Power Over It
In his memoir _Firebird_ about his childhood, marked deeply by his mother's addiction and his father's pain, Mark Doty writes, "To tell a story is to have power over it. Now they--we--are part of a tale, a made thing--a perspective box!...What happened defines us, always; erase the darkness in you at your own peril, since it's inextricable at last from who you are...Surely their actions might be something we'd do ourselves: the hand raised to strike could be your hand, the face that trembles to receive the blow your face. The finger on the trigger yours, afraid; the heard held in the gun sights yours also. And that is close enough to forgiveness, to find that any character in the dream of your life might be you. But you don't know that until you tell the story; caught in the narrative yourself, how could you see from that height?"
Those words, when I read them the first time, resonated with me. Now, on the other side of parenthood, as with Lamott's work (which I wrote about yesterday), I understand more deeply what he means. I expected to be the kind of mother who was nothing like either of my parents, or the aunt who raised me after my mother's death. I sometimes see small glimpses of my father's abuse, as well as his fierce desire that I become something more than others expect; I feel my mother's deep love, how she wanted to both hold on and let go, at every moment; I sometimes experience the nervous worry of my aunt, who wanted so much to do everything right that she couldn't be present. I had not expected to become any of them, but at times, I do, and this has, yes, made me love them more, understand them better. It has also forced me to experience both humility and grace.
But tonight, for the first time, I realized it is not possible always to imagine myself in another person's shoes, and that maybe, just maybe, this is OK in some situations.
S and I were having a good day. After last night's period of reflection--which ended with my last blog entry--I slept deeply for almost 12 hours, and I woke up feeling like a new person, no longer full of shame, the grief still swimming in my body, but not numbing me--instead, making me more alive. We had a very late breakfast, and then I went to work to catch up, and S spent some time with her college buddy. I got home; she was quiet but happy, and we had dinner and took a short walk; we saw some friends on the way, who said I should come over later for a drink. "You should go, Mom," she said. "You never get to do anything with your friends. I feel OK about staying alone." So I said I would later, and we cleaned the house; she helped without complaining. Afterwards, we started decorating for Halloween, and then suddenly it was 8:30 and I told her I was leaving.
She sulked; I got annoyed. "What is it?" I asked her. "Why don't you just tell me? Do you not want me to leave? And if the answer's no, then I want you to try to tell me exactly why that is."
She sat on the couch and said, "I need you to sit next to me." Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. I did.
"It was snowing," she said. "And that didn't happen very often in the (state where I came from). And it was foggy. I was dressed as a princess, and my brothers were Tigger and Pooh. My father was taking us trick-or-treating, but we weren't dressed right, and I was shivering. And he was acting like a good father."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"He said if anyone bothered me he'd hit them with his flashlight. And my older brothers were with us. And then there were two dogs. I don't know whose they were. My brothers started to beat them."
"What happened next?"
She stopped then, and I could feel her body against mine struggling for control. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hurt something, somebody, to lash out in violence, to scream, or if she should stay here, on this couch, in this safe house, and keep on talking.
She chose, for the first time ever, I think, to do the second. And the memories came out like this for hours, in this much detail, her voice soft and clear, tears running down her cheeks. The numerous animals her brothers abused and killed. All of the places and ways her father raped her and her brothers. How her mother said she would kill herself whenever any of the children said they would tell; how she would sit in the room and just watch, her face blank.
"Thanks for not talking," she would say once in awhile, and then she would go on. She held my hand. The dog and cat occasionally jumped up on her lap and licked her face, but she seemed not to even notice them, though sometimes she would absentmindedly run her fingers through their fur.
After a few hours of this, she stood up rather suddenly and said, "I think that's enough for tonight. I don't think I could take any more memories, so I'm going to shut them off now." The entire time, Halloween music had been playing on the recorder, but I hadn't dared to get up to turn it off. She did so, saying, "I think the scary music helped me remember for some reason."
Then, she came back to the couch and sat next to me, laying her head on my shoulder. "I'm glad you're my mom and I'm glad you listened to all of this w/o freaking out, even though I know it was hard to hear." And she said she thought she needed to do that more often, to just sit quietly and try to remember things, because already she feels like, as she put it, "some of the black hole is getting filled and I have more control over myself."
"You're brave to want to do what you did tonight," I said to her.
"I have to. Otherwise, I would have to just kill myself, because I can't go on the way I was. I wouldn't have a future." It was a really scary thing to hear her say, in a way, but I also totally get what she means. She can't really just go on carrying all that stuff in her body and mind without telling the stories.
