Calm Crazy

I’m talking on the phone earlier with my father. He’s telling me about a chicken and corn chowder he’s making today. He lists ingredients, quantities, and wonders aloud if he should put in one cup of corn or two…meanwhile my mother is lying on the living room floor. She’s been there two days now. She’d passed out there and couldn’t get up by herself, nor with Dad’s help. We don’t want Dad trying to lift her anyway. She sat up a little this morning and had some ginger ale. But she’s not feeling all that great yet. Alcohol withdrawal will do that.

Oh, and starting today she Is Not Going To Have Any Alcohol Any More Ever Again.

I hear the creaking as we board the cars and the roller coaster gears us up for another ride.

Conversation, Christmas 2004

I used to love the holidays.

I try to love them now, because I have young children and I want them to have wonderful memories.

But I don’t really look forward to them any more.

Holidays are big triggers for my mother.

Of course, just about anything can be a trigger, but holidays are guaranteed triggers.

I was hosting Christmas.  Doing all the cooking, and having my parents, my sister and her family, and a cousin and his family over to the house to give gifts and eat ourselves comatose.

Joy, joy, joy.

My parents arrived early – nothing different about that.  I have inherited this ultra-punctual gene myself.

At some point, my father says my mother wants a brandy.

Well, A) we don’t have brandy, at least not that I’m aware of, and B) not a chance in hell I’m serving her anything alcoholic.

That didn’t sit well with her.  She sat in the other room and examined her options.

Dad and my husband went outside, I think.  Or downstairs.  Out of earshot.  I don’t know where the kids were.   Well, my daughter would have been less than a year old, so she was probably either napping or in a bouncy chair or maybe my husband was toting her around.  My son was probably hanging out wherever his father and grandfather were.

I remember being in the kitchen.  I was measuring out ingredients for something.

My mother came into the kitchen.

She was carefully made up, kind of pale looking, with bright red lips.

She asked for a glass of wine.

I said no.

She repeated herself, perhaps thinking I’d misunderstood.

I said no again, and I told her I would not serve her alcohol in my home.

She considered this, and said “My stomach needs a glass of wine.”

That was a new one.

I suppose she thought that if it was her STOMACH that wanted the wine, maybe I’d take pity on that portion of her digestive system and pour a glass.

No dice, though I did appreciate the creativity.

“Why do you have to drink?” I think I asked her.  I don’t know why I bother asking.

She stood there, leaning against the counter, perhaps thinking that if she answered the right way, I’d relent.

“This year…” she spoke slowly, deliberately.  Giving meaning and weight to every word.

“This year has been the worst year of my life.”

Ah, well then, if that’s why, then sure, mom, here’s a glass of wine – drink up!  Plenty more where that came from!

Good God.

Here’s why it was the worst year of her life:

They sold the house they’d bought several years after they got married.  My dad’s business had been in the front of the house, and we lived in the rest.  My sister and I grew up there.

Dad wanted to move.  Had wanted to move for a while.  The big house was just too big to keep up with at this stage of their lives.  They needed something smaller.

But my mother didn’t want to move.

And so, for years, she got her way.

But then it changed, and they found a house – a nice house with a nice back yard and three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms and pretty trees.

So they sold the big house and eventually moved into the house.

And before all that came to pass, my mother fell and broke her hip.

Oh, and in between the broken hip and the move?

My daughter was born.

Now, I know she didn’t mean anything negative about my daughter.

But the thing is, she didn’t take my daughter’s birth into consideration at all when she made her grand pronouncement.

Because you know, when you’re an alcoholic, there is no one else.  There is only you.

So I called her on it.

And I pointed out that she has a roof over her head, her husband is alive, she has two children and four grandchildren, and there are plenty of people out there who have it WAY WORSE than she does.

But…no one has it worse than she does.

She is…sad.  She feels things.  Feeeeeeeeels things.  Deeeeeeply.

No one else can feel things as deeply as she does.  No one could possibly understand.

