It has been an ongoing bit of light humor in my life that I have three mothers (and Molly has three mothers-in-law) - that, when someone asks me about my mother, I first have to clarify, "Which one?" There is the mother who bore me and gave me birth, the mother who adopted me, and formed the first nine years of my life, and the mother in whose family I lived and thrived from the age of ten to the present day.
But now, as of last night at 10:10 PM, that number is one smaller. At least in terms of those living in this world. My 'first mother' - my dad's first wife, who adopted me (and my brother, a year-and-a-half later), and raised me through the fourth grade - died last night. She had only recently moved back up to Michigan, having lived in Florida for the past 30+ years. Last Friday, she was hospitalized with a blood infection, with some related complications. It didn't seem like anything major at the time, but she just kept sliding downhill (there are no 'minor' illnesses when you're 88 years old), and the end came last night. I am so glad we got to visit her on Sunday.
-------------------------
Her death provokes an odd, and somewhat conflicted, set of responses in me. First, and most fundamentally, I am sadddened. She was, obviously enough, a major player in my life, in forming me into the person I am today. She pushed me into my earliest musical training, and such joy as I am able to take today from playing various instruments, and singing, can be largely credited to her early influence on my life. In fact, I first pursued searching for her when our eldest daughter showed precocious musical aptitude, and we started her on piano lessons. And I remembered the woman who had given that to me. . .
I was glad to have her back in my life, and in the life of our family. It enriched the lives of our children to know her, and hear her stories of growing up in Germany (under the Nazis from the age of 12). We went to visit her and her (second) husband in Florida twice, and they visited us on several other occasions. Her husband died in 1998, and after that, she didn't travel much.
But there was always the background 'irritant' that she had left us. She spoke with me a couple times about my dad, and how stubborn he was, and how hard he was to live with. And I, by that time having lived with him longer than she had, could acknowledge the justice of everything she said.
But she never really acknowledged that, in leaving our dad, she was leaving my brother and me in the process. Or that, however justified she might have been in leaving dad, she might still have wronged my brother and me. I didn't hold a grudge over it - please be very clear, I was unambiguously happy to have her back in my life - but a simple apology would have been very healing, probably for both of us.
But, in the ensuing years since she left, I've come to understand that adoptive motherhood comes with a whole set of baggage relating to the mothers' own infertility, and she seems to have had it gilt-edged and embroidered. Some years ago, in the course of documenting something for my family history, I got hold of the paperwork from when we enrolled in our new school when we moved Up North. She had taken us to the school, and all the signatures on the papers were hers. And on the line labeled 'Relationship to Student', she put 'stepmother'. And, even 30 years later, that just floored me. Even having had me in her family for seven years, she didn't think of herself as my 'mother'; just someone filling in, in lieu of the 'real thing'.
She was a very sensitive person, sometimes spilling over into 'insecure'. And, combined with my dad's farm-boy bluntness, I can easily understand how they were a bit of a mismatch. But, even having long since 'moved on', I can't quite bring myself to 'accept' their divorce. It still seems to me to be a tragedy that, at bottom, didn't have to happen. It happened, and it is what it is, and my life has been what it's been, and I'm OK. But, if between the two of them, they could have mustered up a bit more love and determination, it didn't have to happen. In my mind, I have tended to lay more resonsibility on her for having been the one who left, but I am well aware that my dad could've pursued reconciliation with a bit more interest than what he did. . .
When she left, she effectively walked out of our lives completely. Dad remarried within a year (basically as soon as the divorce was final), and we immediately moved on to life with our new family. I remember getting a few phone calls from her, which always felt awkward, sort of like one of those 'what doesn't belong?' panels from the kids' magazines. She sent my brother and me birthday cards for a few years afterwards - I remember the last one I got was when I was 13.
And then nothing, until we got back in touch 20-some years later.
-------------------------
When we got back together (fall of '88; we first visited them in spring '89), we had a warm - if somewhat nervous - reunion. Her new husband was a great guy, and welcomed us warmly himself. She was his second wife, his first having died after 17 years of marriage, with no children. They met each other, funnily enough, in the swirl of the celebration after the Tigers won the '68 World Series, and married within six months.
And we learned that, until I got in contact with her, she had never told her new husband that she'd had kids - when I showed up, she had some 'splainin' to do. And it occurred to me that they were married shortly after my 13th birthday, after which I didn't hear from her.
