The sins of youth
Nov. 7th, 2010 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunchofgrapesMy mom had just turned 19 and my dad was 18 when I was conceived in the backseat of a car. My dad had been dating my mom for a little while but I was most definitely an oops baby, which lead to my dad doing the honorable thing. When I was born on my mother's 20th birthday (my dad was two months past his 19th birthday), my mother told my grandmother (bow chica wow wow grandma) that I was two months premature. I was not.
The marriage lasted four years (from what I've been told, it was lucky to make it a year) before they divorced. My dad finished one of his plethora of degrees, met a nice girl who worked at the university, joined the Navy and he and his new wife moved to Southern California. Fast forward to present and they just celebrated their 41 or 42nd wedding anniversary. Obviously, my dad got it right the second time.
Mom remarried a man named Ted when I was 5. Ted came from a wealthy NYC family. He had everything but he also had an alcohol and gambling problem. He wasn't a very lucky gambler and he was a nasty drunk. My mom was still married to him when I was in the first grade and what I remember most about the time my mom was married to Ted was that his dad was a very nice man who looked like Jack Benny, Ted broke his dad's thumb during a drunken rage, the repo man's name was Avery, and we had to move from our house so quickly that the box with all my baby stuff was left behind so except for a few pictures, I have no special baby blanket or baby book or anything. And yes, I'm still a little bitter about that. When I was in second grade Ted came by our apartment, drunk, and tried to beat the crap out of my mom. I ran next door and got the neighbor who was a pro wrestler. He picked Ted up by the back of his pants and literally threw him onto the front sidewalk. Needless to say, we never saw Ted again. Last I'd heard, my mom had a restraining order taken out and he could be arrested if he ever stepped foot in OK again.
My mom was an attractive woman when she was in her 20s and 30s. Attractive enough to have a couple of modeling jobs in the 70s. She liked to date so there were a lot of men parading through my life but she didn't remarry again until March, 1980. This time she was 37, I was 17 and the guy's name was Frank. Frank was also an alcoholic but he was mostly just a douche. They got married in Hot Springs, Arkansas and the next day, we went to the track (yes, I was there too). I remember this clearly because I got drunk the night before in a nightclub with my mom and Frank and won big at the track the next day. I looked older than 17 so I rarely got carded back then. Mom quickly realized that you can't shoot pool with a rope and got the marriage annulled she doesn't count that in her record of marriages but in my book if you say "I do" in front of the Justice of the Peace, you're married.
While my mom was briefly married to Frank, she met this guy named John. John lived at our apartment complex and looked like a cross between Mac Davis and Robert Foxworth (yes, I realize some of you will have no clue who these men are). I thought both of those men where kind of skanky but what can I say? My mother and I never had the same taste in men. John was a nice guy. He was divorced with three boys. The minute the ink was dry from her annulment, she and John started dating and it got serious fast. John wanted to buy a house out in the sticks and it was decided that he and my mom plus me, would move in together. It was my senior year in high school and no way was I changing schools so this meant I had a half hour commute to school every morning.
One thing that became obvious once mom and John shacked up was that yes, John was an alcoholic. He was mostly a lovable drunk but he was a drunk nonetheless. He even told my mom that alcohol would always be his first love but she accepted that and after 10 years of living together, finally married him. They are still together however back in July, John had a stroke. He actually came through it okay however the doctors told him he had to quit smoking and he had to quit drinking. He quit smoking no problem but quitting drinking is a different story. The doctor recognized that John can't quit cold turkey so he's allowed two "light" drinks a day. However, like a true alcoholic, he's got bottles hidden all over the house and when mom isn't looking, he's sneaks in much more than a "light" amount. A couple of times mom has come home to find him falling down drunk because you know, seizure medicine and alcohol go together like peas and carrots /sarcasm.
