she was on paper.  So there was some form of reconciliation with my father.  It seemed obvious that he was as anxious to be a father has he had been to be a husband.  But again, there is something about a beautiful baby that makes everyone want to take some credit.  I was told that he took me to his family to be shown around.  I, of course, remember none of that. To this day, I know none of my paternal history, with the exception of some disjoined facts.  My father was a merchant marine,  something I learned as I read it on my birth certificate.  And my mother told me that his parents were named Hazel and John.  He had a sister named Barbara and brothers name Sam and “Donkey”.  I would assume that would be some good beginnings if I were to choose to do some detecting or ancestry tracking.  But I haven’t chosen to do that.  I felt that I had enough unresolved situations in my life to open another door that wouldn’t close again.

"She went home to her family, who willingly welcomed her and her baby back with open arms. "

 

But as I said, my mother did attempt a reconciliation.  The couple who really didn’t even know each other aside from carnally, rented a small efficiency apartment and made a modest attempt at housekeeping.  My father was a stranger to normalcy, or so my mother felt.  By that time, and he was barely 18, he was a serious drinker.  And he moved in social circles who had nothing social about them.  At one point, my mother told me that he was carried home by two men because he was drunk and his hands had been cut up with a razor.  She had never experienced anything that violent.  While her family had its share of disagreements, physical violence was not something familiar.  Sadly, that was the only experience she shared with me about their attempt at co-habiting.  She went home to her family, who willingly welcomed her and her baby back with open arms.   

"a plan so devious"

Months after the failed attempt at a marriage, the young alcoholic man showed up at my mother’s job in what seemed like an attempt to woo her back to the marriage.  He even had a gift – a very nice dress watch which was far nicer than anything my mother had ever possessed.  She accepted the gift and told the giver that she would have to think about it and they would have to work at it slowly if there was ever to be any true relationship.  That may have shot his plans in the foot.  Before she had made any decision, a bill came to her from a local department store.  It appeared that she had purchased a lovely dress watch for herself.  It’s always amazing when someone is able to work through an alcohol haze to formulate a plan so devious.  But what he really did was end any attempt at any type of relationship with either my mother or me.  I understand from a relative who says her husband related a visit that my grandfather made to my father’s favorite hang out.  My grandfather was crystal clear in his direction that my father was to never under any circumstances contact my mother or me.  Especially me.    I think a death threat was involved.  Was it true?  I do not know.  But I do know that I never heard from my father again.  Unless you count a phantom phone call I received when I was in third grade.  But we’ll talk about that in due time.

to be continued. 

My Life in Words, Part Three: Three mothers

My mom's life story continues, it started here, and continued here. Follow along, its far from over. 

"hyperbole from women who were born with southern story telling in their genes..."

 Evelyn (my grandmother)

 So my grandmother collapsed, grieving for an infant that she hadn’t even known about four months earlier.  While accepting the imminent death of a baby she didn’t know, she prayed for the life of the baby she DID know – her firstborn who yes, had made a mistake, but still deserved to live.  Great aunts who were there at the hospital to support their sister-in-law told me snippets of the story as I grew up.  They marveled at the size of my grandmother’s swollen feet.  Swollen from hours and hours of standing by her daughter’s bed, surely praying silently that she would live.  Other’s talked about the head of the bed being put on blocks so that the whatever blood had not been lost would have be sent to the areas of the body which most needed it.  The parts of the story I most enjoyed were the ones where each aunt told her version of the joy that was expressed when the news was first reported that the baby who was thought to be dead was actually living.  Not just barely living, but living and breathing and kicking, and doing everything that newborn babies are expected to do.  The nuns called it a miracle for sure.  But those who lacked that same religious connection also called it a miracle.  And suddenly, all the prayers which had been divided between a dying baby and a dying mother became directed to the mother, just a 17 year old girl, who still was in that comatose state between life and death.  She remained there for two days. Many many stories grew out of those two days.  There was no lack of hyperbole from women who were born with southern story telling in their genes.  Oddly enough, there appeared to be no males in this story, with the exception of the obstetrician.  The girl’s father, the grandfather, who was there, of course, was the epitome of the stoic.  Silently smoking Lucky Strike after Lucky Strike, keeping all his prayers, worries, and thoughts to himself.  Not once in my life did he ever talk about those dark days.  But many many times he broke through his upbringing to tell me how much he loved me and how happy he was that I was his.

"Those same fates must have seen the challenges that were to come..."

I believe that the fates knew how difficult it was going to be to fit me into a family with very mixed emotions about my arrival.  So the easiest way to ensure my acceptance would be to make my head the right size, make my eyes expressive, and make my cooing sound as though it was directed to whoever happened to be holding me at the time.  Those same fates must have seen the challenges that were to come so they went overboard in one area – they made me a beautiful baby.  Beautiful to the point where strangers would stop and remark on my loveliness.  And I was sweet natured.  To hear the memories, I rarely cried.  The Good Sister, who became the Good Aunt at my birth, was only 15 when I entered the family.  In a real sense, she then gave up her position of being the baby.  Her reality was that she became one of my mothers. Each “mother” took a role in my development.  Sadly, the biggest role of my actual genetic mother, was just that.  She went through the difficult pregnancy and horrific birth to get me to this realm.  Then her job became receiving compliments I generated.  That went on for the largest part of my life.  The Good Aunt became just that – a good aunt.  She was the one I waited on each day to come through the door.  My first words were her name.  It was her back that nearly broke from bending over to hold my hands while I practiced the act of walking.  She hovered when I was with my mother as she was always fearful that something bad would happen to me.  She projected the events of her life onto my life.  And she never, ever stopped doing that.

(Aunt Beth on the left, Evelyn on the right and the overexposed baby Cathy.)

But the biggest role was the mother who did the mothering things.  And that fell to my grandmother.  She was only 34 when I was born, and that was certainly more the age to be a mother than a grandmother.  But she didn’t fight to make her daughter assume the role of mother.  I think that it worked out just as she wanted it to in her heart.  She became my mother.  She prepared my food and she fed me.  She washed my clothes and she dressed me.  She bought my books and she read to me.  She filled every need I had, and in some cases, she created a need for the only reason of filling it for me.  She would have denied that, of course, but all those who were close enough knew it.  The greatest thing she did was to tell me every day – most often several times a day – that I was loved.

My Mom's three mothers: 

Me-Maw, Aunt Beth, Evelyn