Which doesn't mean this blog is going to come easily. I've written and rewritten parts of it in my mind for the last month, ever since I saw the first Mother's Day card display of the year. In the end, I chucked the whole thing out and decided to just write what I'm feeling...which I repeat, isn't easy.
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“You know...it's at times like this...that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen.”
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen.”
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
My mom died six months ago this past Tuesday. As per tradition, my stepdad had to remind me of the date.
The story of Mom and I is one of ever-increasing distance. Ever since I came out of her, we've slowly, inexorably moved apart. In my early childhood, we were far, far too close: the aftermath of divorce left me as the man of the house at five years old, a role I embraced with alacrity -- I'm a big kid now! -- and no least idea of how to fulfill its obligations. For three years, it was Mommy and Kenny against the world, a battle I didn't even know was being fought. It was only much later that I got the barest understanding of how precarious life was until my stepdad arrived on the scene when I was eight: how unthinkingly, instinctively heroic my mother had been. She worked three jobs at once and there still was too much month left at the end of the money, but despite all that she still managed feats of parental attention beyond what many two-parent households lavish on their children today.
Mom willingly gave the disciplinarian role to my stepfather early on. And it's a good thing she did, because by that point in my life I had learned how to play her. She was beset by guilt every time she had to so much as raise her voice to me. That guilt could easily be exploited by a not-so-easy me, and it was.
Mom willingly gave the disciplinarian role to my stepfather early on. And it's a good thing she did, because by that point in my life I had learned how to play her. She was beset by guilt every time she had to so much as raise her voice to me. That guilt could easily be exploited by a not-so-easy me, and it was.
My tween and early teen years were as close to an idyllic childhood as I got. Mom was the Fount Of Affection, and John was the Well Of Life Lessons, and between the two of them (and my wife, who finished the job) I think I turned out pretty much okay. This despite my own best efforts to sabotage their work.
Lacking siblings and indeed friends for much of my childhood, I nevertheless have it on good authority that many kids rebel against their parents. That was unthinkable to me early on, because consequences...but it became a much easier proposition after I left the house, far too early, to pursue "higher" education.
Oh, I left willingly. On good terms, but willingly: the I'm a big kid now! was still operant, and REALLY came to the fore in my twenties, when I acted like nothing so much as a whiny overgrown toddler. That didn't stop me from resenting the overwhelming feeling I was being pushed, and to that I could look back and add the awful rootlessness I felt as a child, moving nearly every school year, mom and John out looking at houses before we'd even fully unpacked from our latest move. That they were always on the lookout to improve our life, and often strictly MY life, escaped my notice. Sacrifices were still being made, many of them, and they escaped my notice as well.
< It's not as if the thumb I had worked my way out from under was even remotely oppressive (although, of course, twenty-something-year-old me could quote you chapter and verse on parental oppression).
< It's not as if the thumb I had worked my way out from under was even remotely oppressive (although, of course, twenty-something-year-old me could quote you chapter and verse on parental oppression).
On a foundation of assumptions, most of them dead wrong, I built a castle of ignorance and alienation and I lived in it, all alone, shouting the teenager's battle cry long after I escaped my teens: IT'S MY LIFE.
My life was a shambles. Even I knew as much: how could I not? But it was my shambles, damnit, and ownership of a wreck was more important to me at the time than the wreck itself.
Mom had done nothing, not the slightest thing, to merit my neglect of her. Neither did anyone else in those years. Rather the contrary, in fact: Mom went out of her way, as she always had, to lend support in any way she could, and my twenties were an era of limitless opportunity that I kept finding ways to squander and waste.
I graduated high school (1990) with more than ten thousand dollars saved up after my entire first year at Laurier was paid for. This was in large part thanks to my Mom. I had worked for her in the summer between high school and university. She made sure there was no favouritism shown by giving me all the shit jobs to do, but behind the scenes she was paying me handsomely, at a wage equal to that of her assistant manager, and at a FAR higher wage than Mom herself was pulling down.
More than ten grand. AFTER all living expenses.
At the end of my first year I was stone...cold...broke. I had exactly one sip of alcohol that year and touched no other drug...but I ate literally every meal out. I bought things on the slightest whim. My phone bill ran between three and four hundred bucks every month. The arcade up the street ate at least a thousand dollars of my money. There are several pinball games and a couple of video games that I high-scored on. There's a life achievement for you.
I still remember coming home for Christmas in the middle of that year and my parents being in a state of high piss-off about the state of my finances. That was the last time I played the "say-enough-contrite-things-to-get-out-of-Dutch" game on so grand a scale, knowing if I could just stick it out through the holidays, my life of wild abandonment would be waiting for me on the other end. And it was.
It became clear to me by my sophomore year, if not sooner, that I wasn't cut out for university. The line I adopted then and still use today was that I was paying thousands of dollars for professors to read textbooks to me, and I had to buy the textbooks. My mistake had been mine alone, and (rare, for me) forgivable: I had opted for higher education rather than hire education, not fully grasping, let alone applying, that most of my schooling had already taken and would continue to take place outside of school.
