Mom Found Me

I received mail from my mother at my house for the first time ever in spring of 2024. I've owned this house for 15 years, and my address is one of the first things that comes up if you Google my name. I heard nothing here until I started being penpals with my mom's friend Mindi, so I assume Mindi gave her my address. I always knew this was a possibility. Not a big deal.

The first mail was an anniversary card. There was no return address on the envelope, but I knew her handwriting on sight. The only message she'd written in the card was an updated phone number for Butterfly Glen, the assisted living house where she's been residing since her parents died over a decade ago. I brought it to my therapist, and she found this amusing.

Months passed. Then I got a birthday card with a check for $100. I threw them both away (I'm reasonably rich at this point, as evidenced by giving my brother the entirety of our dad's $10k life insurance policy). Thankfully my best friend was visiting for my birthday when it arrived, and she kept me from spiraling.

Last week Mindi sent me an email asking for my address -- which she knows and where I have previously received her letters -- so that she can send me a Christmas card. She confessed she had told my mother about my daughter (I had assumed my mother already knew about my daughter -- she's nearly 13, she's never been a secret, and everyone else in the family knows about her, Dante included). Mindi apologized and swore she wouldn't give her any more information I didn't want her to know. She asked me not to tell her anything for a few days because she was going to Butterfly Glen for a visit and didn't want to let anything slip on accident. I haven't responded.

Then I got a Christmas card addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Michael Martin & Family" (one of my pet peeves is being addressed as Mrs. [Some Guy's Full Name], but I don't know if she was trolling me or just ignorant of that fact). She'd used a return address label this time. She wished us health and added something to the card about Jesus being "the reason for the season," which was funny to me because I haven't been Christian in many years and, despite being a regular Methodist churchgoer for my entire childhood, I don't remember her making a big fuss over Jesus in the past. Church-wise, we just did whatever my grandmother did. I might be misremembering just how religious a baseline churchgoer was though. Anyway, it was the first time my mother has ever sent a Christmas card as far as I'm aware and can recall. We lived so close to our extended family that we just saw them in person instead. I threw the card away. I assumed I would get a reprieve until my next wedding anniversary, assuming she's still interested in sending me mail next spring. I was wrong.

I checked the mail today and found a thick card envelope literally bursting at its seams, addressed to my full name in her handwriting. It said:

Do not Bend
Photo enclosed

A lot more than photos were enclosed. It also contained, for the first time ever, a multi-page letter detailing her version of events I've written about in this blog. I'm going to type it up and include it as its own post. 

VA Hospital

I picked up a couple lists of donation requests from the library.  One was for the local VA, just little things patients might need like basic clothing and toiletries.  I’m going to buy some things to drop off next week.  It reminds me of my dad and all the time he spent living in the VA hospital, and I like the feeling that memory gives me.

I’ve been crying.  I don’t miss him I don’t think.  I don’t think I’m necessarily mourning him.  I’m sad about what his life might have been and the things he might have enjoyed but never tried.  

When my husband and I chose our new hometown and bought our house, we intentionally chose a location with a good VA hospital nearby that has a spinal cord injury unit.  My dad’s hometown VA didn’t have a spinal cord injury unit.  When I was growing up, because he was paraplegic, he had to leave the state every time he needed surgery.  Even in later years when a new VA SCI unit opened in our state, it was a four hour drive away.  That’s why he died in a hospital four hours away from home and anyone he knew.  So we chose an area with a good VA hospital with an SCI unit.  We moved halfway across the country.  We bought a house with a ground floor bedroom and bathroom that were meant to be his, right off of the living room and the bright, open kitchen and the giant deck he could’ve rolled out onto.  We have a three car garage that was meant to hold his van.  The local gym is wheelchair friendly, and I had imagined us going there together when he first started doing physical therapy at the VA and told me how much he liked it.  The gym has an indoor pool with a wheelchair lift, which I have never seen anywhere else before but knew such things existed because he had talked about how great it would be to have a pool with a lift when he first moved into the VA hospital and started expressing what I saw as hope about fifteen years ago. 

I thought we would have holidays together at my house.  I always imagined Christmas.  I was going to buy him one of those electric fireplace space heaters so he could keep his room as hot as he wanted all winter long.  I was going to cook him such good and healthy meals his diabetes would be under control.  The idea was that he could live with me because he was bed bound and needed full-time care, he could go to the nearby VA hospital for appointments and surgeries, and he could either continue living with me or move back to his own home if he ever got well enough to live alone again.  I wasn't trying to hold him hostage.  I just wanted him to stop threatening to let himself die of neglect in our old hoard house instead of staying in the nursing home because it wasn't the only option beyond living in the nursing home.  He could live with me.  And he seemed okay with that.  He was in on the plan before we ever moved.  The plan was why we moved here.