So that was her reason.

I still didn’t give her a drink.

And I told her if she didn’t like it, she could leave.

I remember feeling kind of shaky at that moment.  Quivering with lots of feelings, all pressing outward on my skin, ready to explode.  Anger, pain, hurt, rage, confusion, incredulity, frustration, sadness.

But I stood firm.  And I was proud of myself for that.

She went back to the living room.  She stayed.

The next day, a huge tsunami killed thousands of people in Asia.

I bet plenty of the survivors – people who’d lost families and friends in an instant, along with homes, villages…everything – would prefer my mother’s worst year to theirs.

Pink Bathrobe, Cold Amber Eyes

It was one of those many times when I let myself believe she was going to stop.   That she had stopped and wasn’t going to drink any more.

This was years ago…maybe twenty?  Wow.  Time sure does fly.

Anyway, Dad had a meeting or something to go to – something important, and so I said I’d stay at the house while he was out.

Mom was, apparently, feeling weak after the latest binge.  I was there mainly so Dad wouldn’t feel worried or guilty while he was gone.

Yes, the alcoholic is the sun, and we are all little planets revolving around her.

Anyway, I’d picked up a couple of tv dinners for us to have.

When we were little, tv dinners were a huge treat – usually reserved for when my parents were going out and a babysitter was coming.  Rare.  Most of the time my mom cooked, and she was a wonderful cook, so that was no hardship either.

But it made tv dinners – in those multi-compartment foil plates – really special.

I’d picked up fried chicken dinners.  Probably Swanson’s.  I’m sure the fried chicken came with mashed potatoes, corn, and some sort of gluey dessert in the fourth compartment.

I put them in the oven and mom and I went into the living room to watch Jeopardy or something.

On the surface, it seemed like a nice, quiet, peaceful night at home.  A return to the way things “used” to be.  I set that in quotes, because who knows how it really used to be.  What was real, what was fake?  What was hidden behind smiles?

At some point Mom got up either to go to the bathroom or to see how the chicken was doing.

And either something told me to get up and go into the kitchen, or I decided to peek at dinner (maybe she hadn’t said she was going to…) – I don’t remember.  For whatever reason, I went into the kitchen.  To the oven.  I looked inside, or checked the timer to see how much longer our sodium-laden poultry dinner had to bake.

And then I turned, and over at the other end of the kitchen, where it used to be part of the big front glassed-in porch, I saw my mother.

She was wearing her pink, terrycloth bathrobe, so she really stood out against the dark paneling behind her.

And she was drinking from a bottle of vodka.  She’d had it hidden over there somewhere.  She saw me.  Put the cap back on the bottle, and tucked it back into her hiding spot.

She looked…defiant.

I don’t remember what I said, but my next memory of that night was the two of us at the kitchen table.  I’m sure I was still trying to find the root of the problem so I could save her from herself.  If she’d only open up…that’s what I used to think.

And remember the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Luke says  to Yoda “I’m not afraid!” and the camera zooms in on Yoda’s eyes, and he says, “You will be…you WILL be…”

Now, I know Yoda was a puppet.  But he was a really GOOD puppet, and those eyes were scary and way different from the cute, cuddly Yoda Luke first encountered when he landed on Dagoba.

My Mom’s eyes did that.  That change.  There was no warmth, nothing maternal.

Her eyes are green, but they looked amber then.  Cold, reptilian.  Snake-like.  I remember them boring into mine, as she told me in some way that she couldn’t tell me, or wouldn’t tell me, what she was keeping inside.

It was mean.

It was manipulative and mean.  That look.

It was protective.  She had no intention of sharing anything.

She just wanted me to shut up about the drinking.

I don’t remember the rest of the night.

I remember, though, that the fried chicken was too salty and didn’t taste nearly as wonderful as I remembered it.

Swirling Words

Having a conversation with an alcoholic is like being on a carousel, ferris wheel, and really wild roller coaster – all at once.

