Grandmas are supposed to be sweet and innocent. In my mind, they were supposed to keep the innocent secrets of her giving you the old candy from the bottom of her purse, when your mother said you weren’t allowed to have sugar. Grandmas were the only ones who could lie to your mother with a straight face and seem like a hero for it. But in my case, I had no mother to speak of, so I knew that the chances of my grandmother being what I thought a grandma should be were not likely.
I grew up never knowing my mother. I wasn’t even two months old yet when she decided to disappear and from what I’ve been told, I was better off without her. I was raised by my father’s parents and his adult siblings who never left the nest. However, my dad’s absence was not by choice. The police decided that for him every time they hauled him off to jail. I knew that his reasons for going away were the the result of a heroin addiction and I never faulted him for that. It’s a drug that shows no mercy to anyone. Once it has a hold of you, you’re either headed for prison or the morgue. Eventually, that is where my dad ended up after he caught Hepatitis from a dirty needle. As for my mother’s disappearance, I had been given very unfiltered and inconsiderate answers to questions that I had never once asked in regards to why she left me. After a while, I had grown to hate her. Before the constant descriptions of what seemed to be a wicked witch, I had simply been uninterested in this woman. These detailed accounts of my mother’s sins came mostly from my grandmother, which to me was a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black. Although sometimes the stories came from my aunt’s and uncles. In any case, they all seemed to agree that she was a devil worshipper who used to leave bite marks on me when I was a baby. As I got older I began to realize that every family member who loved sharing their opinions of my mother was no better than she was. In fact, they would prove to be much worse. But according to my grandmother, I was “loca” and they would never have said or done the things that I remember so vividly. I could never understand how she could deny everything that I knew to be true. So the story within this story is me trying to put myself in her shoes.
“Your mother threw you in the trash and I had to take care of you when NOBODY wanted YOU!” She slammed the door and went to her room. She started to taste the venom that she had just spit out at her granddaughter. The guilt started to set in because after all, she did love her. As she attempted to justify her actions, she thought to herself, “I don’t care. She pissed me off and I just lost it. I know she’s only nine, but she needed to hear the truth and I’m tired. I’m tired and too old to be doing this shit. If my son wasn’t such a fuck up, I wouldn’t have to be taking care of a kid when I’m this old. I raised my kids already. I shouldn’t have to be raising someone else’s. And where the hell is Charlie? El está durmiendo muy bien. That son of a bitch never does shit. And I’m over here killing myself. Aye, but I feel bad now. She didn’t ask for any of this either. She doesn’t even have a mother. And Danny’s in prison for who knows how long this time. Did Jackie say six months? So, I think that means he gets out in three. God, I wish he would get out already. But I know when he does, he’s gonna be doing the same shit. Why did he ever put a needle in his arm. Pendejo. El sabe mejor que esos pendejadas. I don’t know. I can’t think about it anymore. I don’t feel good. Ayuda me Padre.”
This is a memory from when I was nine years old with additional dialogue on what she may have been going through. I’m 46 now and it still has the power to bring me to tears. It’s still etched in my memory and no amount of shaking will erase it. I’m a mother now and I can’t imagine ever talking to my kids that way, much less my grandkids. I can barely contain myself when I imagine myself as a grandmother. But I understand that she was forced to be a mother again at an age where any little thing tired you out. Although despite her age, the woman was constantly moving, constantly cleaning or cooking or taking care of the other kids her children failed to raise. I wasn’t the only one.
My grandmother was a cold and unaffectionate woman with a mean streak that could not be matched. She kept all of her emotions bottled up inside and she expected us to be the same way. I have more than a few painful memories from my childhood that involved her abusive behavior. But as I got older, I learned a lot of things about her that explain a lot about her behavior. She had 10 siblings and a father who abandoned the family, but not before he sexually abused her. She never made it past the fourth grade and then worked in the fields alongside her mother and siblings. My grandfather had cheated on her, but she stayed with him thinking that she wasn’t smart enough to make it on her own. Her life was worse than mine, and still she tried to keep her family together. Aside from raising five children of her own and taking on the role of mother to three grandchildren, the woman kept the house clean enough to eat off the floors and fed everyone home cooked meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She taught us how to be strong and face our fears. We learned how to keep a house clean and our clothes ironed. With as much hate as I harbor for this woman, if nothing else she has earned my respect ten times over and I have to appreciate the fact that she’s the reason why I don’t take shit from anybody. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t be around her, or anyone in my family for that matter, not if I planned on being happy at some point.
Eventually I cut ties with everyone in my family. Unfortunately, it took me over 30 years to do it. The toxicity was eating me alive and I had already been diagnosed with emphysema, so I couldn’t afford anymore health issues. My entire family was like an incurable cancer that had to be cut out in order to survive. Now I’m just trying to make peace with my decision so that the side effects of that disease don’t end up stealing my sanity or my chances of being happy. I’ll never know if my mother was all the things that they said she was. The sources of all that information had been discredited and I had no one else to ask. For all I know, she could have been a saint. But it didn’t matter because by the time she decided to contact me, I wasn’t willing to find out. I was about 11 years old and out of the blue, the phone was handed to me by my grandmother. She nonchalantly informed me that my mother was on the phone. Now, I have to tell you that at the age of 11, I was a cold and sarcastic kid who already hated the world. So, the phone call lasted no longer than two minutes at the most. Here’s how the conversation went:
Me: Hello?
