;)
Friday
Jan072011
January 7th
Friday, January 7, 2011 at 12:15AM
Nineteen years ago today, I held a green kitchen telephone receiver to my ear and listened to the world end.You never realize that the world is going to end when it does. The day it happens is never one of the days that birds decide to see what all this 'gravity' nonsense is all about. The day it happens will be a Tuesday, and it will start like any other day; you wake up in the silence of blackened pre-dawn, stagger across cold, hardwood floors to a colder, harder tiled bathroom. You rinse everything that needs rinsing, find your way to the kitchen, mix yourself a very tall, very caffeinated drink that will ensure you will always remain very short and very caffeine dependent, and you make your way out into the real world.
You stand at the bus stop in a coat that is too thin, with shoes that have no socks, and you watch the twinkling stars begin their daily retreat, as morning threatens to break. You hop on the bus and rest your head against the aluminum window frame, still frozen from the chill of the night's air. You ride south and ever so slightly east, watching the blazing sun in all its staggering enormity tear its way out of the water that covers the horizon as far as you can see.
This reminds you to recite your blessings. Your life happens on the very outermost edge of the world; there art thou blessed. You survive each day to witness a close-up of the mightiest star of all being re-born every morning; there art thou blessed. You have woken up again, only to have truest of beauty burned into your eyes and your heart and your mind, again; there art thou blessed.
You arrive at your destination; a high school you've only recently entered, having been forceably removed from your previous one some two months previous. You still use the map given to you on your first day of admission, not having had enough time to learn unfamiliar halls and unfamiliar faces. You meander through your first few hours of your second semester of your second school of your junior year of high school. You find your way to your drafting class, which will last until the end of the school day. You busy yourself with Buick engine blueprints for the auto department (or maybe it will be the Boeing engine this day, for aviation) and when you hear the door swing open, you hardly notice. Until you have to. Until you're forced to accept that she just walked in the door, again.
You don't know why she's come here, but you're certain it can't be good. The last time she walked in a drafting shop door you spent the next eight weeks alone in a dark room waiting for her to come and put you both out of your misery. She tried on occasion, but she is weaker than you realize now, nineteen years later, and besides...truancy officers have an uncanny knack of catching up with everyone, and so you were shoved back into a slightly rearranged world.
And here she is again.
And suddenly, you can't breath. You can't remember how you ever learned how to breath. You taste blood, and you think it's rage but it's actually your blood pouring from the insides of your mouth that you've bitten straight through. You run to a water fountain and when the water hits the back of your throat, you heave into the fountain.
You see her behind the glass doors of your instructor's office, and when she knows you've seen her, when she is sure that you know that she knows everything there is about you, that you will never, ever have a sanctuary, she rises, shakes your instructor's hand, and leaves. She doesn't even acknowelege your presence in the room; she simply walks out the door with a laugh.
You've never seen her willingly laugh before.
You run. You run as fast as you can, as far as you can. You come to a phone booth, you enter it and you call the only person you can think of to call and you tell him everything. You tell him every detail you've tried to protect him from for over a decade. You tell him everything you've been too confused, too afraid and too ashamed to admit out loud. You tell him you are afraid, and he tells you to carry on about your business, silently, and pack. He tells you he will fix this.
He is two thousand miles away from you at the moment.
You carry on about your day, gather your belongings, hop back on the bus, ride north and slightly west, then begin the walk back to where it all is all about to come to a screetching halt. Your too-thin coat and your socks-less feet don't bother you anymore, because, you've learned, fear is the single greatest source of heat in the universe, and you think that the sun must be terribly afraid of something (probably heights) and this comforts you slightly as you walk into that door and everything you know awaits you.
You can create heat where there is none; You are as powerful as the sun.
She is still laughing when she sees you, a condescending laughter that is sickening to hear, doubly so when aimed at your head. She laughs because she knows she has you; you are terrified and she is as unpredictable as the weather.
The barometric pressure is dropping all around you. There isn't enough air in this room for the both of you. One of you isn't going to make it out of here whole.