We discussed what to have our kids call her husband; we thought of having them call him 'uncle', after the fashion of those 'friend-of-the-family uncles' that many families have, who are 'uncle', even if they aren't really 'related'. But he nixed that - having had no children from either of his wives, he was very close to his brother's sons, and 'uncle' was, for him, far more than a mere 'term of endearment'. Not something he was prepared to hear from kids who'd only just showed up on his doorstep. So, we ended up at 'Mister', which seemed way too 'formal' and 'arms-length', especially in light of the warm relationship we eventually built with him. 3M, especially, seemed to have a special 'resonance' with him. He fell and broke his hip in '96, and his health steadily declined until his death in '98.
-------------------------
As I said, she and her husband were very close with their nephews, and for their part, the nephews embraced her as their own. Especially after their own mother died, they looked after her as if she was their own mother. When she started having some difficulty last fall, it was her nephews who looked after getting her the care she needed, and oversaw bringing her back to Michigan, where they could be in immediate touch with her.
It was a little nervous for us to contact them. Their uncle, after all, had been a bit slow to 'bring us in', and who were we to insinuate ourselves into their family matters? But I needn't have worried - we could not have gotten a more gracious welcome. It's funny - we aren't really 'family' to each other, but we are most definitely 'connected' through the person of my mother, their aunt. And, between the five of them, and my brother and me, we are the sum total of her family left to mourn her passing. We'll have the funeral this weekend, and at some point in the not-too-distant future, we'll sit down and get to know each other better. Something that probably should have happened long ago, but sometimes the obvious things can elude our attention. . .
-------------------------
So, my 'first mother' is dead. Not, I am given to hope, in the 'eternal' sense, but she's not here for me to speak to anymore. The phone calls that were never as frequent as they should have been, won't be happening any more. And the joys and conflicts that bubbled around inside me, relative to her, and our relationship, will be left to bubble around without any further input from her.
I was glad to know her. I am sorry that she's gone. I will miss her.
Requiescat In Pace, Mutter.
Showing posts with label 'first mother'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'first mother'. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Angels Watching Over Me. . .
A couple months ago, I wrote about my 'first mother', and the recent downturn in her health. Just recently, she had moved back to Michigan, so she could be closer to family members who could look after her much more easily than when she lived 1000 miles away.
Last week, we got a call from one of her nephews, inviting us to a surprise 88th birthday party for her, scheduled for yesterday (her actual birthday is today). Which we were really looking forward to, never having met any of her nephews, and of course, we haven't seen her for a few years, either. But then we got another call on Friday, saying that she'd taken ill and gone to the hospital. It seemed like no big deal, but the birthday party was called off.
Then yesterday, we got another call, saying that her health had deteriorated significantly, that she was in a 'critical zone', and within the next 24-48 hours, we would have some idea as to whether or not we might be planning a funeral later this week. The speed with which things had gotten to that point was a bit shocking. So, we decided we needed to drive down to see her, since it could possibly be for the last time.
Our four oldest kids all had personal memories of her, and wanted to come with us to see her, so we borrowed a minivan from friends of ours, so we could all travel together, since our cars are all small, and could only carry five people at most (and not very comfortably, if all five are adults).
We were finally ready to leave around mid-afternoon, and we all piled into the minivan and hit the road. We hadn't even gotten outside the city limits of OurTown, and I was still 'getting the feel' of the unfamiliar vehicle, driving in the left lane, when the vehicle in front of us (a black Avalanche, if anyone cares) suddenly put on its brakes. Hard. I stepped on the brake pedal, and it was instantly apparent that I wasn't going to be able to stop before rear-ending the Avalanche, so I veered left, onto the paved shoulder of the freeway, to miss him.
When I got onto the shoulder, I suddenly saw what had caused the Avalanche to brake - a red Honda Civic in front of the Avalanche had braked suddenly, and was turning into an emergency turnaround, so as to head back in the opposite direction. So, when I veered onto the shoulder, the Civic was also on the shoulder, a couple car-lengths in front of us - still not enough room for me to bring the minivan to a stop before I hit the Civic. So, leaving the pavement, I took the minivan onto the freeway median.
At this point, I was mainly trying just to hit the Civic at an angle, with a 'glancing' impact, rather than T-boning directly into the driver-side door (even though the idiot probably had it coming). It was a foregone conclusion that there was going to be a collision; I was just trying to make it as non-catastrophic as possible. A road sign announcing that the cut-through was for 'Emergency Vehicles Only' passed within inches of my window as we dipped down onto the median, then up-and-over the turnaround lane. Evidently, the driver of the Civic saw enough of what was happening that he stopped before turning fully into the cut-through, so we found ourselves back down on the median, on the far side of the cut-through, having somehow missed the Civic completely.
