Jonathots Daily Blog
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(Transcript)Angry. Sweet.
Gentle. Mean.
Vindictive. Giving.
These words seem to be opposites of one another but they were all part of the personality of my mother.
All through my childhood, I had endured a see-saw of emotion which was not only painful, but unpredictable.
November 25th was Thanksgiving Day. I was excited. I walked into the kitchen rubbing my hands together with enthusiasm and asked my mother “when the feast was going to be ready.”
She turned to me with a bit of fire and spit and said, “Why don’t you cook it? It’s hard work.”
It was cold, ferocious and beyond my understanding. I just went to my room, cussing her name.
For after all, this was a woman I had seen empty her cupboards of canned goods to help a neighbor in need and then, the next day, turn around and curse that same neighbor for dereliction and laziness. She would often come into my room and give me a hug, only to scream at me an hour later for watching cartoons–“being in her way” during vacuuming.
In my youth I heard her speak of brotherhood while referring to some individuals as “worthless niggers.”
If I’d had a lick of sense–which I didn’t–I would have realized that a human being who is angry, sweet, gentle, mean, vindictive and giving–well, when you combine them, what you end up with is confused.
In my later years, I understood.
She was seventeen years old when she married a man who was eighteen years her senior. she never got to travel, she didn’t get to go to college, was unable to flirt with either disaster or blessing and birthed five children, which from time to time seemed more of an inconvenience than a heritage.
She lived in confined quarters with limited funds, with a very stoic husband who often went on trips to Canada without providing a definite return date.
I wish I could sit down with her and tell her that I’m sorry I did not understand her plight. In today’s world, she probably would be diagnosed with some sort of neurotic condition which would be tempered by medication. Such remedies were unheard of in her day and age.
The greatest reprieve to my soul is that on the day she passed from this world, I was the last one to see her in the nursing home. We had a wonderful trip to the mall and on the way back, together sang her favorite hymn, The Old Rugged Cross.
She taught me a lot without realizing that she was instructing.
It was neither the fits of anger nor her acts of generosity that remain with me, but rather, a desire to be universally merciful to people when I don’t know their whole story.
So nowadays I would only ask three questions of anyone I encounter:
- Can you admit you’re not happy?
- Are you willing to be happy?
- Will you stay with it until happiness arrives?
That’s all my mother needed–someone to give a damn.
It’s hard for me to remember her as a mom or a mother, and I certainly don’t want to look on her as a monster.
She was a woman named Mary who was given limited possibilities … and did the best she could.
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