I persisted with the mistake, because I didn't make mistakes in the 1990s. Then when the mistake became completely untenable and I snapped and dropped out in the face of internet addiction and general life suckitude, I hid it all from Mom and John, knowing how disappointed they'd be in the mistake I didn't make.
Fictions that ridiculous don't pass the smell test, of course: I'm sure they knew right quick that little Kenny would not be getting the fabled CREDENTIAL. But by that point I was keeping everybody, especially them, at arm's length or greater, all the better to pretend that I didn't make mistakes in the 1990s. Any mistakes made were obviously made by my parents: who pushed me out of the nest too soon? Who neglected to teach me the value of a dollar? Who kept trying to straight-jacket me?
(Answers from 2016 Ken: I was just as happy to go; I bloody well should have learned the value of a dollar because my folks were frugal; I actually had more freedom than was good for me. Lots more. Too much. But once you start building arguments on faulty premises you can twist anything into anything else.)
My wife, incidentally, came from a polar opposite background. She was paying room and board long before she left home, and she left home early. Eva has all the resilience, street smarts and self-reliance I lack....but it's taken me most of seventeen years to convince the woman she's loveable and I STILL haven't managed to convince her it's okay not to be perfect.
So, to recap: immature man-child blaming everybody but himself for his waste of a life and the loving mother he cruelly neglected out of sheer self-centredness mixed with a soupçon of spite and malice. Mother's Day? Fuck it, she knows she's my mother, I don't need to call her to remind her of it, and gifts? Rob myself of a restaurant dinner and a new CD? Yeah, right.
Lovely. Just...lovely.
At this point I don't even recall what brought everything to a head, only that our wedding plans were involved somehow and (as usual) I had contributed MORE than my fair share to the animosity. It blew up. It blew up real good. There was no contact for more than five years, and when the relationship did reset, I got a richly-deserved taste of my own medicine. Not intentionally, I hasten to add. But the distance I had so lovingly cultivated over a lost decade? I got to see how it felt to have it cultivated right back.
It hurt. And I earned that hurt.
It didn't help that my mom's health was failing. My mom was always a pillar of strength that just couldn't bear to be seen as weak. I'm sure she was trying to protect me from her slowly creeping mortality, as well. But it felt as if I was being shoved away. It's entirely possible I have manufactured some of this emotion in some kind of malignant echo of the bad years. But not all of it.
Worst of all, the man who tells himself and others he's a communicator had no CLUE what words would knock down the walls, walls he had built and she had reinforced.
And now, of course, Mom is gone. It's too late. No words CAN work now. Nothing I can say will bring her back. All I can do is try to atone.
"Atonement". Comes from the Middle English "to make united or reconciled". As such, that word should be split into "at one-ment". I haven't been "at one" with Mom since early childhood. Now, in her death, I'm trying to make peace with her shade and I'm still, quite frankly, at a loss as to how to do it. I misplaced the tools of family somewhere. Those loving, close families that do things together? Not my experience. Something feels, I don't know, fake about the concept, I guess because it's never really been my reality. My reality has been family that splinters easily, and I have followed the path of least resistance in that regard as in so many, many others.
______________
I said all that to say this.
Don't be me.
You may not get along with your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother. Both of you may think the other's a total ass, and both of you might even be right. That's no excuse for a life lived apart. Try...try hard...to look past your assumptions of who did what why, because I tell you three times I tell you three times I tell you three times most of those assumptions are WRONG WRONG WRONG. Even where they may be correct, they come from baggage...which, as I just got finished telling you, is bullshit.
There will come a point for you when it is too late. That point could come today. And after it has come and gone, you will have to live with the knowledge you didn't do all you could have. That knowledge, let me tell you, hurts more than the grief itself.
I was not the son my Mom deserved. I was the son she had, and she did her damnedest by me. The story of my mom and I is one of ever-increasing distance. And now she is so, so far away.
I love you, Mom. I never stopped...it's just that I hated myself for a while and it kind of stained everything. But I love you. And I miss you.
So much.
Mom had done nothing, not the slightest thing, to merit my neglect of her. Neither did anyone else in those years. Rather the contrary, in fact: Mom went out of her way, as she always had, to lend support in any way she could, and my twenties were an era of limitless opportunity that I kept finding ways to squander and waste.
I graduated high school (1990) with more than ten thousand dollars saved up after my entire first year at Laurier was paid for. This was in large part thanks to my Mom. I had worked for her in the summer between high school and university. She made sure there was no favouritism shown by giving me all the shit jobs to do, but behind the scenes she was paying me handsomely, at a wage equal to that of her assistant manager, and at a FAR higher wage than Mom herself was pulling down.
More than ten grand. AFTER all living expenses.