We were still going somewhere around 50 mph, and fortunately, the weather was cold enough that the median was frozen, and not a mud bog, so I was able to angle back over, and popping over the snowbank (it was not at all clear that we wouldn't roll the minivan in the course of attempting to pop over the bank), we got back onto the freeway, virtually as if nothing had happened. For several seconds, the six of us sort of looked around at each other, as if to say, "What just happened here?" And when the realization set in that we were all okay, and the minivan was okay, and we were still on our way to Detroit, suddenly everyone was talking at once, in high-pitched, excited voices.
Behind me, I heard two 'clicks' - 3M and 4M hadn't had their seat belts buckled. 3M was sitting in the middle seat, directly aligned behind the 'gap' between the two front seats, occupied by Molly and me. If we'd had a collision, he'd have been catapulted directly into (and possibly through) the windshield. 4M was seated behind me - he'd have been slammed into the back of the driver's seat (where I was sitting), possibly breaking my neck as he flew into me. And somewhere along the line, it occurred to us that our four youngest kids came very close to being orphans in those few seconds. . .
But somehow, miraculously, we completely avoided a collision. The entire episode might have taken 3-4 seconds, and we were back on the road as if nothing had happened. Our guardian angels earned their pay in those 3-4 seconds. . .
-------------------------
We did get to the hospital safely. My mother was heavily sedated and sleeping when we got there. We got to sit by her bedside for a while, speaking into ears that couldn't hear us, but still we said things that we needed to say to her - 'Thank you', mostly, and 'I love you'. It is, of course, sad to see someone whom you've only ever known to be in robust good health, suddenly clinging to life, with various tubes passing in and out of her. I don't know if she could hear us; but I can hope that, in whatever deep and hidden way, I was able to speak to her one more time; perhaps the last one.
It was very gratifying to meet her nephews - her late second husband's brother's sons (four of the five of them were present together, and two of their wives), and to trade stories of how we'd known her. They mostly knew nothing of her life in the years before she'd married their uncle, and so were glad to hear me tell them what I could about those years of her life, and they had some fun stories from the years in between when she'd left my dad, to when we were reunited, more than 20 years later. It was a warmly friendly time, and I am so grateful that we could meet (although, as is always said of such things, it might have been nice if we could've met in more pleasant circumstances; but then, why would we?)
So, perhaps my 'first mother's' time in this life will be coming to and end soon. But even if so, I'm at least glad that I could see her one more time before she leaves.
-------------------------
As bizarre as it might seem, yesterday was actually the second time our family had a vehicular near-miss while traveling to meet my 'first mother'. Seventeen years ago, in the spring of 1992, Molly and I and the four children we had at the time (along with 5M 'in the oven') drove down to stay with her and her husband for a part of spring break. We were traveling southbound somewhere on I-95; traffic was heavy, and flying - thousands of northern college students had similar ideas to ours of heading to the warm weather for spring break.
At one point, while we were driving in the left lane, in the course of doing a regular scan of my mirrors, I noticed that there was a small gap in the traffic just behind us, in the right lane; I remember thinking to myself that it was a possible 'escape route' if I needed one.
And almost instantly, I did. The vehicle right in front of us (I don't remember what it was, but it was a gold-colored compact) suddenly did a nose-down panic stop. There was absolutely no time, nor space, to bring our car (our old minivan) to a stop before rear-ending the car ahead of us. So, hoping that the 'gap' that I'd just recently noted in the other lane was still there, I cranked hard on the steering wheel, hoping that (a) I'd miss the car in front of us, and (b) some other car hadn't filled the 'gap' in the last few seconds.
I don't know how it happened, but we missed that collision, probably even more narrowly than the one we missed yesterday. Molly and I both had the same reaction - in our minds, we 'heard' the collision, so convinced were we that we were going to crash.
But we didn't crash, and I think between the two of us, and the occupants of the car we'd just narrowly missed, there could hardly have been any people in the eastern United States more surprised to find themselves still moving down I-95 at 75 mph. Driving side-by-side now, we looked at each other with identical 'what just happened?' expressions.
Of course, there remained the question of what had precipitated the whole thing in the first place. As I pulled alongside the gold car, I saw the car that had been in front of him, peeling across the wide median, throwing a rooster-tail of dirt 15-20 feet in the air, trying like mad to get over to the northbound lanes. I wondered what had provoked such a precipitous response from him, until I saw a state trooper sitting on the median-shoulder of the freeway, about a quarter-mile further on. Apparently our hero was eager not to be seen by the police. I'm not sure that peeling out across the median, throwing up a huge dirt rooster-tail behind himself, was the most effective strategy in that regard, but he certainly gave it his best shot.
