Mom would have turned 90 today

My mom, as regular readers of this space may know, was a problematic part of my life.

By the time I was 12, if not earlier, I had come to the conclusion that she had some sort of mental health issues. In more adult times, I recognized this was neurosis level, not psychosis. But already by 12, I saw it as bad enough that I didn't want to have kids, lest I pass on some genetic bad seed. (I later doubled down on that for various reasons related to my mom and dad.)

Mom also engaged in what an adult group therapist called "covert sexual abuse." This was primarily done through her getting ready for work, when I was in puberty, with her bathroom door propped open and her partially nude.

Years earlier, when my older brothers were in puberty and before my parents divorced, she would have the bathroom door shut, but yet unlocked, while doing the same. And, they opened the door and pushed me in there more than once. (With 1.75 baths in a house of seven people, the bathrooms were in regular demand, and mom knew that, too, aside from my brothers doing this.)

I don't know what all was behind this on mom's part. But, as shown by the reactions of my brothers, it was a form of sexual abuse and it had its fallout.

Some of this may be related to her early adulthood.

My mom was a stewardess for TWA back in the 1950s, when they were called "stewardesses," hired specifically for their looks (and usually fired for the aging of their looks by their mid-30s) and TWA was one of America's top airlines.

So, she "had it," if you will.

My mom was a little more than a year older than my dad when they got married. And, at age 26, she was getting close to "old maid" age for the height of the Baby Boom. And, my dad had tried to break their engagement but, in those days when engagements were considered halfway tantamount to marriage, mom's parents raised holy hell and dad's parents said, tagging along, "man up."

So, had previous men seen something in mom's personality that dad was now catching? Dad had seen her as a "catch," physically in general, and perhaps to prove something about his level of manhood to his dad, and even more to some of his uncles.

So ... he bowed his head and moved forward.

(By marrying each other, their "bad seed" didn't spill off onto others. Instead, it — in both genetic and nurture forms — hit the five kids they had together.)

About the time of that covert sexual abuse, mom divorced dad, claiming he was trying to force all of us kids into religious careers. Given that this was after all my brothers had graduated high school, and that she never fought for primary physical custody of my sister and I, this didn't add up in reality. (As I later found out with a stolen college application, there WAS a fair amount of truth to dad doing this, but, still almost none as far as why mom divorced him.)

And so went the rest of my life's connection to her, really.

Dad's anger was at least something tangible. Mom often being an emotional and psychological vacuum was just that — a vacuum.

I'm reminded of the long-ago animal psychology experiments with monkey babies who could cling to a mother-like piece of cloth for nurture even if that meant undergoing deprivation of other physical needs.

If not outright emotional abuse, it was emotional neglect.

I think she bonded somewhat more to my sis as the only daughter. Sis certainly reached out to her. I'll venture there was, at least in early years, emotional bonding of some degree to my brothers. (That said, per mom's beauty focus, there was competition there, too.)

I never felt that.

One time, I felt actual help from her above the age of 8. One other time, she was in horror at physical abuse on my from dad.

Otherwise, she was a smotherer and an infantilizer of me the few other times she tried to do something that probably seemed like nurturing loving.

No wonder that I wanted to escape both parents, not just dad's anger, in hindsight, the one time I tried to run away as a kid.

Today? If mom had a living spirit, I would mutter "namaste" as a benediction and a call for it to get afterlife help, if needed, rather than an acknowledgment of divinity. I can't even do that.

I need to keep doing it for myself.

Goodbye, mom, and diminish, memories.

The Puppy, Part 2

The reference is to this previous poem about an incident in my life from the middle 1990s.

THE PUPPY, PART 2

I’m more of a man than you, dad.

I killed the puppy

When it returned

From wherever you took it,

Unlike you,

Who couldn’t do it

With the puppies in Flint

You couldn’t immediately get rid of.

I proved it

To my self

In my mind

I’m more of a man

Than you, dad.

I was sad

But controlled it.

No tears.

I was angry

It took too many shots

Before the puppy

Stopped moving

And was truly dead.

But in it all

I was more of a man

Than you, dad.

Even as

Your innuendoes

And your put-downs

About me

Being less of a man

Less sexual of a man

Rang in my brain.

Violence, not power

Is the ultimate aphrodisiac

In too many minds.

A dead puppy

Is now humus

Across a quarter-century

Of time and space.

And across that stretch

I have let go a little bit

Of the perceived need

To prove myself to you.