Yesterday was John's 68th birthday but I waited to call today because I knew my mother would talk and I didn't have the time yesterday. So after I had a brief awkward conversation with my stepfather (he's a nice guy but not the most talkative), he handed the phone off to my mother where I listened to her rant for a good half hour. Now I get that what she's dealing with is hard. But when you get married to a man who is an alcoholic and you accept that he's an alcoholic, you have to know that at some point, the past is going to catch up to him. And it's not going to be pretty. That's where my mother is now and honestly, it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. But I did. I let her rant and talk about how she wants to get in the car and leave him and how she never has any time to herself any more (she had the last 10 years to herself because John was on the road all the time for business) and how this wasn't how growing old was supposed to be.
I get how frustrated and tired my mom is with John about the drinking and how it's messing with his medication and increasing his risk for another stroke. I get that this isn't how she expected growing old to be. But as I reminded her, this is the "in sickness" part of the marriage vows. It can't all be puppies and sunshine and a happy ride into the sunset. In my mothers case it's the "I didn't sign up for this, it's hard, I can't do what I want to do, and someone make it go away" pity party and I don't know what to tell her. Part of me is very happy I live 1,700 miles away but part of me is scared to death that I'll be in the same situation with her in a few years.
In my mom's case it will be the effects of 40+ years of smoking. She was told to quit when John quit a few months ago. She tried but that lasted about a week and then she said it was too hard. She now uses the excuse that she can't quit while she's going through this stress with John. She even said the doctor told her to quit when she was ready because she knew it was hard. Yeah, no one in the family believes that line. I expect at some point she'll have emphysema but she'll smoke anyway. I'm sure her excuse will be that she can't quit because of the stress of having emphysema and the doctor told her a couple of cigarettes a day will be okay. It's interesting that she sees no similarity between John and his drinking and her and her smoking. The only difference is his drinking has finally caught up with him.
The marriage lasted four years (from what I've been told, it was lucky to make it a year) before they divorced. My dad finished one of his plethora of degrees, met a nice girl who worked at the university, joined the Navy and he and his new wife moved to Southern California. Fast forward to present and they just celebrated their 41 or 42nd wedding anniversary. Obviously, my dad got it right the second time.
Mom remarried a man named Ted when I was 5. Ted came from a wealthy NYC family. He had everything but he also had an alcohol and gambling problem. He wasn't a very lucky gambler and he was a nasty drunk. My mom was still married to him when I was in the first grade and what I remember most about the time my mom was married to Ted was that his dad was a very nice man who looked like Jack Benny, Ted broke his dad's thumb during a drunken rage, the repo man's name was Avery, and we had to move from our house so quickly that the box with all my baby stuff was left behind so except for a few pictures, I have no special baby blanket or baby book or anything. And yes, I'm still a little bitter about that. When I was in second grade Ted came by our apartment, drunk, and tried to beat the crap out of my mom. I ran next door and got the neighbor who was a pro wrestler. He picked Ted up by the back of his pants and literally threw him onto the front sidewalk. Needless to say, we never saw Ted again. Last I'd heard, my mom had a restraining order taken out and he could be arrested if he ever stepped foot in OK again.
My mom was an attractive woman when she was in her 20s and 30s. Attractive enough to have a couple of modeling jobs in the 70s. She liked to date so there were a lot of men parading through my life but she didn't remarry again until March, 1980. This time she was 37, I was 17 and the guy's name was Frank. Frank was also an alcoholic but he was mostly just a douche. They got married in Hot Springs, Arkansas and the next day, we went to the track (yes, I was there too). I remember this clearly because I got drunk the night before in a nightclub with my mom and Frank and won big at the track the next day. I looked older than 17 so I rarely got carded back then. Mom quickly realized that you can't shoot pool with a rope and got the marriage annulled she doesn't count that in her record of marriages but in my book if you say "I do" in front of the Justice of the Peace, you're married.
