If you are new to this site the following post is not typical. This is a journey deeper into my mother’s death and our family dynamic that might be unsettling. I welcome you to stay but I understand if you don’t.
Here are some other posts that you might like instead:
We’ve all got a Fetish. Yes, even you!
If you are going to stick around, thanks. Here is the first post in this series:
The Truth about my Mama: part 1 “Whore”
This is not an easy writing assignment but a necessary one. And so it continues…
Wednesday Oct. 28, 2009
The ICU is frigid. I sit holding my mother’s icy, bloated hand. I am waiting for her brother to arrive with his wife and two kids. My uncle has just been allowed back into the fold in the last month, due to mom’s health problems, before that he spent years on my Grandma’s shit list. I think his big mistake was marrying a woman Grandma couldn’t stand, it is a familiar tale, but also – he is a man.
Men are not held in high regard in our family.
Terrell TX, May 2008
“They came in with a sack of potatoes.”
My mother tells me this as we drive to the home she has lived in for several years but one that I have never seen. I don’t visit often.
We have just come from seeing my brother, in prison. It was a “no contact” visit which meant talking to him on a phone as he sits behind glass for two hours. He has lost his privilege for a “contact” visit because he keeps getting into it with the guards.
“If they want me to respect them, they better respect me.”
I don’t think he fully understands the concept of prison but then, maybe he does.
Originally I had been approved for a four hour visit, due to the distance I traveled to see him, but when I arrived at the prison they had changed their mind. They can do that. No respect.
It is frigid in the prison visiting room.
My brother tears into the sacks of M&M’s, Doritos, and Skittles I have purchased with the quarters family members are allowed to bring. Twenty-five dollars in quarters, carried in a Ziploc bag. My mother has instructed me that the first thing I do upon entering the visitors area is raid the vending machines buying as many sodas, candy bars, chips and, if I am very lucky, sandwiches as my money will purchase.
Prisoners don’t have access to this kind of fine cuisine except when they get a visitor.
He has the length of the visit to eat and drink as much as he can. It is like watching a strange Japanese game show but he doesn’t win anything in the end.
Mama has given up her chance to see him today so that I can bring our paternal Grandma with me instead. Neither myself nor my Grandma has seen him in years.
For me, it has been over ten years.
Seattle WA, August 1997
It was time to take the leap. I was moving to Los Angeles to pursue my acting dream.
My mother and brother flew in from Texas to help me drive down the coast. I was both grateful for their help and anxious about the trip. Historically, my brother could be an obnoxious prick but I also wanted the chance to better our relationship.
He drove the rental truck while we drove the Subaru Turbo hatchback she had purchased for me from a friend. It was a terrifically emotional time as I was leaving a boyfriend behind and starting a new life with no job, money or place to live.
We began our trip on the day Princess Diana died. My mother saved a newspaper with the headline, she placed it carefully in the back so it wouldn’t get creased. I found that newspaper twelve years later while cleaning out her house.
Mama was excited about the trip because it was the first time the three of us would be together as adults, it was also the last time although none of us knew that then. It turned out my brother was still a prick – disappearing at convenience stores just as we were about to get back on the road, making us look for him for half an hour or more. He was obstinate and overbearing but also kind and loving.
Just like mom.
For all the days we travelled together the moment I remember was on the Golden Gate Bridge. Mama loved to sightsee and turned this utilitarian trip into a family vacation so, as much as I just wanted to get to L.A., this grand opportunity would not be missed.
My brother and I had walked to one of the bridge towers and were discussing dropping coins over the edge. I was adamantly against this, trying to explain that a mere penny tossed from this height could kill someone down below. You know, someone sailing around or something.
A stranger approached, “Did you see the guy?”
“No, what guy?”
“There was a guy here and he just jumped.”
We looked over the railing, floating face down in the water below was the guy. Dead.
Standing in the place where a person has just chosen to end their life is surreal. Knowing that just a few seconds separated our lives from intersecting with his. Wondering if perhaps things could have turned out differently.
Terrell Tx, May 2008
“The house is a mess.”
Mama is trying to prepare me for something but I don’t really understand the warning. Her house is always a mess.
“We have a roach infestation. They came in with a sack of potatoes.”
I grew up in Texas and lived in Florida for a time so… I understand roaches – I think.
“The German roaches are particularly aggressive,” she says, “They will come right up on the edge of a hot sizzling pan while you are cooking.”
German roaches? There are German roaches? There are more than just the big ass slow roaches and the smaller fast ones?
I had no idea what I was walking into.