And once we moved and bought the house, he didn’t want any of it.  He wanted to stay in the hospital, occasionally shifting back home for a few weeks at a time until he had to be hospitalized again, shipped back across the state and then released to the nursing home to convalesce, where he spent most of the last years of his life lying in bed naked, watching basic cable and complaining about the food.  I wonder if he ever planned to move in with me. 

I believe I could’ve done a good job taking care of him.  Maybe I never could’ve made him happy.  It was just so wonderful seeing him hopeful in those first years after he moved into the hospital and away from my mother.  It gave me hope too.  I see now that it was probably the novelty of a new location and being away from my mom that brightened him up, but I thought it was a whole new him.  I thought maybe he'd had a depression that started to lift after moving away from Mom and the house, like I had.  

My husband and I have money.  More even than my parents, who collected more in disability payments than anyone else in the family could earn.  We have a comfortable home that is pretty well kept if I do say so myself and feels like a high-end hotel compared to the dilapidated house where I grew up and where my dad wanted to live.  We have access to pretty much anything we could want or need.  I thought it was going to be good with him here.

So, anyway, I’m going to buy some undershirts and underwear and toothpaste and things from Walmart to donate to the local VA hospital.  Is it ridiculous that the thought of the VA hospital makes me feel comfortable and homey in a way memories of my childhood home do not?  The hospital was where I had some of the best times with my dad.  That was where I saw him happiest.  Things were happening and changing when he was there, and it was usually the holidays when I was there.  I bought him gifts to make him comfortable, like a laptop and the mp3 player I filled with his favorite jazz albums, the accessories along with his cell phone that he stopped bringing to the hospital during his multi-week stays because he’d rather have been bored and cut off from everyone than take the chance they might be stolen.  I never understood that.  I was trying to make his day-to-day life more livable no matter the circumstances.  What's the point in saving everything for when you're not in the hospital when you spend all your time in the hospital?  I brought him his favorite restaurant foods to eat, and his face would light up.  Whenever I gave him something, a laugh would escape as he’d express delight and then say thank you, like he was so happy at what you’d brought him that he couldn’t just smile, he had to laugh.  He was always so good at receiving gifts.

Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to visit him at the VA hospital all the time if he’d lived here.  Maybe I would’ve resented him for being so close I could visit every day when I have a daughter and husband who need me.  If he'd lived with me, he probably would've made our home less comfortable like he did my childhood home.  I remember not wanting to come home at all when I felt good because he was so often irritable or angry or yelling and I couldn't seem to make myself small enough in that house to feel like I was existing in space of my own.  But I wish he could’ve been happy longer.  I wish we could’ve spent happy times together living in the same part of the country.  I wish we could've celebrated holidays together without his being in the hospital and my being in a Holiday Inn.  I wish I could’ve been there when he died.

Satirical Rhyming Verse

One of the ways I've processed my anger since childhood is through satirical rhyming verse.  This is the sort of passive-aggressive, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog coping mechanism I learned growing up with my family.  Where sharing your feelings would get you in trouble for inadvertently offending a parent or for "being too sensitive," mocking whoever upset me didn't seem to have a downside back then.  Not even my parents wanted to lash out just to be accused of "not being able to take a joke."

I remember turning in a poem in elementary school about going out to dinner with my family.  Each stanza featured a different dish my mother sent back for its unexpected imperfections.  As I recall, she was more regal in my version, but also less embarrassing.  I drew a picture of her cheeseburger and chocolate malt "with dots in it," as she'd complained repeatedly to the waiter, to accompany the poem.  I got an A on the assignment, as per usual, and it even hung on display for my school's poetry month, to my mother's relatively quiet embarrassment.

In high school I penned a series of mocking poems about a character named Fattie.  Sometimes Fattie was my mother; sometimes she was a classmate.  They were vague enough in terms of detail that the people I wrote them about could never seem to identify themselves.  I encouraged them to read the poems and then, when they laughed at my depictions of them, I fed off their reactions in a Palpatine-esque fashion.  One particularly difficult classmate who had bullied me from before I knew who she was started collecting my poems to make into a Fattie Anthology, never knowing the first one she'd read had been about her.

A December or two ago I started writing a Christmas song about my dad.  It includes lines like "My asshole dad, my psycho brother / I wonder how long till you kill each other," and ends with "Merry Christmas / I won't care when you die."  It's cheerful and up tempo.  I never finished it.   

