Read my Latest Entry! Read all my entries! Hey, click here if you want more automated responses in your life! Email me and tell me what you REALLY think! :-)about me - read my profile!


2005-06-10

My Mom: 1952-1985

DISCLAIMER: This is not intended to be a humorous entry. So if you want to laugh, don't read this. There might be funny parts within but there's lots of hard stuff in between. Read at your own risk. It's my story and I like telling it.



My mother, Janet, died when I was 8 years old.

This statement, in and of itself, has become easier and easier to say as time has worn on. But that's what time does: like a Polaroid photograph, it fades the intensity and clarity of that moment. You still can be reminded of that moment from time to time. Sometimes, it hits you like a semi-trailer full of bricks. Sometimes, its a pinprick and a grimace.

Grief is an emotion that I hope you never have to suffer but it is a reality of life. People have different ways to deal with their grief. This is merely my story of it. This story has also become a lot easier to tell. Easier to tell?!?, you incredulously might ask. Easier to tell because I have made that grief and that experience as part of who I am. I don't wallow in it. I don't throw myself into a depressive funk whenever I think about it. But I have absorbed that as part of my character. This isn't always a good thing but that's way it goes, sometimes.



My mom was born in a small town in Indiana. She was the youngest of three daughters. Growing up in small-town Indiana, she was always the "funny one" of her clan. She loved to laugh and was herself a source of great humor to her friends and family. At least, that's what all my relatives still tell me when I visit up there for the annual antique tractor pull. You can see her easy smile in photographs of her when she was a youngin'. She did the same teenager things that all the other teenagers in small-town Indiana do (and probably still do today). She graduated High School and did something that most of her friends & classmates didn't: she went to college. She went to Indiana University and got a degree in social work. She was a popular member of her sorority and still retained her easy laugh.

She moved to Las Vegas in 1973/1974. There she met my dad and they dated for a while before getting married in 1975. Yours truly was born in 1977 so they had at least a year or two before I started mucking-up the works. They moved into a house on the suburbs of Las Vegas and they started raising me.

People have asked me for my fondest memories of my mom. To be honest, it's been hard to come up with a lot of them but what I lack in quantity, I make up in quality. Things I remember include:

-my full name being said in a stern and drawn out voice when I was really in trouble ("Cory...Jehosephat*...Kenobi!!!*").
-running into my parent's bedroom in the morning and hiding under the sheets and having them pretend I wasn't there by them pretending they sat on me. (insert girlish screams as I thought my dad was going to crush me)
-in addition to the normal tickle routine, Mom would grab me, pull up my shirt and blow raspberries (sounds like "PFFFFFTTTTTTTTTT") onto my stomach.
-waking up one Christmas morning to find a fully assembled toy train set on top of the dining room table and supported by saw horses on both ends. (insert girlish screams as I gleefully play with my new toys)
-the Halloween costume that mom made for me from orange lycra leggings, brown leotard, deflated orange balloons, orange swimming flippers, and a cardboard tail. What was I? I was a turkey. I walked to exactly three houses before I had to take those flippers off.

These are just some of my memories but I'm trying to paint a picture here.

My mom was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer towards the end of 1983. I just remember taking mom to hospital quite a lot and the hospital was a good drive from the house. I was pretty much oblivious to all this. What'd you expect from a six-year old?!?, I was all into my neighbor's Star Wars toys and riding my bike.

It was sometime in 1984 that Mom actually had to start staying at the hospital for a few weeks at a time. Which eventually turned into a few months at a time. My dad finally told me why she was losing all her hair. Why she wore turbans and wigs. Why she was so skinny. Why she didn't smile so much anymore. I don't remember thinking about it then but cancer nearly snuffed out her bright smile long before it took her body. There are pictures that my aunts and grandma gave me that are taken during the chemotherapy and the radiation treatments. I don't think I've been that upset and crying about anything until I saw those pictures. Her eyes which used to gleam were dull and sad, her smile was gone and she seemed to do everything in her power to be strong for her boy. You see me in some of those pictures and I'm just a happy little kid. WOW! That's pretty powerful and the strength she showed is really not something I can put into words.

But ultimately, her spirit could not overcome the cancer and she died on March 27, 1985. This was the kind of person she was: her funeral was attended by hundreds of people. I don't know how many showed up but there were people there that I had never known but had known Janet well. They talked fondly of her and I remember how many family and family friends came out of the wood work to support my dad and myself.

If there's anything that I remember the most about the time right after the funeral, it was how many friends we had. We had moved to a house closer to the hospital and we had made so many new friends in that one year we were in that house that I never had to be by myself because one of the neighborhood kids wanted to play.

But, boy, oh boy, do I remember the grief. I didn't know what it was at the time but I remember all the different waves of feeling: the intense nervousness for being left alone for extended periods, anger at God for taking away my mom, envious of my friends who had their moms, the intense sense of loss. The pain was palpable at times and at other times, was in the background.

I also remember laughing quite a bit because my dad and I had our own ways of dealing with it and the easiest way for us to communicate was often laughter (whether it be a stupid joke or humorous observation, we were always ready to laugh). We used it to distract ourselves from the pain. It didn't always work for me. I won't pretend to know what my dad felt like. But he took his pain & grief and melded into his character. With that tremendous loss, he kept his shit together and never gave up on raising his son (this was an option for him, he could have sent me off to relatives). This action of him raising me allowed two things: my dad & I became very close and we became the swinginest bachelors in Vegas. I can't really draw a comparison for how close we got but let's just say we're tight. OK, so you want an example? I have called him and have received from calls from him while he or I were in the bathroom. That's tight.