And one of us didn't. I'd argue that neither of us did, in hindsight, but that is simply me romanticizing the effect that the loss of a daughter would have on a mother. I wouldn't know because as far as I am aware, she's not spoken of me since that day, when I sat on a green, kitchen wall phone like they don't make anymore and listened to my mother discard me.
She told my father he had 48 hours to collect his trash, and he told me to pack quickly. She told my father she didn't know what she might do to me if I wasn't gone by Thursday, and he told her he knew exactly what he'd do to her if she did. They talked logistics that I couldn't hear over the screaming in my brain. We all hung up, and I crawled through the kitchen, into the living room, behind her chair and up to my room. I packed everything I could carry into the only luggage I had, my school backpack and two plastic grocery bags. That night she screamed at me from the bottom of the stairs, "You can never come back. Your brother can come back, but you never can. There will not be one trace of your existence in this house when you leave."
And I've never spoken to her since. I burned everything of mine I could burn, I sliced or tore or cut the rest and threw it all in the dumpster outside our front door. Sixteen years of my life was buried alive in that dumpster, and I've spent the past 19 years trying to ignore its screaming.
Reader Comments (118)
Oh.
Oh.
One mother's trash is another mother's treasure. You are my treasure. I'm only sorry I wasn't your mother.
And she better pray to the Jesus she holds mighty that I never cross her path.
I held my breath through that entire entry. You and I have eerily similar mothers. I saw her face in that laugh in the school. I've been there, at 13. Jesus, Shannon. I am so very glad to know you. Our mothers have no idea what they've lost.
Wow! And I am truly truly sorry!
No one should be treated like that. You damn sure didn't deserve it. That's just pure evil in my opinion.
* big fat cyber hug *
Redneck Mommy if you ever do cross her path call me. I'll hold her while you "talk" to her.
Sometimes being a throwaway gives us a velocity we might never have discovered otherwise.
Small comfort, I know.
My heart hurts for you. I'm sure your a better mother because of it.
I am so, so sorry. This is an indictment of your mother's inability to love - not your ability to be loved. And yet even as an adult I struggle with remembering that fact in my own life. I hope you can quiet the screaming.
Wow. Beautiful and sad and amazing.
As a mother whose heart broke when my son decided to move away and live with his father this piece made me absolutely livid. He is an extremely difficult child and has been in his own heaps of trouble. But he is also my baby and I cannot ever imagine saying such awful things to him.
Oh, I am... speechless. My heart also hurts for you and can only say, wow.
I cried throughout this.
I am sure others did but wont admit it.
I cried for you and I cried for me.
Cause I am selfish like that.
I know someone that really really needs to read this, alas she never will.
Love you. You continue to amaze me.
Dude.
That was beautiful and hard, just the way I like it.
To paraphrase the great John Bender:
"I think your mom and my dad should get together and go bowling."
Forget them. Our parents mistakes have a way of becoming our strength, but to them, they just remain mistakes. They don't grow from them. We do.
So many hugs. I'm so proud of you. And so lucky to know you.
That one knocked the wind out of me. You are a remarkable woman in so many ways. Why on earth how could she do this to you? Shaking.
So brave to write this. My heart aches for 16 year old you.
I can't even begin to pretend to get wtf she's about.
Or how that would make a person feel.
I'm glad you wrote this, you are such a kick ass writer and rad momma.
This is so far removed from the facts of my childhood that I can't even begin to fathom it. But it amazes me that you have risen so, so far above it with your own children. Despite having no working model for mom-ness, you're doing it just right. Proud of you for that.
Well does this mean that it's your birthday, again? You're legal in Canada, now!
Your mom... she threw away a lot. But I think you know that by now. I wonder if it all came from a place of fear, for her. I wonder if it was the pills talking. I wonder how her life would have been different, if there was no cult and no hate-filled days and no crazy.
But. As much as I hate that we have such shared ancestry, I'm thankful that you're you. And I don't know that you would have been this rock, this modest comedienne, this intellectual, spiritual soul, without it.
You. Are. Beautiful.
She may never know your beauty but... we do. And more importantly, I hope *you* do.
You are as powerful as the sun. You are. And you are made of stardust, the pieces of so very many suns across our galaxy. I know this.
I know this because you have the strength to write this and to share it with the world, everything else be damned.
