Pie Without the Crust: A Memoir of my Mother

Ah, A Mother's Love. Every year I'm reminded at Mother's Day. Actually I couldn't forget my Mother and believe me I've tried.

One year my brothers and sisters and I saved our money and bought our Mom a Mother's ring with all our birthstones. Her thanks to us, she threw it in the fireplace.

One Christmas my sister and neighbor friends and I were so proud of the money we collected for needy kids. Our teacher let us ride along with her to give out food baskets, winter coats and shoes. We were so excited to come home and tell how happy everyone was with not their toys for presents but clothes. My Mother put a damper on our joy right away. Saying if we wanted to see awful living conditions we could look at her life. This was after we had described the houses in the bad part of town with the busted out windows boarded up we had visited. We didn't talk anymore of our giving to the less fortunate. My Mother moaned the rest of the night about how she couldn't get the griddle to work in the new stove my Dad had just bought.

I didn't have one of those Susie Homemaker mothers who made pies without the crust just to please her children. No, my Mom wasn't mixing up meth in the kitchen but she wasn't adding Love with every ingredient either.

Once after an accidental grease fire our Mother threw the pan up so the kitchen curtains set ablaze and stood back and laughed. My brother and I who were so immune to her antics, sitting at the kitchen table reading the comics together, we barely glanced up as she finally drug the water hose from outside and put out the flames.

We never usually ended up getting to eat what she did cook. Mainly, she would feed it to the dogs after she learned my Dad wasn't coming home. [Can you blame him?] I remember my brothers running interference when she was trying to throw the dogs our Sunday roast. My brothers would intercept. The dogs did win out in the end that day.

My Mom wasn't into physical abuse only verbal. In fact, when my Dad insist she whip us over something we had done, she would pretend to by hitting the bed with the belt and have us cry out to trick him. I would rather she had beat us. Maybe she did.

My Mom would hide under the house where my Dad kept our bird dogs when they were in heat. When we came home from school she would be peeking at us through the wire vent to scare us. My brother and I would file past but my little sister would stop and cry for our Mother. My sister cried everyday of her life as far back as I can remember.

She encouraged us to quit school and get a job at the earliest possible age. Instead, I became interested in psychology, trying to figure out how the brain works. And family history, hoping for a chance I was adopted.

She told my brother and sister who suffered from bronchitis that she wished they would die when they were up all night coughing. Can you imagine being cussed at when you are sick and too young to even know what the words mean?

Looking back [Must I?] I'm sure she was unstable. [You think?] I can only remember one "talk" my Grandmother had with my Father about my Mom's condition. This was after my Mother had shredded the Easter lilies, Grandmother gave us. My Mom would scream and cry for days on end but as soon as someone showed up at our house or called, her Mrs. Brady voice appeared. This "nice lady" routine scared the bejesus out of us. We knew what to expect from our "real" Mother.

Luckily, Our paternal Grandmother's house of sanctuary and sanity where food actually stayed on the plate saved us. She convinced me I could be the girl I saw in the mirror. Not my Mother.

What's our Mother-Daughter reunions like now? My Mother sits in her veiled prescription drug induced land of make believe. Where she was the victim. Not the children who wet their beds way past the normal age. My youngest sister endured the most abuse. I learned at an early age to deflect. My sister can still not be in the same room with our Mother without hyperventilating.

The last time I tried to have a civil conversation with my Mother, I was disgusted at her display of genteel manners like she was some Southern Belle which honey wouldn't melt in her mouth. We both know she's a Damn Yankee and I wanted to turn those white kid gloves she was masquerading into boxing gloves and throw down on the mat. Not for me but for my sister who to this day can't stand to be touched. By anyone. I suppose when you don't feel worthy of a Mother's love you can't consider yourself deserving of any body's.

In my Mother's defense. Her Mother had her late in life, after her other children were grown. My Mom said her Mother would lock her in the closet for hours when she misbehaved and made her wash her hands until they bled.

Makes your Mom force feeding you broccoli and taking away your phone and car privileges pretty tame now, huh?

Mother attends church every time the doors are open. She says she prays to the Lord for forgiveness. But she has never asked for ours.

She told me I would never be "shit." Ah, She was right. I never will be. Happy Mother's Day.