Inside My Father's House

I just saw the inside of my biological father's house for the first time.  I'm not there.  I have never been inside it.  But my half-brother has started posting Christmas photos on Facebook tagged with the town where his parents live.  The only time I've ever heard of that town was when I found my biological father.

Here is what I can tell so far:  I don't like the floor tiles, and the walls are off-white.  I think it was the kitchen I saw, but I'm not 100% certain.  I would call the style "suburban affluence."  It looks like colors and styles picked out by a contractor -- bland and inoffensive.  They also have one of those tiny refrigerators for wine, and it looks well stocked, as does the adjacent wine rack. 

That's it.  That's what I know about my biological father's house (aside from things I'd already found on Zillow, such as the purchase price and an aerial view of the land, neither of which really tells me anything about him).  Still I found myself shaking as soon as I saw the location tag on Hans' photos.  Isn't that stupid?  I felt like I was seeing something I wasn't supposed to see, like I'd hacked into it when all I'd been doing is scrolling through my newsfeed.  It's unnerving whenever one of my half-siblings posts something about their parents, I guess because I know they know who I am and that they want nothing to do with me and I assume they'd find it unnerving to know I'm reading about them.  I'm half-hoping and half-dreading Hans posts a picture of our father over Christmas just so I can see what he looks like now.  A video upload of him would be holy grail material as far as I'm concerned, one of the few things I hope to see before I die.  I'm still not sure I'd be able to pick him out of a line-up based on the photos I've seen, and I've always wished I could hear his voice once and see him in motion.  He looks nothing like me in the post-high school photos I've seen.  Maybe we move alike or something.  Maybe we smile the same.  He never seems to smile in photos.

While I'd never want to go back to not knowing who my biological father is or unknow the fact that I'm donor conceived, sometimes I wish I could flip a switch and forget these facts exist.  I wish I could forget the parents who raised me too, for that matter.  Not forever, and I would never want to go back to the wondering because the wondering is crazy making, but I wish I could stop thinking and caring about them all.  It's a waste of energy when I ought to be doing other things, and it makes me feel so sad.  I ought to be frosting a cake right now and washing the dishes.

My Mom... Again: An Email

This one is from January 2007, the year before I cut ties with my mother.  My parents were mid-divorce, my dad was back in the hospital, and my mother had come out of her lengthy bout of not eating or moving or bathing to refinance the mortgage on the house and become worse than ever before.  

When my mother refinanced the mortgage, the monthly payments increased by about 50% (until the first rate adjustment, when it increased by about another 20%) and the mortgage reset for another 30 years of payments.  In exchange for this deal, my mother would receive $40k cash (as referenced in A List of Mom's Antics While Dad's in Hospital).  In order to ensure my dad's compliance since she needed his signature on the refinance paperwork, she promised him half the money.  I honestly think he would have signed no matter what because he tended to do whatever she demanded and then throw his hands in the air and claim he had no choice, but whatever.  

When she spent her half inside three weeks, my dad moved his $20k from my parents' joint account to the new joint account I had opened with him so that my mother couldn't spend it too.  That's the $20k referenced below.  Since she didn't appear to monitor her bank account back then (or ever?) and simply spent until it was empty, I hadn't expected her to notice.  Seriously.  It normally went from five figures to empty in a matter of days anyway.  It might seem odd to a third party that I didn't try explaining to her, "You promised that half of the money to Dad," but knowing me and knowing her, it wasn't odd.  It wouldn't have lessened the yelling or the retribution, and my primary wish back then was to stop getting yelled at.  In my family, telling the truth tended to go badly.  Lying was easier and more effective.  I just wish I'd learned that fact before my twenties.

It gets a little dark at the end. 

Dear Jerry,

I think I mentioned the last time we spoke that my mother had started calling again.  I've found the best way to get through her tirades without dissolving is to put her on speaker phone and watch the amused reactions of Michael and anyone else who happens to be in the apartment at the time.  They reinforce that she is crazy, which means that I am, by default, sane, and this is always a reassuring thing to find out.  

Today was the worst since the "day of inappropriate voice mails left in irrational anger."  First off, the bank sent a letter to my dad confirming that he had transferred $20k to our new joint bank account.  Of course, my mother opened it and read it, as she does with every piece of mail that enters the house, regardless of to whom it is addressed.  The only thing I could tell my mother was that he had wanted to send me money for the wedding.  I had planned out the entire story in minute detail beforehand -- explaining that the money was for my wedding, which she had told me she'd pay for and clearly would not be able to, was the only way she would consider it a lost cause and not try to recoup it later.  Now she is under the impression that my father just gave me a $20k gift and she is trying to convince my brother, who is holding my dad's favorite guitars for him so that my mom cannot sell them, that my dad only cares about me and clearly does not love him.  I had to relay these new developments to my dad so that he could try to explain things to Dante as best as he can without having to trust him with too much information.  Luckily, my mother's interest in anything I have to say wanes the second I open my mouth, so I mostly looked like a spoiled daughter who has no idea what is going on in her finances.  