-------------------------
I'm not sure what connection there could possibly be between going to see my 'first mother' and vehicular near-misses, but it is at least amazingly coincidental that we've had two incredible close calls (and with the same six people in a minivan both times), both while on the way to see her.
And we've apparently got some very capable guardian angels. . .
Last week, we got a call from one of her nephews, inviting us to a surprise 88th birthday party for her, scheduled for yesterday (her actual birthday is today). Which we were really looking forward to, never having met any of her nephews, and of course, we haven't seen her for a few years, either. But then we got another call on Friday, saying that she'd taken ill and gone to the hospital. It seemed like no big deal, but the birthday party was called off.
Then yesterday, we got another call, saying that her health had deteriorated significantly, that she was in a 'critical zone', and within the next 24-48 hours, we would have some idea as to whether or not we might be planning a funeral later this week. The speed with which things had gotten to that point was a bit shocking. So, we decided we needed to drive down to see her, since it could possibly be for the last time.
Our four oldest kids all had personal memories of her, and wanted to come with us to see her, so we borrowed a minivan from friends of ours, so we could all travel together, since our cars are all small, and could only carry five people at most (and not very comfortably, if all five are adults).
We were finally ready to leave around mid-afternoon, and we all piled into the minivan and hit the road. We hadn't even gotten outside the city limits of OurTown, and I was still 'getting the feel' of the unfamiliar vehicle, driving in the left lane, when the vehicle in front of us (a black Avalanche, if anyone cares) suddenly put on its brakes. Hard. I stepped on the brake pedal, and it was instantly apparent that I wasn't going to be able to stop before rear-ending the Avalanche, so I veered left, onto the paved shoulder of the freeway, to miss him.
When I got onto the shoulder, I suddenly saw what had caused the Avalanche to brake - a red Honda Civic in front of the Avalanche had braked suddenly, and was turning into an emergency turnaround, so as to head back in the opposite direction. So, when I veered onto the shoulder, the Civic was also on the shoulder, a couple car-lengths in front of us - still not enough room for me to bring the minivan to a stop before I hit the Civic. So, leaving the pavement, I took the minivan onto the freeway median.
At this point, I was mainly trying just to hit the Civic at an angle, with a 'glancing' impact, rather than T-boning directly into the driver-side door (even though the idiot probably had it coming). It was a foregone conclusion that there was going to be a collision; I was just trying to make it as non-catastrophic as possible. A road sign announcing that the cut-through was for 'Emergency Vehicles Only' passed within inches of my window as we dipped down onto the median, then up-and-over the turnaround lane. Evidently, the driver of the Civic saw enough of what was happening that he stopped before turning fully into the cut-through, so we found ourselves back down on the median, on the far side of the cut-through, having somehow missed the Civic completely.
We were still going somewhere around 50 mph, and fortunately, the weather was cold enough that the median was frozen, and not a mud bog, so I was able to angle back over, and popping over the snowbank (it was not at all clear that we wouldn't roll the minivan in the course of attempting to pop over the bank), we got back onto the freeway, virtually as if nothing had happened. For several seconds, the six of us sort of looked around at each other, as if to say, "What just happened here?" And when the realization set in that we were all okay, and the minivan was okay, and we were still on our way to Detroit, suddenly everyone was talking at once, in high-pitched, excited voices.
Behind me, I heard two 'clicks' - 3M and 4M hadn't had their seat belts buckled. 3M was sitting in the middle seat, directly aligned behind the 'gap' between the two front seats, occupied by Molly and me. If we'd had a collision, he'd have been catapulted directly into (and possibly through) the windshield. 4M was seated behind me - he'd have been slammed into the back of the driver's seat (where I was sitting), possibly breaking my neck as he flew into me. And somewhere along the line, it occurred to us that our four youngest kids came very close to being orphans in those few seconds. . .
But somehow, miraculously, we completely avoided a collision. The entire episode might have taken 3-4 seconds, and we were back on the road as if nothing had happened. Our guardian angels earned their pay in those 3-4 seconds. . .
-------------------------
We did get to the hospital safely. My mother was heavily sedated and sleeping when we got there. We got to sit by her bedside for a while, speaking into ears that couldn't hear us, but still we said things that we needed to say to her - 'Thank you', mostly, and 'I love you'. It is, of course, sad to see someone whom you've only ever known to be in robust good health, suddenly clinging to life, with various tubes passing in and out of her. I don't know if she could hear us; but I can hope that, in whatever deep and hidden way, I was able to speak to her one more time; perhaps the last one.