At one point, she said, "I used to feel bad for my brothers. I thought they didn't know what they were doing because they grew up the same way I did. I was mad at my parents, but not at them. But now I remember how the cats would shout out and how horrible it sounded, and how they did it so calmly, and in so many violent ways. Sometimes afterwards they'd just calmly rinse off their hands with the hose. Or how when they tied me up they were so calm about what it was they were doing. Or how they would look at me and say so calmly that if I told anyone anything, they'd kill me."
"Did you believe them?"
"When my mom said she'd kill herself if I told, I believed her because I'd seen her try to kill my brother. Did I tell you this, that she stuffed pills in his mouth because she wanted him to die? So I thought it wouldn't be too hard for her to kill herself, if she could do that to my brother. But I believed them even more, because they had killed so many innocent beings. Why wouldn't they kill me? What would stop them?"
We were silent for awhile, both of us crying. And then she raised the volume of her voice, and it was strong, sure of itself, but still even. "Anyway, I don't feel bad for them anymore. I mean, why did they end up so mean, so heartless, and I ended up with such a big heart so that I have to feel all of this?"
I can think of some reasons: S was younger when she got out, 10 to their 18; she's had safe places to live since the age of 10, even if they weren't ideal; she's a girl, and that alone means she's been subtly socialized to be less violent, even in the midst of that level of abuse.
Still, I know what she means. When Doty writes about the hand raised to strike, the finger on the trigger--how it could have just as easily been his as his mother's or father's--I believe this, I understand it. But I can't take that same leap when I think of boys tying up their sister to gang rape her, or breaking a beer bottle and stabbing a cat to death with its shards while their sister watched. I can't understand or imagine that kind of cruelty. Does that mean I'm in some kind of denial, or that, truly, some people are either born or made more cold-hearted than others?
I guess I'll never know for sure. What I do know is this: just after S said she could never forgive her brothers, the cat crawled into her lap. She stroked her and said, "I would never hurt you, I would never hurt you," over and over, this mantra. And the cat purred and turned over to show S her belly.
"That means she trusts you," I said.
"I know," said S. "And, for the first time, I think I trust you, too," she added, and I breathed in deeply, letting the words sink into my gut, mix with that grief, that holy darkness.
"Hopefully someday M (her brother) will tell F (his new adoptive father) the things I'm telling you. I think it's the only chance he has to survive, if he can tell someone. I hope someday he'll trust F the way I trust you."
And I remembered how F had written me earlier in the week, two sentences: "Even though M can be unresponsive at times when it comes to talking, every day I find him more sweet and good-hearted. I feel I really made the right choice and was so lucky to find him."
"I hope so, too," I said to her. Then I kissed her forehead and added, "I am so lucky I found you."
"I'm lucky, too," S whispered, wiping the last tear from her cheek.
Those words, when I read them the first time, resonated with me. Now, on the other side of parenthood, as with Lamott's work (which I wrote about yesterday), I understand more deeply what he means. I expected to be the kind of mother who was nothing like either of my parents, or the aunt who raised me after my mother's death. I sometimes see small glimpses of my father's abuse, as well as his fierce desire that I become something more than others expect; I feel my mother's deep love, how she wanted to both hold on and let go, at every moment; I sometimes experience the nervous worry of my aunt, who wanted so much to do everything right that she couldn't be present. I had not expected to become any of them, but at times, I do, and this has, yes, made me love them more, understand them better. It has also forced me to experience both humility and grace.
But tonight, for the first time, I realized it is not possible always to imagine myself in another person's shoes, and that maybe, just maybe, this is OK in some situations.
S and I were having a good day. After last night's period of reflection--which ended with my last blog entry--I slept deeply for almost 12 hours, and I woke up feeling like a new person, no longer full of shame, the grief still swimming in my body, but not numbing me--instead, making me more alive. We had a very late breakfast, and then I went to work to catch up, and S spent some time with her college buddy. I got home; she was quiet but happy, and we had dinner and took a short walk; we saw some friends on the way, who said I should come over later for a drink. "You should go, Mom," she said. "You never get to do anything with your friends. I feel OK about staying alone." So I said I would later, and we cleaned the house; she helped without complaining. Afterwards, we started decorating for Halloween, and then suddenly it was 8:30 and I told her I was leaving.
She sulked; I got annoyed. "What is it?" I asked her. "Why don't you just tell me? Do you not want me to leave? And if the answer's no, then I want you to try to tell me exactly why that is."
She sat on the couch and said, "I need you to sit next to me." Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. I did.
"It was snowing," she said. "And that didn't happen very often in the (state where I came from). And it was foggy. I was dressed as a princess, and my brothers were Tigger and Pooh. My father was taking us trick-or-treating, but we weren't dressed right, and I was shivering. And he was acting like a good father."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"He said if anyone bothered me he'd hit them with his flashlight. And my older brothers were with us. And then there were two dogs. I don't know whose they were. My brothers started to beat them."
