Today was my mother’s birthday. Had she lived, she would have been 92. I have been trying to dig up good memories of her because there really were some.
I remember that she was a talented artist. She did some amazing charcoal portraits and I wondered why she didn’t go any further with it. Maybe it was because Deaf people didn’t become mainstream artists in the 50s and 60s? I wanted to ask her but didn’t. Communication was a real problem between us when I was young because I didn’t know how to sign and lipreading was frustrating. When I did learn sign language, our relationship had pretty much deteriorated and it didn’t occur to me to ask then.
She liked to do paint-by-numbers as well and got me interested in it. I remember she gave me some pointers to help me stay within the lines and advised me where to start my paintings. I enjoyed it. She also got me into liquid embroidery. Parties for that craft were big in the Deaf community. I loved it and Mom bought an entire set of colors and projects for me.
The whole family loved to swim, whether it was in the ocean, the bay, or at a pool. For years, we belonged to a swim club. Mom loved to go there and she took my brother and me and some of his friends to the club almost every day. My brother would go off with his friends; I would hang out with Mom. In between swimming, we sunned ourselves and read avidly.
Another favorite family activity was bowling. My brother and I started bowling in a kids’ league when we were about 12 and 10. My parents bowled in a Deaf league every Wednesday night. Mom drove my brother and me to our bowling alley every Saturday morning during the school months for years. During the summer, we’d all go bowling together.
My parents participated in Deaf bowling tournaments up and down the east coast. I learned how to be a scorekeeper and frequently kept score for Mom’s team. Encouraging Mom and her teammates was fun and I basked in their praise of my math skills. I could add up scores in my head very quickly.
She never complained about taking me to the library every week. I took out as many books as I was allowed, and sometimes she would borrow extra books for me. I read so fast sometimes I would go through them all before the week was up.
Before I started junior high and puberty, I was a sought-after tomboy. I played punch ball, kick ball, and baseball with my brother and his friends. Mom must have realized I wasn’t going to fit in well in junior high and so we went shopping for clothes that were “in” at the time: miniskirts, fishnet stockings, and cute blouses. Honestly, the clothes didn’t help.
When I was abandoned by the few girlfriends I had, I asked Mom if she would drive me to school. She was irritated at the inconvenience and demanded to know why. I got up the courage to tell her and burst into tears. She immediately softened and agreed to drive me to school so I wouldn’t have to walk alone.
In 1980, my beloved Grandma died. Mom and I stayed in her cottage for a couple of weeks while arrangements were made for her funeral and to decide what to do about her things. I was 25 and my relationship with Mom was on again-off again. Her drinking and mental illness had already adversely affected me.
I found Grandma’s diary and read it. Shocked, I realized that Mom, Grandma, uncles and aunt had all been domestic violence victims. My grandfather used to hit my Grandma. My uncles would jump in to stop him, and Grandpa would turn on them.
My mother’s and my aunt’s deafness were a big reason for what happened. My grandfather didn’t tell Grandma that he, himself, had two deaf sisters in Norway. He didn’t tell her his own hearing was impaired. The secret came out when the family learned that both the girls couldn’t hear. Grandma was heart-broken. She described Grandpa’s rages against them. He’d bang their heads against the wall in frustration and struck out physically in other ways. My breath got caught in my throat reading that diary. My God, it explained so much about Mom and her behavior.
I showed it to Mom. After she read it, she told me that she remembered the abuse. On the other hand, my Aunt Betty, Mom’s older sister, did not. Mom told me that my aunt always denied any memory of it and Aunt Betty was gob smacked when she read the diary. I meant to hold onto it but ended up showing it to my Uncle John, Mom’s brother and my godfather. He wanted to hang on to it, promising we’d work on a family history using some of the information but I never saw it again. I have a feeling my uncle got rid of it. When he passed away, I asked Aunt Joyce for it and she looked but couldn’t find it.
What happened to Mom made me realize that domestic abuse passes from generation to generation and that’s why I went for counseling and 12 step meetings, especially after I married and began to have children. There was no way I was going to pass that horror to my children. I think I was mostly successful there.
One of the strategies I use when I am having a flashback is, after working through the worst of it, I try to remember the good memories. I just wish there’d been more of them.
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