I have a dear friend, Ginger, who I met initially as a massage client. When we first met she was in the midst of caring for both her mother and father. Her father had Alzheimer's. As she shared her story with me I realized she had given up so much of her life to care for them. I remember saying, "Never! I will never take care of my parents." But no matter how loud and emphatic my declaration, I learned, if it is something God is calling you to do, it is useless to say never. Whether by a dramatic event or a gentle push, God will eventually get our attention.
Childhood was such a mixture of great experiences and yet some pretty horrible experiences as well. We are not sure if mother was bipolar, she was never diagnosed as such. However, she could flip from hot to cold in a second. As nurturing and caring as she could be, she could also be violently abusive: which kept us always on our guard. Mother's forte' was guilt. We were responsible for her unhappiness and we owed her. This mantra continued through to our adulthood and increased dramatically as she began to decline. My father isolated himself from us as much as he could, but he too had been abusive, especially toward my mother. Just before their divorce he tried to beat her to death. We were children and we bore witness to the aftermath of that beating and it was pretty gruesome. They both "disciplined" us out of their own rage and frustration and many times we were left with bloody welts. In addition to the physical beatings, they both tormented us verbally and shamed us in front of others, and they made sure we understood that we deserved it. Even though my father left when I was ten, I include him in this narration because ironically he played a role in the caring of our of mother.
Mother was an enigma. As much as I wanted to know her, she always remained just out of reach: a shadow I couldn't quite get hold of. She was born in Mexico in the late 20's, her father died when she was twelve. She was poor and uneducated so that meant her options were limited. Despite that she had a drive to better her life and ours as well. She had a sophisticated style of dress despite having to buy clothes in thrift stores. On the other hand, my father was from the South and even though he happily immersed himself in the Mexican language and culture, he had no ambitions to elevate his standard of living. Keep the status quo. Needless to say, they clashed.
When I reflect on the positive things about my mother I always think of her gardens. She could grow anything in any environment and her plants always looked so beautiful. As a child, I loved playing in her garden and I realize now how much those memories have inspired my more recent drawings.
Mother also sewed most of our clothes. If we had a special event to go to she always made sure we had something new to wear. She also made sure we ate well, that our house was clean and she showed up for school programs. Having worked for the school systems myself, I learned to appreciate the value of my mother's efforts, and I guess that is what planted the seed. As much as I did not want to care for her, I could not deny my mother worked hard for all of us, so yes, we owed her.
My particular struggle, however, was that I did not want to take on this job out of guilt. By then I had returned to church and had been working on my relationship with God. I knew what the Bible said about "honoring our parents", but as much as I prayed about it, I still could not make peace with it. What finally shook me loose was the fear that if my sister took on this job alone, the stress could kill her.
My sister Josephine was not only my friend, but she had often stood in as my mother on many occasions and she was dear to me. I have to admit that the fear of losing her overshadowed any acts of obedience to God or the honoring of my parents. That was the driving force that moved me: literally. So, I jumped into that big ocean to rescue my sister from drowning only to find that we both desperately needed rescuing.
This is Thomas, a very small cat who made such a huge impact on our lives.
Thank you for visiting my blog. There will be more on Thomas and my art work in the coming weeks.