"What happened next?"
She stopped then, and I could feel her body against mine struggling for control. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hurt something, somebody, to lash out in violence, to scream, or if she should stay here, on this couch, in this safe house, and keep on talking.
She chose, for the first time ever, I think, to do the second. And the memories came out like this for hours, in this much detail, her voice soft and clear, tears running down her cheeks. The numerous animals her brothers abused and killed. All of the places and ways her father raped her and her brothers. How her mother said she would kill herself whenever any of the children said they would tell; how she would sit in the room and just watch, her face blank.
"Thanks for not talking," she would say once in awhile, and then she would go on. She held my hand. The dog and cat occasionally jumped up on her lap and licked her face, but she seemed not to even notice them, though sometimes she would absentmindedly run her fingers through their fur.
After a few hours of this, she stood up rather suddenly and said, "I think that's enough for tonight. I don't think I could take any more memories, so I'm going to shut them off now." The entire time, Halloween music had been playing on the recorder, but I hadn't dared to get up to turn it off. She did so, saying, "I think the scary music helped me remember for some reason."
Then, she came back to the couch and sat next to me, laying her head on my shoulder. "I'm glad you're my mom and I'm glad you listened to all of this w/o freaking out, even though I know it was hard to hear." And she said she thought she needed to do that more often, to just sit quietly and try to remember things, because already she feels like, as she put it, "some of the black hole is getting filled and I have more control over myself."
"You're brave to want to do what you did tonight," I said to her.
"I have to. Otherwise, I would have to just kill myself, because I can't go on the way I was. I wouldn't have a future." It was a really scary thing to hear her say, in a way, but I also totally get what she means. She can't really just go on carrying all that stuff in her body and mind without telling the stories.
At one point, she said, "I used to feel bad for my brothers. I thought they didn't know what they were doing because they grew up the same way I did. I was mad at my parents, but not at them. But now I remember how the cats would shout out and how horrible it sounded, and how they did it so calmly, and in so many violent ways. Sometimes afterwards they'd just calmly rinse off their hands with the hose. Or how when they tied me up they were so calm about what it was they were doing. Or how they would look at me and say so calmly that if I told anyone anything, they'd kill me."
"Did you believe them?"
"When my mom said she'd kill herself if I told, I believed her because I'd seen her try to kill my brother. Did I tell you this, that she stuffed pills in his mouth because she wanted him to die? So I thought it wouldn't be too hard for her to kill herself, if she could do that to my brother. But I believed them even more, because they had killed so many innocent beings. Why wouldn't they kill me? What would stop them?"
We were silent for awhile, both of us crying. And then she raised the volume of her voice, and it was strong, sure of itself, but still even. "Anyway, I don't feel bad for them anymore. I mean, why did they end up so mean, so heartless, and I ended up with such a big heart so that I have to feel all of this?"
I can think of some reasons: S was younger when she got out, 10 to their 18; she's had safe places to live since the age of 10, even if they weren't ideal; she's a girl, and that alone means she's been subtly socialized to be less violent, even in the midst of that level of abuse.
Still, I know what she means. When Doty writes about the hand raised to strike, the finger on the trigger--how it could have just as easily been his as his mother's or father's--I believe this, I understand it. But I can't take that same leap when I think of boys tying up their sister to gang rape her, or breaking a beer bottle and stabbing a cat to death with its shards while their sister watched. I can't understand or imagine that kind of cruelty. Does that mean I'm in some kind of denial, or that, truly, some people are either born or made more cold-hearted than others?
I guess I'll never know for sure. What I do know is this: just after S said she could never forgive her brothers, the cat crawled into her lap. She stroked her and said, "I would never hurt you, I would never hurt you," over and over, this mantra. And the cat purred and turned over to show S her belly.
"That means she trusts you," I said.
"I know," said S. "And, for the first time, I think I trust you, too," she added, and I breathed in deeply, letting the words sink into my gut, mix with that grief, that holy darkness.
"Hopefully someday M (her brother) will tell F (his new adoptive father) the things I'm telling you. I think it's the only chance he has to survive, if he can tell someone. I hope someday he'll trust F the way I trust you."
And I remembered how F had written me earlier in the week, two sentences: "Even though M can be unresponsive at times when it comes to talking, every day I find him more sweet and good-hearted. I feel I really made the right choice and was so lucky to find him."
"I hope so, too," I said to her. Then I kissed her forehead and added, "I am so lucky I found you."
"I'm lucky, too," S whispered, wiping the last tear from her cheek.
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