While my mom was briefly married to Frank, she met this guy named John. John lived at our apartment complex and looked like a cross between Mac Davis and Robert Foxworth (yes, I realize some of you will have no clue who these men are). I thought both of those men where kind of skanky but what can I say? My mother and I never had the same taste in men. John was a nice guy. He was divorced with three boys. The minute the ink was dry from her annulment, she and John started dating and it got serious fast. John wanted to buy a house out in the sticks and it was decided that he and my mom plus me, would move in together. It was my senior year in high school and no way was I changing schools so this meant I had a half hour commute to school every morning.
One thing that became obvious once mom and John shacked up was that yes, John was an alcoholic. He was mostly a lovable drunk but he was a drunk nonetheless. He even told my mom that alcohol would always be his first love but she accepted that and after 10 years of living together, finally married him. They are still together however back in July, John had a stroke. He actually came through it okay however the doctors told him he had to quit smoking and he had to quit drinking. He quit smoking no problem but quitting drinking is a different story. The doctor recognized that John can't quit cold turkey so he's allowed two "light" drinks a day. However, like a true alcoholic, he's got bottles hidden all over the house and when mom isn't looking, he's sneaks in much more than a "light" amount. A couple of times mom has come home to find him falling down drunk because you know, seizure medicine and alcohol go together like peas and carrots /sarcasm.
Yesterday was John's 68th birthday but I waited to call today because I knew my mother would talk and I didn't have the time yesterday. So after I had a brief awkward conversation with my stepfather (he's a nice guy but not the most talkative), he handed the phone off to my mother where I listened to her rant for a good half hour. Now I get that what she's dealing with is hard. But when you get married to a man who is an alcoholic and you accept that he's an alcoholic, you have to know that at some point, the past is going to catch up to him. And it's not going to be pretty. That's where my mother is now and honestly, it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. But I did. I let her rant and talk about how she wants to get in the car and leave him and how she never has any time to herself any more (she had the last 10 years to herself because John was on the road all the time for business) and how this wasn't how growing old was supposed to be.
I get how frustrated and tired my mom is with John about the drinking and how it's messing with his medication and increasing his risk for another stroke. I get that this isn't how she expected growing old to be. But as I reminded her, this is the "in sickness" part of the marriage vows. It can't all be puppies and sunshine and a happy ride into the sunset. In my mothers case it's the "I didn't sign up for this, it's hard, I can't do what I want to do, and someone make it go away" pity party and I don't know what to tell her. Part of me is very happy I live 1,700 miles away but part of me is scared to death that I'll be in the same situation with her in a few years.
In my mom's case it will be the effects of 40+ years of smoking. She was told to quit when John quit a few months ago. She tried but that lasted about a week and then she said it was too hard. She now uses the excuse that she can't quit while she's going through this stress with John. She even said the doctor told her to quit when she was ready because she knew it was hard. Yeah, no one in the family believes that line. I expect at some point she'll have emphysema but she'll smoke anyway. I'm sure her excuse will be that she can't quit because of the stress of having emphysema and the doctor told her a couple of cigarettes a day will be okay. It's interesting that she sees no similarity between John and his drinking and her and her smoking. The only difference is his drinking has finally caught up with him.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 03:00 am (UTC)Eventually, she needed surgery and at admitting she told the nurse that she no longer smoked. I got so angry, I was speechless. The nurse picked up on my body language and looked at me and asked if she smoked. Mom immediately began trying to cover, telling the nurse that I didn't live near her and didn't know and that my answer would be based on memories from when I lived at home. It would have been funny to see Mom so frazzled if the situation hadn't been so serious. Mom was furious when I answered truthfully that she did and tried to tell the nurse that she only smoked one a day. I snorted and said sarcastically that was one pack a day.
Two years later, she had a massive stroke that left her an invalid. It was soon followed by a heart attack. The next seven months were absolutely the worst of my life. I didn't live in the same city, so I basically moved into her house so I could be at the hospital(s) and nursing home everyday. I had to quit my job and didn't see my family for weeks at a time. They would travel to see me as often as hubbie's work and kids' school would allow.
