We had my mother come to our house for dinner last week, prior to her attending a talent show hosted by the Northfield Youth Choirs in which my daughter has sung for many years.
Her visit was yet another sign that the family therapy (me, my wife, her) is progressing nicely. We’ve got a few issues yet to deal with, both around my dad’s death, and her revelation to us that he’d beaten her up at least ten times over the course of their marriage — the first on the way home from their honeymoon, the last approximately six months before he died. She took a photo of her bruises after the latter and wants to show it to me. I’m not afraid to see it but I’ve declined thus far because her initial motivation seemed to be to just make me feel bad for neglecting her all these years while trying to establish a relationship with him.
After some chiding and prompting from the therapist, I told her that nobody deserves to be hit and live with the daily fear of being hit, and that I felt sad for what she went through with him for 50+ years. Hearing that, she sobbed hard. Later, she indicated she was going to initiate seeing the therapist on her own.
It’s definitely weird to find myself being interested in getting to know my mother better as a person. And to consider letting her “mother” me at times.
Here’s a scene I wrote for my writing class, based on therapy session #2 a few months ago. The assignment was “Rendering character” in which we were to “write and copy-off a fully developed scene where character just bleeds through the page… Prompts: describe your character by showing the character doing something; make a few statements about your character, show us your character through clothing styles and dress, possessions; put your description in motion.”
My mother sits down in the chair clutching her purse. “And how are YOU Carol?” she says to the therapist, leaning forward in the chair and crossing her legs.
Taut neck muscles and swolen bags under her eyes offset the vestiges of her youthful beauty — petite body frame, high cheekbones, dyed dark blond hair, smooth complexion.
“Oh, I found these same adorable robot characters of yours at the Guthrie Theater gift shop and I decided to take my daughter-in-law’s advice and buy them for my three grandsons,” she says in her sing-songy voice. She tilts her head and flashes her eyelashes at my wife.
“So what’s happened since we met last month?” Carol asks.
My mother slides back in her chair and turns her body away from my wife and me. She picks some lint off her sweater, looks down at the floor and says, “Very little as far as I’m concerned.” She shoots a wide-eyed look at me, jaw thrust forward, lips pursed, her left leg swinging rapidly now in concert with her drumming fingernails.