My teens were my toughest. I was so angry with my mom, I could not understand why she had stayed. My sisters and I had begged her to leave for as long as we had understood, that what was happening, was not normal. We also begged her to stop smoking cigarettes. She was a nervous wreck. Always damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Silently suffering and waiting for the next time. Because as much as he promised, there was always a next time. You just never knew when that would be. So of course she smoked cigarettes, it was her crutch, her coping mechanism.
The other thing about my mom is that she always kept busy. Always immersing herself into projects. She preserved everything. This is different than “kept” everything. I think she was deeply sentimental. All the things she kept were perfectly organized. They were a snapshot of her life. All these things that she could go back to and look at and recapture a feeling from that moment in time. There were a million, different, little collections that she worked on. I think these were also a part of her coping mechanism. Her collections represented “Moments of Happiness”.
For example; she became an usher at the Fisher Theater in her early twenties. She kept every single program from every single show she ever went to. Organized in a box by date, sometimes with notes. So every time she had to add a new program, over the 40 years plus that she was an usher, she would look back and relive a memory.
I keep lots of things but they are scattered everywhere, they are in a sort of, semi, quasi organized manner. Instead I stumble upon them. Which is what works for me.
So I have kept all of the programs from the nine years of going to see the Nutcracker, a Christmas tradition for Stella and me but I have no idea where they are. She may not have inspired in me the fastidious need to organize my memories, but she did instill in me the love of the theater. Starting at the age of 9 or 10, she would take me as a sub to the Fischer if one of her friends couldn’t go. I would wear a white, silk blouse, black skirt, black hose and heels. We would walk in to this grand, beautiful, art deco building. It was magnificent. After everyone was seated, we could sit in any of the seats not taken. I would see amazing musicals; West Side Story, Oklahoma, South Pacific and the King and I, up front in some of the best seats in the house. It was so magical .
Because of her fastidious need to preserve memories, one of my prized possessions are the photo albums of my childhood. There is so much thought and love poured into them. Despite all the pain, we were still this little family that had all the happy moments too; Birthdays, Easter, Christmas, summers in the backyard pool, jumping off the tire swing into a pile of leaves in the fall and winters on the sleds in the street or ice skating on the pond dad would build in the back yard. Pictures of a normal childhood.
Over the many years looking over and over again at this album there were would be times I would see a picture and not have the memory so I would ask my mom about it.
The first series of pictures that stood out was when I was 15 months old. It was my first trip on a plane, we were headed to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is just me and my mom the whole trip. Beautiful candid snapshots; we are on the plane, on the beach and at her friend’s home. She had left him. He convinced her to come back, I don’t know the details of the story. I do know the very next pictures in the album feature this adorable full breed, French Standard Poodle that I lovingly called Bobo.
After years of occasionally going through the album I stumbled upon another picture, I must have been 3 to 4 months old. She is beautiful carrying me in one arm and a suitcase in the other. My grandma took this picture as we were walking into her home. I asked my mom about it. It was the first time she left him, to seek refuge at her parents.
Domestic Violence is so tricky. In the 60’s with a little baby girl, if he tells you he is sorry and he will change… you believe him. She also loved him. This flawed human being of a man. My dad. I loved him too. This beautifully preserved album of my childhood holds a testament to one woman’s struggle. She did try to leave.
Always enjoy reading your blog.🤘