She had another massive heart attack and died after another small stroke. And everyday for those last months, she expressed a wish for a cigarette.
It angered me when Dad died a few years earlier and she attributed his cancer to his years of drinking. Like your mother, she never saw what she had done to herself by smoking. Share this with your mother if you think it will help. As difficult as those last months were for me, it was even worse for her. I wouldn't wish that kind of death on anyone. She was miserable every day of the last months of her life.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 05:21 am (UTC)This right here is what scares the shit out of me. There's no way I could quit my job (I'd have no way to pay for her care) and I can't even stay overnight in my mother's house, much less live there. It's a double wide trailer and reeks so bad of cigarettes and dog that it makes me sick to even visit. I'll probably have to pay for someone to stay with her or move her into an assisted care facility where she'll hate me until the day she dies.
When it comes to her smoking, I can't say anything that she will hear. She immediately gets pissy and defensive so it's pointless to argue with her. What gets me the most is that my aunt, her sister, has a heart condition that caused her to have a heart transplant five years ago. So here you have a woman who never smoked a day in her life and has a congenital heart defect that almost killed her vs. my mother who has smoked for all those years and doesn't have the same heart defect. She was gifted with a healthy heart and chooses to abuse the hell out of it.
Sorry to hear what you went through with your mom. Makes me wonder if your dad's cancer wasn't related to second hand smoke.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-08 04:14 pm (UTC)I was lucky that I could quit my job. Again luckily, I had a very supportive hubbie in the pic whose income carried us through. And also luckily, my Dad had seen to my Mom's financial security even after they split. So I didn't need to pay any of her bills.
Whether you live in her house or not, you'll be the bad guy because you'll be making decisions she won't like. It just goes with the territory. All I can say is that I made the best choices for her that I possibly could and I hope she understood that. While everyone mourned over her passing, I think I mourned more for the last few months of her life, knowing that it would never get any better. Her passing was actually a relief because the suffering ended.
I hate to sound all gloom and doom, I do have some special memories from those days that I cherish and that my siblings did not get to share in. And that time with her made me see the beauty of the "circle of life". I think of all the families whose time with their elders is cut short and realize they miss a very important part of it. In the end, both of my parents, through their ending process, taught me how to face death when my time comes. My kids were watching and I pray they learned something too.
Life is full of ironies, isn't it? That your aunt suffered so and your mom seems to have escaped that is mind twisting. Dad's cancer wasn't due to second hand smoke. The primary source was never identified but it got into his blood and then bones and everything went south from there. One of the doctor's theories was, ironically, that he had breast cancer. Dad, being a manly man, however, would never admit it.
It is a difficult place we are in as one whose has parents. It sounds so selfish to hope that one's parent will have a swift exit from this world and thereby let us off the hook. But the truth is, it is how we feel. I mean, here we are, busy with our own lives, totally involved with jobs and family and all of a sudden there's this person who needs us totally. And it is the person we depended on to be there for us since the beginning. You find yourself fighting the role reversal and the intrusion on the adult life you have built for yourself.
First and foremost, forgive yourself for not wanting this to happen to you. We all feel it sooner or later, along with all the other insecurity and indecision that goes with caring for an ailing parent. Secondly, find support in those who surround you. Odds are, many of them have been down the same road in one way or another. And thirdly, I wish you peace, my friend. In the end, it is what matters most.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 03:52 am (UTC)What you say about role reversal and hoping for a swift exit is so true. My problem is that despite being close to my mom when I was younger (pre college), we've been about two steps from estranged since 1997. My grandmother's illness and death actually brought us together a little but I'm so much closer to my stepmother than I am my own mother. I can only be around my mom for a couple of hours before we start arguing and I say something to piss her off.
I'm sorry you had to go through what you did but I really value your experience. Everything you said helps a lot. Thank you so much!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 02:22 pm (UTC)You're a good kid for listening to your mom though.