I'd like to tell you guys about my mom

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

if you care to hear....

This isn't a complete portrait, but interesting, in my opinion.

She was a bank teller in the mid-1970s, making $2 an hour. She wore her skirts as short as possible, thinking she'd get a raise that way. She had silky blonde hair she was still sort of wearing bee-hive-ish, gorgeous green eyes, peaches and cream skin, cute figure. Stunning smile. The guys at the bank, Mercantile Bank in downtown Dallas, called her "Miss America."

She was divorced by then, living with me and my little brother in a government-subsized apartment. She had a different date every weekend. We were so broke she could hardly afford makeup, so she'd use the testers at the department store cosmetic counters before her dates. We ate a lot of beans and cornbread. We always wanted Kool-Aid, but she'd remind us we didn't have sugar and ask us if we thought she was made of money or something.

One night she sat on our threadbare couch, broke down in tears holding all her bills and told me she was going to marry a "rich guy."

She wore out her Carol King and James Taylor albums, playing them over and over while she vaccuumed or did dishes or dusted. She was fanatical about musicals and would sing show tunes all over the house, even though she was tone deaf. She was self-taught on the piano and saved up money to buy sheet music for popular tunes of the day, such as Linda Rondstat songs. ("Torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool...")

She had a favorite t-shirt with a big marijuana leaf on it that read "Like, Wild" I never understood that shirt when I was a kid.

She'd randomly decide we'd need to get out of town and pack up the Buick and drive to east Texas. We'd stay in some seedy cabin near Caddo Lake and just sit around at a dirty picnic table for hours. I never knew what we were escaping from. She'd stare off into space for the longest stretches of time.

After she met and married her "rich guy" she decided to go to college. It took her nine years to get her bachelors degree and then she got a masters. Her rich guy became an alcoholic and later lost the family company.

She washed our hair in the kitchen sink. She talked to herself a lot and I loved to watch her when she didn't know I was in the room. Her lips would move and she'd have this lovely conversation with I don't know who, culimating in her tinkling laugh at whatever the other person said that was so funny. She usually did that while making dinner. Chicken's burning but mom's having a good time laughing and talking to herself.

My brother and I knew she was in a good mood when she'd swoop us into the car and take us for ice cream cones.

Her tuna fish was nothing short of a miracle but her beer cheese soup made us sick. Literally.

She wrote little messages on my crayons when I started first grade. I was startled to see her writing on my crayons and the day I realized I had to peel back the paper to sharpen one, I cried.

[NMDemDist2]

1. Moon..

:hug:

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

10. Aw, thanks! eom

[UpsideDownFlag]

2. whoa.

whoa. i'm not sure how to respond to that.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

11. Eh.

Didn't really need one. Just wanted to talk about her tonight for some reason. I don't have any relationship with her and sometimes it's weird to be motherless at 33.

[maveric]

3. Your Mom sounds like a cool lady.

Is she still with us?

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

5. As in still alive?

Yes, but I have no relationship with her and haven't since early 1999. And am going to keep it that way.

That post was sort of therapy. It was all the nice things I remember. Not every nice thing, I'm sure there's more, but she was and is mentally ill (untreated) and was a horribly abusive and neglectful mother. Literally not healthy to be around, especially for my daughter (her granddaughter).

But as I get older, I find it's important to remind myself no one is ALL bad.

Thanks.

[Pale Blue Dot]

4. Oh my God, Moonbeam

It is a miracle what we become and what we grow out of. My heart goes out to your mom, but it goes out more to you.

It's a miracle to learn from the mistakes of the past. You seem to have done that.

I don't know what else to say. :hug:

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

9. Awww

now *I* am the one who doesn't know what to say!

Hug right back at ya! :hug:

[mike_c]

6. thank you....

Sounds like real life.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

8. LOL

it was! Thanks back to you!

[BlackVelvetElvis]

7. Damn.

I saw a few references to her in some of your past posts.
Now I understand.
<big hug>

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

16. Big hug back atcha black Elvis!

:hug:

[PittLib]

12. Moonbeam ... I've enjoyed your postings ...

during my brief time here, but this one brought a tear. Isn't it funny how we hold on to our childhood perceptions ... it's almost as if you could endure anything because you don't yet know how screwed up it all is. You write with such affection that it is hard to imagine that you are estranged ... so I suppose your exercise worked! I have such a strange relationship with both my mother and my father (because of my mother) and totally appreciate this post.:)

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

14. Well thank you!

I aim to please. Yes, despite everything, I do have some fond memories.

But I think the good ones are easier to talk about and think about now that it's been over five years since I've been around her.

She left a message on my answering machine the other day. COMPLETELY out of the blue. She talked about how she bought stock in Disney for my daughter, her granddaughter and the stock had gone up. Then she started choking up and said she missed her granddaughter.

Emotional manipulation is her forte. I found out later that my brother (whom I am also estranged from, by his choice) had a baby girl that day and would not allow her to visit at the hospital. Apparently he's had enough of her, too.

She really needs meds. But refuses. And we can't prove her to be a danger to herself or others.

Thanks again.

[Rowdyboy]

13. My father and I haven't spoken since my neice's wedding 2 years ago

Before that, we spoke at my younger brother's funeral in 1995 (Dad wasn't invited to my mother's funeral).

Sorry about your mom. Losing family while they are still alive is tough-believe me, I know. Someday, I tell you about my own Faulknerian, Tennesse Williams family.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

15. Oh God I would love to hear it

Faulknerian would sum up my family well. I bet you have the best stories.

Southern families, I think, are screwed up in totally special ways, don't you think? LOL.

I am estranged from every single family member. My family is my husband, daughter and the friends who have become our family. That's it.

I could write a book about my father and stepfather.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

18. Southern Families...oh yeah.

You know there is always some crazy mess that goes on and everyone has to deal with. I've seen it enough. It's all about appearance and decorum!
Thanks for sharing.

[Rowdyboy]

19. Believe me, I could curl your hair just starting with my grandparents

not to mention their parents. I know most of the family scandals because my great aunt and my mom would gossip at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. By the time I was seven, I would hide behind the door in the next room and listen. Now, I could write several Beth Henley plays just using my immediate relatives.

I have one brother and sister-in-law I'm in touch with. Other than that, its mostly my partner's family (and he's an only child of an 84 year old mother).

Damn, how life has changed.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

20. It'd be interesting to see

Rowdyboy, who has the more screwed up family, you or me. With people I've told my stories to, they always concede quickly (after just a few stories) that I totally blow theirs away. But I've always believed there are people out there with families just as screwed up or more so. Maybe I have met my match in you? (A little dark humor there....)

How is your partner's mom, by the way???

[mike_c]

21. I've only spoken to my father once or twice during the last...

...several dacades-- it's been 12 years or so since the last time-- and I don't really ever anticipate doing so again. Alcoholic megalomaniac. The absolute center of his own universe. I have recently renewed contact with my mother, after she left the old bastard.

Southern families indeed.

[peacebuzzard]

17. Touching story. Sad epilogue.

and yes, interesting. Thanks.