My mother was born the year that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. I know this for sure because any time that the detention of Japanese Americans came up, and it came up quite a few times, her first and foremost pro-detention argument was exactly that. For her it seemed to explain everything about her argument. She passed away 21 years ago next week when I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter.
Like I said my mother was born the year that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Her father was already away at was. Her future step-father was too. My mother was the oldest daughter of my grandmothers seven children. I do not know the names of my any of my grandparents and my mothers mother is the only one I ever met. when my grandfather came back from the war he began raping my mother. She was about four years old at the time. My mother told me about it when she was drunk one time(all the time) when I was a teenager. Did he change because of the war? Was he damaged in the war? Or was he like that before? She said that he used to send her mother and older brothers to the movies once a week and that is when it would happen. The family lived in a large two room army surplus tent for two years while my grandparents built the house my grandmother died in. By the time it was finished they had seven children and a small two bedroom house. When I was a girl visiting I always wondered where they all slept. It is still a mystery to me. When my mother was six her father died of alcohol poisoning. I know she carried a lot of guilt for being so happy when he died by the way she talked about his death.
At the age of seven, as my mother told me many times, my mother got her first job. Her family needed the income after her father died. she swept out a couple of the shops on Main Street after school everyday. Eventually her mother remarried to a devout Southern Baptist. I am sure she did so because of her experiences with her first husband. My mother's stepfather(we just called him grandpa but I am sure he had a name too) was not a drinker. He was a very strict "disciplinarian". My mother kept working after my grandmother remarried. She was working in the towns only movie theater when she met my father. He was 21, she was 13. I am sure that he was attracted to her because of her young age and small stature. She may have been one of his first victims.
My parents married when my mother was 15. She told me all about it when she was drunk. Her step-father gave her a thorough beating the day before her wedding and told her, "This is the last beating I will ever give you. From now on it will be your husband's responsibility." I think my father took this responsibility seriously. My mother tried to abort the baby. I am the only one the her kids who knows this. The baby died and the doctor accused her of trying to kill it, which in those days was a serious crime I believe, but in the end he put miscarriage on the record. She stayed married though and went on to have a still birth, my oldest brother who had a birth defect, A baby who died because of a birth defect, my older sister who was premature, My other brother who was late and weighed over ten pounds and finally me. Seven pregnancies, four children, two survivors with pretty serious complications. Although she usually denied it when sober, I believe that my mother smoked and drank and maybe did other drugs during her pregnancies.
When my mother was pregnant with my oldest brother, she caught my father cheating on her with my uncle's wife. I guess they were in his car. He was very drunk and when my mother confronted him he pulled the shotgun out from under the front bench seat of the car and started shooting at her. If he had not been so drunk he would have killed her and I would never have been born. Apparently the woman he was with stopped him and he hit her hard enough to leave marks. When my mother told me this story I always wondered why we went to visit that uncle and aunt when I was a kid. I wonder who brought up the idea. Was it my father? "Hey honey, let's go visit the woman I cheated on you with the night I tried to kill you." Was it my mother? Wouldn't it be nice to take the kids out to the farm to see my brother and his whore wife who you tried to kill me over?" How does something this dysfunctional survive for the twenty seven years my parents marriage survived?
My mother was a very bright and creative person. She could whip up a meal from almost anything. She could make me a new school dress in an evening. She could paint, embroider, crochet, etc. and beautifully. She always worked and never seemed to have the time or materials to live up to her creative potential. I am sure the alcohol did not help. I am even more sure that the abuse from my father was far worse.
I do not blame my mother for her alcoholism or the other drugs. I am not even sure that I blame her for not being able to protect us children from my father. I am sure she tried in her own way. I know for a fact that she took beatings for us kids. She was so damaged by her childhood experiences and married so young. I can honestly say that compared to her I have been very lucky in life. My father never outright raped me and I was able to find my way out of abuse and into a safe place. My mother never did.
Once, when I was in my late teens, my parents were drunk and my father was hitting my mother. I grabbed my brother's aluminum baseball bat and gave my father a couple of taps on the head to get him to stop. This was one of the few times I ever stood up to my father. He tried to take the bat and I hit him again a little harder. Both he and my mother started yelling at me and eventually he got in his car and drove off drunk for the millionth time. My mother turned and slapped me and told me to get out of her house. I was only out for a few days and couch surfed at my friends houses. I never have gotten over that incident.
I did not understand at the time but the thing my mother feared most was that my father would leave her or die on her. I found out later when my father repeatedly moved out on her and then demanded to have separate bedrooms. This is when her drinking was at it's worst. I think it was during this time that she started drinking herself to death. she certainly was suicidal during those times. She used to grab my fathers gun, which he conveniently left for her, and tell me to go wait outside until I heard the shot then go to the neighbors to call the police. I was a teenager and did not know what to do, a part of me must have thought it would be a release for her because I never once tried to stop her. She did not have the nerve. I wanted to kill myself at the time and never had the nerve either.
When I was 19 I finally escaped to the Navy. I went back voluntarily on leave twice. I went back to see my mother in the hospital one after her first stroke. she did not recognize me. She talked nonsense for most of the time I was there. My ship had only given me three days to fly cross country to see her and on the last day not long before I had to leave she seemed to realize who I was and said "Stephanie, I want to go home" I though about going awol. My father said he would turn me in if I did. I went back to the ship and never saw my mother again.
She died just over a year later. I was six months pregnant, living on the east coast, and was not allowed to fly home when she was dying or when she passed on. My family held no service for her. I think we were all relieved as her medical problems had been ongoing for about 7 years at that point and were almost entirely due to her drinking. When her dig died about a month later my father took her ashes into the desert and buried her with her dog. He never told any of us kids where.
THIS WEEK:
This week I am still a little manic. This means lots of energy but it doesn't always mean I get a lot done. I am on a new kind of insulin for me that is working out very well. Now I have medicare I can get the meds I need and will be getting some diabetes education as well! The new pootie is working out extremely adorable. I think I said last week that my partner is Friday the pootie's special person and he seems very happy about it. This is great as he has never been a cat person! Daisy the pootie seems much happier too and since she was the reason we got him this is also very positive. Daisy is not human oriented and is generally offended by any attention she gets and yet seemed lonely and bored. Friday solves that problem very well.
I now have medical marijuana for the chronic pain from the arthritis. It is also helpful when my stomach acts up during PTSD episodes like the one I had recently from the whole torture thing. I still feel very emotional about that subject, especially since some of the recent allegations that have come out. I am still full of rage at what the government has done in my name. I am now worrying about what all these rapists and torturers are gong to be doing when they get back to the states. I can say with all honesty that doing these kinds of things is very damaging to the mental health. If you have read my own confessions of some things I have done in my mental illness you could probably tell that. I feel real pain and sorrow for both the victims and the service men and women who participate in this. They will all probably suffer for the rest of their lives.
This week I was sorry to hear about the California Supreme Court upholding Prop 8. I am also sorry that Don't ask Don't Tell is still in force. I continue to pray that my brothers and sisters in the LBGT Community will get equal rights.