“Mother”: Hi, do you know who this is?
Me: Yeah
“Mother”: I’m you’re mother. Do you want to meet me?
ME: No
“Mother”: You don’t want to know me? You don’t want to know who I am?”
Me: “Uh uh.”
(Dead silence, so I hand the phone off to my grandmother.)
That’s it. That was the first and last time I ever heard my mother’s voice. When I think of it now, I can still hear it. Only now, I can recognize the hurt and disbelief in her voice. It makes me wonder why I was so cold at such a young age. But then the dysfunction of my childhood quickly jumps in to answer my question. Still, I do feel just a tiny hint of remorse when the flashback creeps into my mind. And as much as I hate to admit it, a feeling of satisfaction overshadows that guilt. Everything they ever told me about my mother stuck with me as if they were historical facts. Sadly, I’ll never know the truth about her because it takes a lifetime time to unwash your brain and my bitterness towards her has a mind of its own. In any case, and whether or not she is the monster they painted her out to be, I can’t see myself trying to build a relationship that has already been tainted long before it would ever begin. She did try to contact me again when I was 18. That time it was by letter. Unfortunately, for reasons beyond me, I can’t remember a single word she wrote. Maybe it’s because at 18, I didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone. I was just an angry girl making every bad decision I could possibly make, oblivious to the fact that it would come back to haunt me. And even though I’m beyond old enough to let bygones be bygones, the little girl in me is as bitter as she ever was towards the stranger that brought me into this world. And even though I had a dad who spent most of my childhood years in and out of prison, the fact that he had such an extreme personality, made me remember my conversations with him much more vividly. Here’s a peek into the more relatable, yet still a tad dysfunctional side of my teenage years.
I was about 16 and I was excited that my dad was going to take me on the back roads of our city and show me how to drive. Silly me, I had forgotten what a psycho he could be. Pulling into an empty parking lot, we got out and switched seats. “Alright, what are you gonna do first?” he asked. Nervous as hell, I answered, “Put on my seatbelt.” I knew that the first wrong answer I gave was going to piss him off. “OK, then what?” he asked. “Um turn the car on?” I questioned. “Check your mirrors, Always check your mirrors! Can you see behind you? Make sure you see everything!” he lectured. ” OK OK God!” I bitched. “Now can I turn the car on?” I asked. “Go ahead, but don’t push the gas.” he warned me. I started the car and immediately got excited but part of me knew that he was going to freak out at some point. And I’ll tell you right now, it didn’t take very long for me to drive him to that point, no pun intended.
After I started the car, out of habit, I started messing with the radio, looking for my type of music. I left the volume low so I could hear what my dad was saying. I drove around smoothly in the parking lot for like a minute, but I guess my dad noticed that I kept looking in the rearview mirror. “Quit looking behind you? Why the fuck do you keep looking back there for? You need to be looking at where the fuck you’re going!” he yelled. He was pissed off already and flipped the rearview mirror all the way up so I couldn’t look at it anymore. “Fuck, you don’t have to be so mean.” I mumbled. I was mad, so I turned up the radio. Big mistake. Instantly, my dad turned it off. “You can’t be fucking blasting the music like that. How the fuck are you gonna hear anything?” he yelled. “If you don’t pay attention and look where you’re going, you’re gonna fucking kill someone! And don’t think they won’t take your ass to prison! Believe me, you don’t want to go to prison! It ain’t nothing nice boy!” he ranted. And so, the institutionalized ex-inmate went off about prison life once again, and I was left wishing I’d never asked him to teach me how to drive. “I’m not gonna fucking kill anyone Geez!” I complained. Even though I knew that he was right, and his points were valid, I was mad that every conversation we had ended up with him talking about prison. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, and unfortunately this was one of the bad stories because he wanted me to learn the lesson of being a cautious driver. But when you’ve heard prison stories your whole life, they kind of lose their impact after a while. Especially when most of the stories sounded like he enjoyed it. Although I know that even if he did enjoy it, I never would. So, I get it, but still, I was annoyed. “OK, I’m done.” I said. “Alright pull over then.” he said. “Fine.” I agreed. “You know, you’re gonna be driving out here and you gotta pay attention. And if you do get into an accident or you hit another car, you need to remember that the main thing is NOT TO PANIC! It don’t matter what happens, you don’t fucking panic! Stay calm and be cool! Otherwise, you’re fucked!” he warned. I listened intensely because he said it with conviction as if my life depended on it. And honestly, it made sense. Thirty years later, he’s been long gone, and every once in a while, I still hear his voice telling me that ” the main thing is not to panic!” I only wish I heard it at the times when I was freaking out about something. But, ironically, I turned out to be a major panicker. Go figure.
I'm OK Now 