My Flawed and not so Perfect Mom
MY FLAWED AND NOT SO PERFECT MOM
“You really shouldn’t be telling secrets about your new friend to your other friend,” my mom cautioned me. I was a whole 10 years old, and wasn’t about to listen to what my mom had to say about anything. Two weeks later, I was sobbing in my mom’s arms about the betrayal of my new friend teaming up with my old friend, and neither of them talking to me. “Well” my mom said “you should never talk about another friend behind their back because it will always come back to bite you in the ass!”. And my mom was right
We moved yet again to another city, and I was once again the new girl. Someone had invited me to go roller skating, and as I was rushing out the door, my mom stopped me and made me go and change into something nice, and she brushed my hair and put a ribbon in it. This was a rare occasion because my mom rarely had time for me. ”I’m only going roller skating,” I said impatiently. “Yes, but it doesn’t hurt to look nice,” she said.
That night, a really cute boy came over to me and asked me to skate with him. I was so shy and excited, and I was so happy that my mom had prettied me up before I left the house! It was only one song that we roller skated to, and I never saw him again… but oh, how my heart was skipping. It also helped with my popularity in my new school. My friend told everyone about the cute guy from another school who had skated with me.
I also recall another time when my mom was in bed, shivering and sick, and I was mad because she wanted me to get in bed with her to help keep her warm. I was the oldest of six, my younger sister Bunny crawled into bed with her instead and my mom looked at me and told me I was a selfish child. We were living on welfare and in this big old house. My mom had left my dad, and I was so resentful of what she had done, I guess.
I finally called her best friend, Jean, to tell her mom was sick. When she rushed over to our place, she took my mom to the hospital. She was bleeding so badly from a miscarriage, and that was why she was so cold. I felt awful for not getting into bed with her to help keep her warm… I still remember that. I also thought about how unselfish my sister was, and that just made me feel worse.
Growing up, I remember my parents fighting all the time, the house was always a mess, and my mom didn’t know how to cook or clean. My dad couldn’t hold down a job, but he was a good cook. And it seemed my mom was always pregnant. The gap between our ages, when there was one, was a stillborn baby or a miscarriage. My mom was fond of saying that if there had been birth control in her day, she certainly would not have had so many kids. This was always said matter-of-factly, and we didn’t ever take offence because I’m sure we all agreed, there were just too many kids in this house, and one was always bawling!
I remember when we were really young and living upstairs in my nanas house, made into a suite of sorts. My dad came home drunk one night, and a big fight ensued, and my dad was leaving my mom, and I had to choose between them. Guess I musta have chosen my mom because he left and I was still there. To my intense relief, he ended up coming home the next day, having stayed the night at his older brothers place.
I also remember these beautiful oil paintings put away in a closet in that house. I asked my mom about these and she said she had won a scholarship to art school but had to give it up because she was allergic to oil paints. My mom was a really talented at artist…
Back to the big house now, and mom is back home. We kids are in bed, and late at night, there is a party going on downstairs. I hear music, and there is laughter. We have money, cash, in the cupboard, and we have lots of pop in the house. We also have lots of booze, but I was too young to realize what that was all about.
Then one day at school, the kids started to taunt me that my mom was a bootlegger (I didn’t even know what that meant). Sometimes you have to draw me a picture. I was in grade seven at the time, and I failed my grade, having moved once more in the middle of a school year from BC, where she left my dad, to come back to Saskatoon.
I was so mortified after I realized what was going on, I ran away from home to my nanas house. I left my mom a nasty note that was very hurtful. I can’t remember what I wrote, but she probably never forgot, although she did forgive me eventually, it took a while though.
My mom was so talented, she was not only a singer and a songwriter, but she could also play the accordion and piano by ear. That was the music I heard at the parties. She was very smart in school and had taught herself how to read the newspaper before even entering school. She wanted to converse with her dad when he always read the paper at the dinner table. That’s the story she always told us, and I believe her.
She taught us all to swim, sometimes even before we could walk, depending on when we were born. My mom was the first woman lifeguard at the Riversdale public swimming pool in Saskatoon.
After running away to my Nana’s house (age 12 years), my Nana sent me to go to live with my mom’s younger sister and her husband. I was the flower girl at their wedding. There, I repeated grade seven and, to my surprise, passed all my subjects in school and didn’t even have to write final exams. I didn’t see a lot of my mom during this time, and I’m sure she had her hands full without me. I finally had stability in my life, and I was liking it, but living there was much more restrictive than living at home.
I got homesick for my mom and my brothers and sisters, but I had made my bed and couldn’t go back. If I thought I was getting away from all those kids at home…well, my aunt and uncle were practicing Catholics and they had four of them all in a row (eventually having seven) and they were all young and I was babysitting age. Finishing my grade seven and recommending out of grade eight as well, I was ready to go back home to my mom. She graciously accepted me back with no questions asked.
My mom was also a writer and a poet and teamed up with a great friend of hers, Anne Szumulgulski, a writer in residence at the U of S, later on in life to publish some of her stuff. They also wrote a children’s book together called ‘Water Grannie’ which never got published because the publishers wanted to nix the talking cat… Mom was having none of it!
I had a lot of issues with my mom later on in life, but I have come to realize that she was only doing what she knew how. She didn’t ask for all of us kids, and she certainly wasn’t prepared in any way to raise a family. But I want to say here that I never once felt unloved, my mom was there when I needed her, and yes, I have to admit that she was right more often than not!
I also feel I have inherited some of her talent. I sure hope so. My mom’s favorite saying was “I just hope when you have kids, you will have a girl just like you!” Well, mom, as you know, I did and I said the same to her, and you know what? She did, too, and that is the circle of life.
We all do the best we can, and I forgave my mom for all my perceived shortcomings she had. This was only a couple of years after she passed away. But my mom ‘knew’ me better than I knew myself, and she made sure to tell me always that she loved me and to never forget that! It wasn’t until she was gone a while that I came to terms with all of this and truly understood what she meant.
Mom, you were not the perfect mother, and I was certainly not the perfect daughter. I’m so sorry for that note I wrote you and for not being there for you, in the end. Mom, I forgive you for my perceived trespasses, and I know you forgave me too, and really… isn’t this what being a mom is all about?
I love you, Mom, and I miss you more than I care to admit.
ps: I bring back you and Uncle Gary (your youngest brother and also my best friend in my later years) in my thoughts often before sleep, when I need advice or comfort in my life, and it soothes my soul. I just wanted you to know that. xoxo
Copyright May 2014
(written before I started to blog)