That’s something I’ve learned, at least.  And I don’t really enjoy the ride.

The problem is learning not to get on.

It’s hard sometimes.  You’re going along, thinking you’re handling yourself okay, and then suddenly the ground slips away and you’re off, spinning and climbing and falling and not knowing which way is up.

You’d think I would recognize the ride before it begins, but sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes I open my mouth and, with a word, hand over my ticket.

I know, I’m being all cryptic.

It’s hard to write about things that swirl around in your brain.  Having conversations with my mother about her drinking are like that.  Swirling.

She twists things.  Tries to redirect.  Distract.  Divert.  Avoid.

“You don’t understand…”

“There are things you don’t know about…”

“When you’ve lived as long as I have…”

“I guess I’m a bad mother.”

“Do you have anything good to say about me?”

Those last two…so totally and obviously diversionary.

Apples and oranges, Mom.  Apples and oranges.

You were a good mother, and we’ve said plenty of good things about you.

You just don’t remember any of them.

This morning I told her, in response to that last question above, that yes, I’ve said good things about her, written good things about her…but her brain is now so pickled with alcohol she doesn’t remember ANY of it.

She didn’t have much of a response to that.

Most recently she spent a couple of nights passed out on the floor in the porch.  She’d been drinking (obviously) and couldn’t get up.  Dad covered her with blankets or coats or something so she wouldn’t be chilly in the middle of the night.  At least it’s summer, so there’s no danger of hypothermia.

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, Dad somehow got her on a towel and dragged her into the living room.

My sister told me about that.  Apparently he was sort of amused by that part – “once I got going it was pretty easy” he said.  Or words to that effect.

We find the humor where we can.

It’s gotten harder and harder to FIND that humor, but we grab it where we can.

It’s what keeps us sane.

Then I guess yesterday Dad took Mom out to lunch at a little Italian place.

Mom had two glasses of wine.

This is the sort of thing that makes my sister’s and my heads explode.

WHY, Dad?  Why do you give in?

And then, after they got home, he was doing something and she apparently took the keys and drove off.

Dad called my sister and she told him to call the police…and then he went out looking for her.  When my sister called the house again a bit later, Mom was home.  My sister unloaded on her, her words liberally seasoned with F-bombs and other choice phrases.

That’s what my mother will latch onto – the swear words.  Nothing else will stick.

“There are things…”

That’s what she started to day this morning.  I interrupted her.  I’ve heard that before.  Things.  Reasons.  Heartache.  Drama.

“Mom, EVERYONE has THINGS.”

“What?”

Everyone has THINGS.

“Yes,” she switched gears.  “Yes, they do.”  She says this meaningfully.  Like She Knows All.

“Yeah,” I continued, “but OTHER people deal with these THINGS without drinking.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

I hate that.

It means nothing.

It’s patronizing.

I couldn’t think of the word, though, when she was doing it, so I couldn’t tell her to stop patronizing me, which was rather annoying.  Then, when I was relating all this to my sister afterword, I thought of it.

“I should call her back and just say ‘patronizing!’ and then hang up.”

Hahahahahahahaha.

Again – humor where we can find it.

Survival of the wittiest.

 

Absent

Yesterday we had a birthday party for my daughter.  My mother was going to come…I told her I wouldn’t serve her any alcohol here and I didn’t want her coming if she’d had any booze.

She opted not to come.

My father came, though.  He said she cried when he left the house, and so he thinks it’s finally sinking in – the things she’s missing.

I didn’t say anything to him, but I don’t think anything is sinking in with her.  I think she was being weepy BECAUSE she was drinking.  I think maybe she was weepy because she felt left out.  I don’t think she is really thinking about the effect it has on anyone, or that she’s missing out on anything – I think she thinks she’s being left out and her feelings (pickled as they are) are hurt.

