Christmas Exorcism, Part II

I'm sick of it. I want it over. I want it gone. I am no longer a little girl. I am a parent. I am the mom. I don't want my kids to be writing this essay in twenty years, "and then my mom, unable to let go of the past..." I want them to have the joy I never did.

Screw joy, I just want them to have some semblance of normal. Of waking up too early, opening gifts, eye rolling at ugly gifts and then, before the sun is up, it's over. A day about them, not about my doom and gloom.

After all these years, that's what Christmas means to me. A single, once a year shot at family love that is destined to fail. I've long since given up trying with my family of origin. My father is still alive, somewhere and can burn in hell as far as I'm concerned. The unmentioned sibling remains unmentioned. My sister and I are close but we've carved out new traditions in an attempt to wash away the past etched on us like tattoos.

I want my family to be happy on June 6th. And February 20th. And a lot of other days in between. The china comes out when a crowd gathers for Sunday night dinner. Or Thursday night dinner. Or not at all and we eat on paper plates watching the Red Sox together.

My mother is dead now. There is no one left to please. No more family to pretend to be, no more forced smiles.

I always felt alone while doing my dance as a child. It was me and me alone that could make everything better. I'm sure each of my siblings thought the same; it’s the nature of being a child of an alcoholic. I never expected, after the final act, I would feel so abandoned.

Enough already. I have a full house, a full heart. The Fates only win if I let them. I need to take off the shawl of misery because it doesn't fit anymore.

It can't fit anymore.

Otherwise, my kids will end up chasing after the same unachievable dream of making their mother happy.

I may not be able to break all the cycles I grew up with, but I will break a few. My children will never be physically or sexually abused by their relatives. They will not feel responsible for my happiness or my sadness.

I will never be drunk in front of them.

And they will always remember me holding them.


Okay, that was REALLY depressing. Please remember? I’m sipping a pina colada in Costa Rica right now.

Really.

Sorry.

Christmas Exorcism, Part I

Christmas was always about my mother. I’m furious that it still is- she's been dead over a year.

I'm chasing a ghost's love. My mother is dead. And still, when the image of a mother holding a child is shown, about 8 million times a second this holiday season, all I think of is my mother holding me.

Or, in reality, not holding me.

I find it amazing that even after twenty years, twenty years spent in healthy, positive celebrations, I hate Christmas. I hate it more than any other time of the year. It brings me back to being a little girl pulling out the china, and polishing the silver. How I would set an elegant table, arranging the greens with ancient holiday decorations pulled from an old chest in the basement. The napkins would be folded carefully, my small hands pressing out any lumps or creases.

When will I ever get this monkey off my back? All the dreams, hopes and memories of Christmas, that mock me every year, taunt me into a stupor when now I have my own family, my own children to celebrate?

I want someone to shake holy water on me or chant Gaelic phrases until my brain is finally clear of old longings. I want to sit with my family- my children, my wife, my kids dads, my friends- around a beautifully decorated table, laugh, and tell stories. I want love to fill my home without the old shadows. I am loved and celebrated in my family. My kids are fairly normal and healthy. I have good friends who know me and still love me even though I send too many emails, whine too often about my wife's work schedule.

I look at my family of origin and it's not exactly a Norman Rockwell painting. It’s not even a Budweiser commercial: my father a paranoid schizophrenic, my mother an alcoholic of prolific proportions. My father sexually abused my sister and me and there is another sibling who will sue my ass off if I mention anything specific about them.

Family love. I have had it hurt so deeply I wanted to die. My father's creepy insistence I get into the bathtub at his apartment while he watched etched noises he made into my mind that cannot be scrubbed away. Being held face down to carpets long enough to have imprints on my face and smells of feet, dog pee and mold forever in my nose until I cried out in humiliation are gifts I received from my family.

Thanks.

But there is my family love. My kids. My beautiful boys who believe they can be rock stars, or inventors, or scientists. My wife who drives me nuts on a daily basis and still makes me smile when she puts her icy feet on me in the middle of the night. Walter and Allan, who eagerly signed on to be the kids dads even though there would be no legal recognition and every single person they meet would feel free to ask, "But are they really yours?"

That's my family. Not the past ghosts. Not my mother. Out, out! I want to scream. Leave me alone!

