But in that moment, our roles were reversed. I was worried about her, my perfectly dressed mother who showed such a confident and sparkling shine to the world. People were drawn to her—my teachers, other moms, our neighbors, the cleaning lady. All I knew was that I had to protect her from my father. But at ten or twelve, I didn’t know how to do that, except to pretend it didn’t happen.
Twelve hours after I emailed the attachment to my father and about four hours after I left a message for my mother to find out if she also wanted me to send it to her, she called me back. During our six-minute phone call, my mother called me crazy, told me that I was tearing our family apart (I also have a younger sister), and declared that she and my father were "disowning" me.
Some days I can’t tell whether my son is having seizures or tics. His epilepsy is confirmed; I have held his rigid, blue body in my arms while crying out to every god I have ever failed to worship.
So, from a physical perspective, I’m fine now – and, if I had to deal with cancer at all, I’m glad it was caught early and easily treatable. But from an emotional perspective, it’s been a different ballgame.
At night my stomach growls and the amount of time separating me from breakfast lowers my mood. Hoping to avoid his scrutiny, I grab a bag of low fat popcorn from my pantry and return to my living room, felling the impact of his stare hitting my bowl. He feeds me his prepared statement.
I promised myself that when I had children, I would emulate the best aspects of my mother’s parenting, but build on it with honesty. My children would have a happy childhood, complete with the necessary lies of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but in all other matters, I would arm them with information. Unlike my mother who lured me to the doctor’s office by saying I would get a lollipop and instead the nurse surprised me with a shot, I briefed my four-year-old about his upcoming immunizations.
I have everything good in my life I thought I'd never have. A really handsome, brave man trying to love me, my chance at stopping the cycle of abuse in my family, a prestigious college degree, a magical relationship with my six-year-old daughter...yet my self-destructive patterns have shown their ugly face again.
The name of the game is surrender. Surrendering to unflinching self-honesty, open-heartedness, and vulnerability. Surrendering to risking connection, to relinquishing control and going with the flow, and to letting go of thinking I know what will happen or what others think. Surrendering to no longer caring so much what others think. Surrendering to believing there's a gift in everything, no matter how fucked up the packaging looks.
I hadn't noticed the old man, worn and slumped over, sitting at a table in the corner. I put my hands up defensively, my lips ready to form the words I don't have any... I was tired and ashamed and too involved in my own self-flagellation to care for another human being.
I would think of you as my own personal therapy dog, that you were rescuing me. But now I know that you weren’t really mine, although you were fostering me, giving me a shelter in your peaceful essence.
Walk through the front door at the Senior Living center and see your mom sitting at a table in the dining area. Notice that she is the youngest, the most upright, the most doesn’t-belong-here looking resident.
I didn’t think I was trying to kill myself that night, but I guess that’s the story. The thing and the thing beneath it. The thing being a river, and me quickly becoming the thing beneath it. The stepping itself was easy. One second ground beneath me, the next nothing. All that dark water sucking eager at my heavy winter clothes.