My mom then asked why I ignored everyone at Christmas.  I think she was referring to the fact that I didn't send her a present.  Neither of us mentioned the fact that no one in the entire family contacted me at Christmas, either by mail or by phone.  She probably didn't think they needed to; I just didn't mention it because I didn't want to get involved in the fight she was trying to have with me. I had meant to send everyone cookies like I did last year, but by the time I had enough time to bake them all, none of them would have gotten to their destinations in time.  I explained that I didn't call her because I didn't want to get yelled at.  I can't think of a nicer way to say it, so that's how I say it.  I have told her this before, but apparently I should know that I deserve to be yelled at and I should stop trying to avoid my punishments.  

The part I remember best was when she told me that I should buy cards for everyone and treat my elders with respect (I guess this was a reference to the fact that my grandparents and I don't write to each other anymore -- she used to get angry when we did because I wasn't writing to her) and that I'm 25 years old and "need to grow up."  I'm already planning to use that line on her the next time she cries about not having enough money to care for herself.  "You are 56 years old, you have never had to work for a living, you can't manage to take care of yourself when handed $6000 per month, and you blame all your problems on everyone but yourself -- it's time to grow up," I'll say.  "I shouldn't be the one to tell you that you have to learn to take responsibility for yourself, but since you've alienated everyone else you know, it seems I'm the only one who will."  That might be a little too preachy.  Maybe just, "Stop whining!  Take responsibility for yourself!" or "Good god, I'd like to set you on fire!"  That would be the most frank.

I hate her so much.  I hate myself so much.  Her calls just make both worse.  I've never been good at taking these things in stride.  I try to act stoic, and I'm trying to be strong for my dad, but I hate her so much.  Every time I hear from her I feel more useless and hopeless than before.  I'm a bad person and everyone in her family apparently thinks I'm a deserter and a "selfish little bitch," and if my genes come from her, what if I get more like her?  What if I have children and ruin my marriage and their lives?  What if they hate me as much as I hate her?  Part of me is totally fine and hopeful and wants to see the world and do big things, but the part that she talks to just wants to kill myself.  My logic is that, even though she'd still hate me for doing something so self-centered, I wouldn't be able to do anything to make the situation worse.  

I'm sick of things being my fault, and if I'm dead, I can't be blamed, can I?  Not logically anyway.  I don't think too much anymore about all the stuff I'd need to put in order beforehand -- since she wouldn't be the one going through my things, what do I care if I haven't destroyed everything I ever wrote? -- though I would want some sort of will in place for the money in my bank accounts.  I've done a little research but the internet isn't terribly helpful.  I don't know what to do.  If I died, I think it would kill my dad, but I don't know what to do.  If I someday decided this is what I want, I don't know if anyone would support me, and I'm not sure of the legal ramifications if Michael knew in advance.  I don't know what to do.  I'm sorry if this sounds stupid or silly.  I don't make rash decisions, so it won't happen tonight, but I've been thinking about it for awhile now, and I think I might do less damage in the long run this way. 

I hope you had a good trip to New Orleans.  Did you do anything fun?  Sorry for the long, depressing email.  -- C

An Attitude of Gratitude

Some people I went to high school with like to post on Facebook about how, if someone is depressed or having trouble loving life, it's because she is lacking "an attitude of gratitude."  To which I say, "Go fuck yourself."

While I agree that it's great and helpful to look on the bright side and count your blessings, hearing that advice from a third party who knows nothing about your situation can appear to lack empathy and sound a little bit like, "Maybe you'd have an easier time snapping out of it if you weren't such an ungrateful little bitch."  To which I repeat, "Go fuck yourself," and add, "You sound like my mother."

I know this judgment probably isn't what's intended with most "attitude of gratitude" posts and my interpretation is biased by my own experiences, but I also know my experiences aren't unique.  I think audience perspective is worth bearing in mind when doling out blanket advice to hundreds of acquaintances on social media.  Yes, happiness is a choice that comes from within, but implying happy people are doing it right and unhappy people are unhappy because they're doing it wrong is a vast oversimplification of the human experience.  Life is hard.  Maybe we're all just doing the best we can with the hands we've been dealt.