I wanted something beautiful. I wanted my family to love each other. Mostly, I wanted my mother to be happy. And to hold me. Not because of what I saw on advertisements or television shows but because my very core depended on it. Abandoned by my birthmother, I could not risk being anything less than loveable.

My mother adopted three children from three different birthmothers, all disgraced by society for being pregnant without rings of at least promise and handing over their newborn infants to complete strangers. Three children with empty holes for early memories, filled with fear. If we could be given up once, we could be given up again.

The table would be set, the gold leaf bone china an elegant off white, sparking in the candlelight. Every year I would set it on Christmas Eve, ready for the next day. Every year, from the time I was very small to the time I finally left home.

In perfect synch, my mother would get drunk on Christmas Eve. As my table would wait for the promise of laughter, celebration and cheers, my mother would pour another bourbon and water. She would cry and tell us with slurred, elegant words about how much she loved us, what a failure as a parent she was. We would all sit, terrified she'd turn, never knowing what we could do to make it all right. To have her feel loved so she would not be so sad.

It was the only time of the year she ever said anything kind about my father. She would acknowledge, only for a brief moment, there was a time he was a kind and gentle person. Before he was sick. Before the voices in his head took over and instructed him to do horrible things. She needed us to know she would not have married such a broken, twisted man.

We would go off to bed, finally, when she had enough liquor, when her tears were dried. She would playfully remind us no presents until the first cup of coffee was made, and we would all run to bed, giggling, as if we believed in Santa Claus.

I fell asleep every Christmas Eve filled with hope. I hoped when my father showed up in the morning, he would not fight with my mother. I hoped my mother would not find reason to hate him again until the end of the day. I hoped we would all sit around the table and love each other. At least for the day.

We never did. By morning, my mother would be spitting fire before my father even walked in the door. He was always late, always brought snow in the house on his shoes, always had something disgusting stuck in his moustache.

It was clear no family love was going to happen before the first cup of coffee was finished. But I still had my mother to please.

I would plaster a smile on my face and be the master of ceremonies, crawling under the tree, handing out gifts to everyone. I would refill coffee cups for both my parents, I would ooo and ahh over even the most ridiculous gifts. I smiled even when my father would buy little girl gifts for me that made my skin crawl.

And then my moment would finally come. We would sit around the table, my father would say a blessing as was required when he was at the head. For a brief moment, I would squeeze my eyes shut and pray.

Please. Please let Mom be happy.

Every year.

She never was.

Privilege, Entitlement and the Holiday Season

Friday night, before I went to sleep, I promised myself I was not going to yell at Ben. It was going to be "Christmas" and however he felt about the gifts he received, however he expressed himself was going to be met with my silence.

I lasted about an hour.

What is it about privilege, entitlement and the holiday season? They seem to go together hand in hand.

Have I done a lousy job with Ben or is it all kids at this age? I swear, you could give Zachary a lump of coal and he'd think it was cool. Jake is easy, too, but he's still in the toy stage. Ben, however, was unhappy with everything except one gift.

And they were all gifts he asked for. Can someone explain this to me?

He opened the Souljah Boy tee shirt, hat and glasses.

I wanted the hoodie, too, he said, annoyed.

I could have killed him but I stayed quiet and simply shrugged.

He opened a 50 cent style baseball cap, with plaid on the front but a Boston Red Sox logo.

Whatever.

Tongue bleeding, I nudge Walter next to me. I'm not going to say a word.

I can see that, Walter said.

Finally, when he told Jeanine to shut up, I lost it.

Can someone give me some insight? Should I put the boy on bread and water and remove all the Abercrombie shirts? I feel like I'm constantly harping on him and it's not doing any good at all.

A friend reminded me yesterday, that until we have compassion for where they are, their experience, we cannot be helpful.

That's where I get stuck and channel my mother. Not only because they have so much in comparison to the rest of the world but also because they have so much in comparison to what I had.

It's not fair for me to go there. I'm not talking about walking uphill in the snow both ways, or the starving children in India, but alcoholism and abuse. I have to shut the hell up when I want to say, DO YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE?

See? My mother, coming out in spades.

I know he's a good kid. I know he has compassion and is kind. I want to help him shine and want to bring out those pieces of himself.

How do I find the compassion for his reality?

Hate, A Christmas Carol

Ah, you have to love the image of people using Jesus's birthday to celebrate their intolerance and hate.