In a little while, I am going out to see the sun rise, and to appreciate it, as you write: "You have woken up again, only to have truest of beauty burned into your eyes and your heart and your mind, again; there art thou blessed."
We are blessed to know you.
Because of that terrible experience, you are Stronger then you know. You became a wife & mother who wouldn't Dream of doing anything like that to your children! You know it was Wrong, on many levels & by sharing it, you are also Healing it. I'm not.going to talk about forgiveness with you because however healing that may be, It's She who needs to beg forgiveness from you! I do however want you to forgive yourself, as strange as that may sound because Pain like that is Caustic to Your Soul. Us humans have a really hard time living with aweful experiences. I know. As a paramedic, I've seen a Lot of things I would have Happy not to see or remember that I will never forget! Don't allow that experience to warp your view of the rest of humanity. You are Cared for by many more then you know & by moving forward, you Progress.
I know nothing of your pain; I know you can write.
Happy birthday.
I'm glad she made you leave...I don't doubt we wouldn't have you if it hadn't happened.
That said, you are amazing and wonderful and she will never ever know any of that...her loss.
I feel sad for 16 year old you; I feel murderous at her. But 19 year old new you? Nothing but pride. :)
My fists are actually balled up in anger right now. And at the same time, I'm a little choked up. I say that honestly. I'm all sadness and anger and - mixed in through it all - amazement, that from such dark and hopeless places such beauty might arise and catch the light.
I don't have the words for this.
I kinda like what Jett said.
And I know I kinda love you.
Speechless beyond that, I guess.
My word, just tears :(
(((hugs))) she is not worthy to be called a mother
I think a crown is in order today.
I, too, like what Jett said, and my own experience is that she's right. But I think you know that, too.
Xo
Oh, baby. I'm so sorry for all that pain that started so long ago.
I'm so, so sorry.
Well, that just sucks.
Glad to see the result 19 years later.
Words are failing me.
Hugs never do.
~Kas
yknot: Thanks for saying that.
Contact a movie producer. It's raw.
Like fresh fallen snow.
She didn't deserve you then, now, or ever. After becoming a parent it was even harder for me to understand how a woman could hurt or abandon her children - but apparently some can. The woman who spawned my siblings and I did, with no more thought to it than you would abandon a bag of garbage or use and then discard a tissue.
I wish you peace and hopefully, someday, closure.
I remember living across the street from evil. It's always shocking where it lives and the contradiction in the strength and beauty that spring from it.
My heart is bleeding for you right now. I don't have any other words.
You always manage to make me laugh or cry in just about every post... But this one, really got me going. You are such an amazing writer. I think you should consider writing a book. Happy Birthday by the way, and I'm very sorry for all that you had to endure when you were younger. No one should have to go through that.
As others have said before me, just oh. Oh.
I am so touched. Thank you for sharing this experience with us, however painful it is.
speechless
Wow. Thank you for sharing. I am so so sorry that you had to experience this.
Wow. I don't even know what to say.
Oh.
What a horrible thing to have to face. You are as powerful as the sun, as powerful as anything in the universe.
I've sat here for approximately 2 hours trying to figure out how to adequately express how much I admire, commiserate, and just fucking love you. This will have to do. I fucking love you, man.
My heart aches for the 16 year old you. And I'm so proud of you for overcoming that and becoming who you are today!
It's not what happens to us in life that defines us -- it's what we make of ourselves in response. Seems to me, you've made yourself into something pretty amazing. As heartbreaking as it is, you've turned it into strength. So, kudos. And much respect.
I read this and then I look at the picture on the sidebar of your daughter and I think how lucky you are, and how lucky she is and how fucked up that day was and how you are continue to shine like the sun.
I hope that the screaming stops soon, and that what was buried can maybe, someday, rest in peace...
You know, it took me a while to understand why you referred to it as the end of the world rather than a beginning. But I get that it was both now.
As someone else said, as a mother, I simply cannot comprehend ever making my child feel that way. I know you can't either. All I can say is that you're beyond amazing; you're phenomenal.
Holy effing...
The depth of who you are and your gift for expressing it is unfathomable.
You are a PHOENIX.
And absolutely awesome.
Love you so much.
xoxo