She was supposed to go into a 30 day detox/rehab program at a local hospital.  Then she said it was a 5 day program.  She went in on a Friday – after begging my father to stop along the way for ONE LAST DRINK and was home on Monday.  Hm…I’m not a genius, but that doesn’t quiet add up to 5 days on my fingers.

She was supposed to see her shrink the next day or that thursday, and begin her 3-4 day a week rehab program as an outpatient.  Um…didn’t happen.  Oh, and when I spoke to her on Monday?  Yeah, she’d been drinking.

Now it’s “I’m working with my doctors” which means she doesn’t want to go to some rehab thing with a bunch of drunks and addicts, because of course, SHE’S NOT ONE OF THEM.  So she has (now) an appointment next tuesday with her shrink – because it was the first one she could get.  Or so she says.  I have trouble believing anything she comes up with.

I’m angry about her not coming to my daughter’s birthday.  Not surprised.  But angry.  More so than I have been about some of the other no-show episodes.  This is her youngest grandchild.  Thank goodness my daughter is too young to really wonder WHY her grandmother didn’t show up.  How do I explain it?  I know – “grammy is sick” is how it will be explained for now.  And yes, that’s true in part.

But what about the fact that yes, grammy is sick, but she could DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT AND JUST FOR WHATEVER REASON, ISN’T DOING WHAT SHE COULD AND SHOULD.

I try to forgive.  I know I won’t forget, but I try to forgive.

But this is my daughter – and that is my mother.  Family things were always so important when I was growing up.  

My grandparents were important to me when I was a little kid.  I adored them.

I guess I am angry that my mother is choosing to absent herself from my kids’ lives in this way. 

No.  I don’t guess.  I am angry.  I’m so tired of feeling this way.
   

Why?

The day after I wrote the previous post, my sister relayed a conversation she’d had with our mother which was so unlike my conversation that it was like my own had never taken place.

Why does that have to happen?  My sister was hurt, and I don’t blame her, and it makes me angry and doubtful (again) that things are really going to change.

If your drinking has hurt one daughter, you can damn well bet it’s hurt the other daughter, so you are going to need to address that with BOTH of them.  Regardless of anything else – your drinking has hurt us both, mom, and you need to deal with THAT right now.  With both of us.  

Unexpected

Mom called me today.  I was in a meeting.  My sister had told me this morning that dad called to have my sister’s husband go over to the house to help pick my mom off the bathroom floor.  So that didn’t bode well.

But while I was in a meeting, she called and left a message, asking me to call her back.  I did, around half an hour later, when I was out of the meeting.  I was completely unprepared for the conversation.

I don’t even remember it all that well – it was so out of the blue.  but basically she said she’d seen a physical therapist that day and a social worker…and next week she was actually – if she can get an appointment that quickly – going back to see Dr. S. 

And – she had discussed her drinking with the social worker. 

This is big.  She was talking about the drinking as a problem. 

And she thanked me for my email the other day.  I wasn’t sure if she meant that or if it was sarcastic.  But I actually think she meant it.  I’m still puzzling over that one.  But…okay.

She also – this was new and different – said she was concerned about the effect her drinking has had on my sister and me.  Unheard of.

We talked.  It was strained.  It was strange.  I didn’t know what to think, how to respond.  I just was honest.  I didn’t cave.  I didn’t reassure.  But I don’t think I was mean or anything either.  I told her my sister and I don’t want her to crash.  But in the past, any time we’ve tried to show her that we recognize the warning signs, the red flags, she has shut us out.

She didn’t dispute that.  It was strange.  I emailed and then talked to my sister after.  We’re both cautiously optimistic, I guess.  Don’t want to get too excited – things have looked promising before.  But I have to say, some of the things my mother said were new – things she’s never said before.

I hope.  I am hesitant to.  But I hope.

Again so soon

I got an email from mom yesterday saying she was sorry for being a “loser” regarding Easter this year, and that she’d make it up to the kids.  There was some sort of grammatical error in there, which should have been a little red flag, but I didn’t notice it.  I was too busy being furious.  I emailed her back – this long tirade of the most recent pent up things and who knows what else…rage and frustration mainly.  I also sent all that to my sister, because that’s what we do.  We’re the kids. 