My dad and I moved into an apartment shortly after Mom died as a way to move on from the pain & the memory. But, ohh don't you worry, it's still there. My grief mainly manifested itself as intense nervousness. My dad and I settled into a routine: he would tell me when he was going to be home from work. I was a latchkey kid so I got home around 3 and he would be home around 6. If this routine was modified in anyway, Dad would have to tell me he was going to be late. If he was even five minutes late, I would be in hysterics and nearly inconsolable.

I remember that whenever my ears rang (which happen from time to time), I would start panicking and started worrying about my dad. I'd already lost one parent and was desperately nervous about losing the other. I remember one time, my dad had tickets to the UNLV basketball game and asked me if it was alright if he could go to the game. I initially said yes but within a half hour of him leaving I changed my mind. He respected my decision and canceled the babysitter and the pizza before he left and spent the night. I have thought about that incident and have apologized to him about before.

This intense reaction and the time-advisement routine lasted for about three years before I "grew out" of it. But there was one major incident about four years after Mom died. My dad had recently started dating a new lady. (As a sidebar, I was completely fine with him dating. I never latched onto the "no-replacement-for-mommy" tantrum that some kids in my position might do.) That's not to say I didn't test potential step-moms. As I recall, I only attempted this test once and I guess it was my interview.

My dad was out doing work-related stuff for his real estate job and had told me he would be back at 8 PM. It was now 8:15 and I hadn't heard a peep from him. I tried calling his cell phone (which at the time was a full-on Motorola brick), I tried his beeper, and I tried his office. No luck, HE WAS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. This starts to bring on the full hysterics: water works, the stuttering crying, and pacing around the apartment. On the bulletin board, I found the phone number for his new girlfriend. I didn't try to calm myself down or anything, I just called because I was SO SCARED. I had no idea what I would tell her other than "Come over, please!" She answered and could tell I was not feeling well. She asked what I wanted her to do and I told her,"Please come over...and...*stutter-cry*...and..I can't...*sniff*...find...my...dad"

She hopped in her car and started to drive over to our apartment. She was a young woman who had no children and was suddenly thrust in to try to help me out. (We had previously met and hit it off when Dad took me along on one of their dates). She was thrown a curveball and hit it out the park by coming to do what she could. My dad came home about 10 minutes before she would get there. He noticed I was still in hysterics and I told him (still crying) that I had called his girlfriend. He called her up and told her she didn't have to come over. I can imagine that phone conversation was fun for him.

Well, if you haven't guessed, that's who my dad ended up marrying. I'd like to say that he asked my blessing because he had to but he knows that I would have let him get married anyway. Of course, he wasn't sure which way it would go when he asked if I would be his best man (I was his best man and was very studly in my tuxedo until I realized I was allergic to bad wool...I don't think I could dance that good again if I tried).

For all of you who have step-parents (who you may or may not get along with), I can say with some significant confidence that I have the world's greatest step-mom. My mom would have thought so, too, I'm sure of it. I can't really describe what one single thing makes her great but I have never called her anything but "Mom" for a very long time. She's been the greatest thing that's happened in my life second only to that other greatest thing in my life**. She took my dad and I into her life and made us into more than I might have thought possible. She had my kick-ass little brother. She helped build my parents' very successful business. She and my dad conspired and gave me the drive to be successful as an architect (even though they repeatedly pointed out that architects don't make any money, they supported me).

It took me a lot of time to realize how deep my mom's death (and especially that nervousness) still affects my daily living. It was pointed out to me when I was dating my ex-girlfriend. We'd often end up going over to each other's apartments and we'd drive back to our own, usually late at night. I often insisted that she call me when she got home so I would know that she got home safe. I didn't care what time it was but if she didn't get home when I thought she would, I would get a little nervous (I was able to prevent hysterics but it was there below the surface). Nothing ever happened to her on her drive home but that element of calling me to let me know she got home safe, stayed with me throughout our relationship. It was only in the aftermath of that relationship that I realized that I needed to let go a little bit more. As a guy in the singles dating world, you definitely didn't want to indicate your neuroses right away...you'd be undatable. :)



The twenty intervening years have seen unbelievable growth in me as a person. (Obviously, I'm a lot larger at 28 than I was at 8.) I will never forget my mother for I know that, deep down, she is a part of me. My relatives in Indiana keep telling me how much my humor is like hers and how much I look like her so she may be more of a part of me than I may appreciate.



Janet

May 2, 1952 - March 27, 1985

I'm, quite frankly, glad that I could share this story with you. It's a significant part of my life (though not the only part, some things you got to keep private) and I genuinely am glad that I can share it with you. I would say it's therapeutic to share this with you but I think I can say with some confidence that I've pretty much wringed 97% of this subject's therapy already.

OK, crap, this was therapeutic...I just needed to write.

Signing off for the evening, Cory...

*-Not my real name.
**-She knows who she is.



Show me some love:

|

PREVIOUS Entry | NEXT Entry