At the end of my first year I was stone...cold...broke. I had exactly one sip of alcohol that year and touched no other drug...but I ate literally every meal out. I bought things on the slightest whim. My phone bill ran between three and four hundred bucks every month. The arcade up the street ate at least a thousand dollars of my money. There are several pinball games and a couple of video games that I high-scored on. There's a life achievement for you.
I still remember coming home for Christmas in the middle of that year and my parents being in a state of high piss-off about the state of my finances. That was the last time I played the "say-enough-contrite-things-to-get-out-of-Dutch" game on so grand a scale, knowing if I could just stick it out through the holidays, my life of wild abandonment would be waiting for me on the other end. And it was.
It became clear to me by my sophomore year, if not sooner, that I wasn't cut out for university. The line I adopted then and still use today was that I was paying thousands of dollars for professors to read textbooks to me, and I had to buy the textbooks. My mistake had been mine alone, and (rare, for me) forgivable: I had opted for higher education rather than hire education, not fully grasping, let alone applying, that most of my schooling had already taken and would continue to take place outside of school.
I persisted with the mistake, because I didn't make mistakes in the 1990s. Then when the mistake became completely untenable and I snapped and dropped out in the face of internet addiction and general life suckitude, I hid it all from Mom and John, knowing how disappointed they'd be in the mistake I didn't make.
Fictions that ridiculous don't pass the smell test, of course: I'm sure they knew right quick that little Kenny would not be getting the fabled CREDENTIAL. But by that point I was keeping everybody, especially them, at arm's length or greater, all the better to pretend that I didn't make mistakes in the 1990s. Any mistakes made were obviously made by my parents: who pushed me out of the nest too soon? Who neglected to teach me the value of a dollar? Who kept trying to straight-jacket me?
(Answers from 2016 Ken: I was just as happy to go; I bloody well should have learned the value of a dollar because my folks were frugal; I actually had more freedom than was good for me. Lots more. Too much. But once you start building arguments on faulty premises you can twist anything into anything else.)
My wife, incidentally, came from a polar opposite background. She was paying room and board long before she left home, and she left home early. Eva has all the resilience, street smarts and self-reliance I lack....but it's taken me most of seventeen years to convince the woman she's loveable and I STILL haven't managed to convince her it's okay not to be perfect.
So, to recap: immature man-child blaming everybody but himself for his waste of a life and the loving mother he cruelly neglected out of sheer self-centredness mixed with a soupçon of spite and malice. Mother's Day? Fuck it, she knows she's my mother, I don't need to call her to remind her of it, and gifts? Rob myself of a restaurant dinner and a new CD? Yeah, right.
Lovely. Just...lovely.
At this point I don't even recall what brought everything to a head, only that our wedding plans were involved somehow and (as usual) I had contributed MORE than my fair share to the animosity. It blew up. It blew up real good. There was no contact for more than five years, and when the relationship did reset, I got a richly-deserved taste of my own medicine. Not intentionally, I hasten to add. But the distance I had so lovingly cultivated over a lost decade? I got to see how it felt to have it cultivated right back.
It hurt. And I earned that hurt.
It didn't help that my mom's health was failing. My mom was always a pillar of strength that just couldn't bear to be seen as weak. I'm sure she was trying to protect me from her slowly creeping mortality, as well. But it felt as if I was being shoved away. It's entirely possible I have manufactured some of this emotion in some kind of malignant echo of the bad years. But not all of it.
Worst of all, the man who tells himself and others he's a communicator had no CLUE what words would knock down the walls, walls he had built and she had reinforced.
And now, of course, Mom is gone. It's too late. No words CAN work now. Nothing I can say will bring her back. All I can do is try to atone.
"Atonement". Comes from the Middle English "to make united or reconciled". As such, that word should be split into "at one-ment". I haven't been "at one" with Mom since early childhood. Now, in her death, I'm trying to make peace with her shade and I'm still, quite frankly, at a loss as to how to do it. I misplaced the tools of family somewhere. Those loving, close families that do things together? Not my experience. Something feels, I don't know, fake about the concept, I guess because it's never really been my reality. My reality has been family that splinters easily, and I have followed the path of least resistance in that regard as in so many, many others.
______________
I said all that to say this.
Don't be me.
You may not get along with your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother. Both of you may think the other's a total ass, and both of you might even be right. That's no excuse for a life lived apart. Try...try hard...to look past your assumptions of who did what why, because I tell you three times I tell you three times I tell you three times most of those assumptions are WRONG WRONG WRONG. Even where they may be correct, they come from baggage...which, as I just got finished telling you, is bullshit.
There will come a point for you when it is too late. That point could come today. And after it has come and gone, you will have to live with the knowledge you didn't do all you could have. That knowledge, let me tell you, hurts more than the grief itself.
I was not the son my Mom deserved. I was the son she had, and she did her damnedest by me. The story of my mom and I is one of ever-increasing distance. And now she is so, so far away.
I love you, Mom. I never stopped...it's just that I hated myself for a while and it kind of stained everything. But I love you. And I miss you.
So much.
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