Well, a little while later, my sister called to tell me dad had called 911 on mom again – just then! – and she was pissed.  dad had called my sister first, and when she didn’t pick up, he called the house and spoke to my brother in law.  so no other details.

i spent the next 5 hours or whatever it is trying to focus on work, wondering if she’d read my email at all yet, sort of hoping she had, but now i’m thinking she hasn’t.  but whatever.

i also – as i always do during these episodes – spent time in “what if” land…what if she’s dead?  that’s pretty much the big one.  it’s exhausting, because when i do this “what if” thing, it’s not just a fleeting thought that passes through.  No, it digs its heels in and fans the flames.  I get tense, prepared for the worst, and just wonder.  Think of practical things – like who will watch the kids for me so i can go down and…what…view the body?  This is the kind of thing that happens.  In my head.  So yeah, i know it’s not REALLY happening…but that doesn’t mean that one day my “what if” won’t be right.

And she doesn’t understand any of this.  In her pickled mind, she’s going through EVERYTHING alone.  It doesn’t affect her kids, so why are they picking on her?

I just came home for lunch, and on the way, my sister called.  they’re back home – both of them.  apparently a social worker came and talked to her (mom) at the hospital – her file is a couple inches thick, and that’s just from the past few years – and they made her promise (HA!) to see her therapist – Dr. S. – who I think is fabulous because he sees right through her – and to go to another rehab out-patient thing that she was supposed to be going to one of the last times but of course developed a sore body part and couldn’t continue.

So – to laugh again – “they made her promise.”  Wow!  What a novel approach!  If only someone had MADE HER PROMISE something like this before!!!!!

And the beautiful part is that on the way home she made my father stop at a liquor store to get her a bottle of wine.

And he did.

He told my sister it’s because he’s dumb.  He’s not dumb.  I think he’s just plain tired. 

So I don’t know who I’m angrier at right this minute.  I think it’s a tie.

My sister said that he said – re the bottle of wine – “but i won’t do that again” – HA – right.  and my mother won’t drink again.

I don’t even know what to say next.  I wish I didn’t have to go back to work, though maybe the slight distraction will be good for me.

 I just feel like screaming for a while.  And swearing.  Lots of swearing.  Loud swearing.

But it won’t really do much good. 

This just sucks.  I’m so sick of this.  So tired of it.  Really.  Really?  Yes.  Really.

more of the same

my sister called me several times today.  she’d had to call our parents’ house and guess who answered the phone.  mom wanted to talk about the little routine medical procedure she’d had yesterday, but my sister refused to get into it.  the conversations that took place were less than satisfactory.

The thing about having conversations with mom sometimes – especially right after a binge – is that she is a genius at talking in all different directions and changing topics midstream and twisting what you just said so you have to waste time restating what you already said…or she’ll act like you were really discussing something else, and she’s puzzled as to why you’re back on that old topic (her drinking) again.  It’s dizzying.  It leaves you (me, my sister) feeling insane and frazzled and wondering if maybe mom actually isn’t the one with the problem after all.  The feeling doesn’t last – but it’s really hard to reconstruct the conversation in order to describe to someone else just WHY it was so frustrating.

my sister and i have both had many of these types of conversations.  And I don’t see an end in sight.

Alcoholics are manipulative creatures.  Magicians, really.  Distractors.  Look over THERE – don’t look at me while I have another drink.  All in the name of preserving access to the booze.  Nothing else – no matter what they say – matters more.  It sucks. 