Anyway, I think more helpful advice informs people not what to think or to feel but what to do -- because, while thoughts and feelings come and go regardless of how we try to force them, action is what we actually have control over.  So rather than try to follow "be grateful" or equally unhelpful and invalidating advice, in honor of Thanksgiving today, I am making a list of things for which I am thankful.  Making a list is an action.  It is something I have control over.  Everything on my list of "consolation prizes" belongs here too.

Here is my Thankful list:

1) I am thankful for my BFF Jerry.  We've been best friends since my senior year of high school nearly half my life ago, and she knows my mother firsthand.  I can't even list all the ways she has been important to me and vital to my continued existence.  She is the closest thing I've ever met to a soul mate.

2) I am thankful for my husband.  He works hard and is the most resilient person I've ever met.  This is not hyperbole -- he is the most resilient person most people who know him have ever met.  We have different interests but the same sense of humor, and I never really get bored of spending time with him, even if we're just sitting on the couch watching YouTube videos together.  I ultimately married him because I could not imagine another person who would give me a better shot at being a happy, fully functional person than him.  He's the kind of person you'd want on your team.  I also like who I am when I'm with him.  I feel like myself. 

3) I am thankful for my daughter.  I have never had a greater incentive to keep trying than her.  She is resilient and cheerful in ways I never was as a child.  She is smart and creative and beautiful and legitimately funny.  I hope she somehow develops an athleticism that no known person in her family tree has ever possessed, but even if she doesn't, she is perfection.

4) I am thankful for my home, which is in pretty good shape and which keeps my family safe and warm and dry.  I am thankful for the neighbors who I see when I go outside.  It's so friendly here.  We know each others' names and say hello like we're in a more spacious and physically comfortable version of college.  I am thankful I generally prefer getting rid of things to hoarding them.  I am thankful I generally prefer getting my home repaired to living with issues that make me feel ashamed of it.  I am thankful I have the money to do the things necessary to maintain my home and also that I know how to handle money.  I am thankful my mother taught me about finances, even though she couldn't manage her own.

5) I am thankful for the public library system, which saves me hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per year in books and videos I can borrow rather than buy and keep.

6) I am thankful for my sun lamp, Yogi brand's St. John's Wort herbal tea, my elliptical machine, Netflix, the gym near my house with all the good weight machines, meditation as described in Pema Chödrön's How to Meditate, and everything else that helps me to feel okay.

7) I am thankful for the people who share their stories and feelings on the internet and make me feel normal and sane.  I am thankful for the people who read what I write and make me feel less alone.  Thank you.

And to anyone reading this who is feeling depressed today because they are alone or feel alone or have to spend time with family and only wish they could be alone, I say, "That sucks.  I'm sorry you're having to deal with that.  Have you tried watching Netflix or, if you're with family, surreptitiously watching Netflix on your iPhone?  I hear the new Aziz Ansari show is good, and I always recommend Firefly for a good distraction.  Have you tried making Bingo boards of all the crazy and casually racist things your mother might say over dinner?  Have you considered cataloging the most ridiculous things your parents say and sharing them with friends or the internet for our mutual entertainment so that you can look forward to their madness rather than dread it?  Have you tried bourbon or cheesecake?  I'm sorry you're having a hard time today.  You're not alone.  I hope you feel better soon."

Homemade Gifts

When I was little, I used to make my family members gifts for holidays and their birthdays.  I think this is pretty typical for small children with zero income.  The stress that came from giving my mother gifts started when I was too young to remember.  If I drew a picture, she tended to mention how much better at drawing Dante had been than me even as a small child.  When I stopped drawing pictures and took to just coloring straight lines and shapes in the hopes of avoiding criticism, she told me my drawings were boring and that no one wanted to look at brightly colored lines.  Again, she would point to Dante's drawings (literally) as an example of what was good.  I could copy what he'd drawn at my age easily enough -- such things were still on my grandmother's refrigerator seven years later (hence the literal pointing) -- but doing anything Dante had done first was considered boring too. 

In school around the holidays, we often made things like "pencil holders" by decorating old tin cans, which I would eagerly offer up and my mother would accept with the sarcastic reply, "Great.  Another pencil can."  (It's not like she had more than she could use either.  Do you have any idea how many pencils you can find in a hoard house?  They are infinite.) 

When I learned to sew in elementary school and took to sewing and embroidering small throw pillows because it was all I knew how to make from the tiny scraps of fabric I could get my hands on, they prompted a disparaging snort and the similar response, "Great.  Another pillow."  That was around the time I started saving up all my birthday and Christmas money to buy proper gifts for my family.  I knew only babies made homemade gifts and that no one liked them anyway.  That point was very clear at my house.  That was the year my mother ridiculed me for buying her gifts at the Dollar Store.  It was around the same time Dante started stealing from me.  Childhood is the worst.