Mom told my sister that the woman in the room with her at the hospital – an older woman – whose family visited her daily (unlike mom’s two horrid daughters who stayed far, far away) – this older woman – SHE has two bourbons every night.  Hm!  So, the logical next step would be, if SHE can do it (and having done it, has reached a fine old age with a loving family that doesn’t try to make her STOP having her two bourbons every night) then why can’t mom?  And of course, my sister pointed out that SOME people CAN do that.  But SOME people CAN’T.  And mom is one.  But mom doesn’t see the problem with whatever she’s drinking.  She also is barely conscious when she’s on a bender, so I’m sure she’s completely unaware of how hideous it is to see her like that.  For her, it’s probably a nap with a few odd dreams and dry heaves when she wakes up.  But doesn’t everyone have those?

And of course she also threw in some “can’t you tell me some of the good things I’ve done?” and so forth.  It’s a game.  It’s manipulative.  It’s an attempt to make us rush to list all the many wonderful things she’s done as our mother.

And don’t get me wrong – she did a lot of wonderful things.  However, that isn’t at issue.  She just doesn’t like what IS at issue, so she twists things around and tries to put my sister and me on the defensive.  Tries to make us make her feel better.

It’s old.  We used to fall for it.  We used to tell her what she wanted to hear.  But she doesn’t remember that.  It wouldn’t serve her if she could remember it.  She’d have nothing to throw at us. 

She’s also said stuff like “how come everybody else is allowed to have their ideosynchrasies and I’m not?!” – like her binges are just cute little personality quirks and we are blowing them all out of proportion.  Well, mom, sorry, but I don’t think your drinking problem qualifies as a mere ideosynchrasy. 

She hasn’t called me.  I haven’t called her.  I haven’t talked to my father either.  He won’t call.  She’s back in the house, sober, and in charge. 

I don’t know what to say to her any more.  I have plenty of things I can say – yes – but nothing I haven’t said before.  Again and again.  Same old stuff.  Same old waste of words. 

Tomorrow is Easter.  I will probably call and wish them happy easter.  Or put my kids on the phone and let them do it.  Or maybe not.  I don’t know.  I’m so sick of feeling guilted into doing stuff.  I should call – they’re my parents.  But how come there’s never a reciprocal “I shouldn’t go on a binge – they’re my children” from her? 

I know it’s an illness.  I know.  But it’s also a choice.  A choice to do something, or a choice not to.  She has made her choice.  Again and again and again. 

memory

my mother took classes when we were young.  i think it was her chance to get out of the house one night a week.  dad had bowling night.  i think that was wednesdays.  she took ceramics…decoupage…needlepoint…

i liked ceramics the best of her classes.  it wasn’t actual pottery classes – they painted the greenware and the teacher brought it somewhere to fire, and then bingo, christmas gifts.  she painted ceramic christmas trees for our household and for her parents – the kind with little plastic lights that sit in little holes on the branches, and the whole thing is lit from within by a lightbulb. 

she’d bring home little greenware animals for my sister and me to work on.  it wasn’t just painting – we’d have to carefully smoothe down the seam that ran down the center of the molded piece…then figure out what color to paint it.  i did a bright yellow goat and painted the bell around its neck a sloppy green that spilled over onto the baby goat’s little chest.  my sister did a tiny skunk that she first painted black and then painted green. 

my mother did pretty work.  i have a small goose stretching its neck high – it’s graceful and the eyes were painted with a careful hand.  and a small pudgy duck to keep the goose company.  and my aladdin’s lamp.  for some reason when i was little, i wanted to be aladdin.  not ”jeannie” with the harem costume – but aladdin.  i was a tomboy.  my aladdin lamp is brown with black - swirly lines and lamp details.  it’s upstairs on my bureau.  there are also a rooster and a hen that perch on top of one of the dining room hutches at my parents’ current home.  and toads and frogs.  ashtrays, back when more people smoked…all kinds of things.  

when we got older and college loomed on the horizon, she went back to work.  no more time for ceramics classes…i think it’s too bad that she didn’t make the time for something for herself.  i remember that time – the time of ceramics and bowling and mom at home and endless summers – maybe there was more going on that i just wasn’t aware of.  i was a child then.  things were far less complicated.