It was very gratifying to meet her nephews - her late second husband's brother's sons (four of the five of them were present together, and two of their wives), and to trade stories of how we'd known her. They mostly knew nothing of her life in the years before she'd married their uncle, and so were glad to hear me tell them what I could about those years of her life, and they had some fun stories from the years in between when she'd left my dad, to when we were reunited, more than 20 years later. It was a warmly friendly time, and I am so grateful that we could meet (although, as is always said of such things, it might have been nice if we could've met in more pleasant circumstances; but then, why would we?)
So, perhaps my 'first mother's' time in this life will be coming to and end soon. But even if so, I'm at least glad that I could see her one more time before she leaves.
-------------------------
As bizarre as it might seem, yesterday was actually the second time our family had a vehicular near-miss while traveling to meet my 'first mother'. Seventeen years ago, in the spring of 1992, Molly and I and the four children we had at the time (along with 5M 'in the oven') drove down to stay with her and her husband for a part of spring break. We were traveling southbound somewhere on I-95; traffic was heavy, and flying - thousands of northern college students had similar ideas to ours of heading to the warm weather for spring break.
At one point, while we were driving in the left lane, in the course of doing a regular scan of my mirrors, I noticed that there was a small gap in the traffic just behind us, in the right lane; I remember thinking to myself that it was a possible 'escape route' if I needed one.
And almost instantly, I did. The vehicle right in front of us (I don't remember what it was, but it was a gold-colored compact) suddenly did a nose-down panic stop. There was absolutely no time, nor space, to bring our car (our old minivan) to a stop before rear-ending the car ahead of us. So, hoping that the 'gap' that I'd just recently noted in the other lane was still there, I cranked hard on the steering wheel, hoping that (a) I'd miss the car in front of us, and (b) some other car hadn't filled the 'gap' in the last few seconds.
I don't know how it happened, but we missed that collision, probably even more narrowly than the one we missed yesterday. Molly and I both had the same reaction - in our minds, we 'heard' the collision, so convinced were we that we were going to crash.
But we didn't crash, and I think between the two of us, and the occupants of the car we'd just narrowly missed, there could hardly have been any people in the eastern United States more surprised to find themselves still moving down I-95 at 75 mph. Driving side-by-side now, we looked at each other with identical 'what just happened?' expressions.
Of course, there remained the question of what had precipitated the whole thing in the first place. As I pulled alongside the gold car, I saw the car that had been in front of him, peeling across the wide median, throwing a rooster-tail of dirt 15-20 feet in the air, trying like mad to get over to the northbound lanes. I wondered what had provoked such a precipitous response from him, until I saw a state trooper sitting on the median-shoulder of the freeway, about a quarter-mile further on. Apparently our hero was eager not to be seen by the police. I'm not sure that peeling out across the median, throwing up a huge dirt rooster-tail behind himself, was the most effective strategy in that regard, but he certainly gave it his best shot.
-------------------------
I'm not sure what connection there could possibly be between going to see my 'first mother' and vehicular near-misses, but it is at least amazingly coincidental that we've had two incredible close calls (and with the same six people in a minivan both times), both while on the way to see her.
And we've apparently got some very capable guardian angels. . .
Monday, December 15, 2008
Tough Times, If You've Ever Been Married to My Dad
I posted a couple months ago about my ‘stepmother’ (Dad’s second wife), and her struggles with Alzheimer’s. My parents had moved out of their home of the past 35 years, and into an assisted-living facility. They chose the place they did, because of its proximity to a level of care for Mom that would allow them to live together for as long as possible.
Well, it turns out that ‘as long as possible’ was about a month-and-a-half. Something about leaving her familiar surroundings and into a new-and-unfamiliar place seemed to ‘disorient’ Mom, and she fairly quickly started up with some more ‘difficult’ behaviors that just made it impossible for Dad to take care of her, so in September, she moved out of the assisted-living place, and into a full-out nursing home, about a ten-minute drive from Dad.
She seemed to do well enough at the nursing home, and the staff there complained, just a bit, that she was always ‘on the move’, and they spent more time than they’d have liked just ‘tracking her down’. Then a couple months ago, she just stopped. She wouldn’t get out of her chair, she didn’t want to get up and walk around at all. And nobody seemed to be able to tell us why. Finally, a couple weeks ago, some tests were run which determined that she’d had a pretty significant stroke, probably right around the time when she stopped walking.
And since then, her health has just continued to deteriorate. My sisters are now telling us to make sure that everybody comes down for Christmas, because it’s starting to seem like we won’t have her around for much longer.
It’s quite sad for my dad; he put a lot of thought and effort into finding a place that would keep them together for as long as possible, and it just seems cruel that it couldn’t have been just a bit longer. But, as we well know, there are no guarantees. . .
-------------------------
I’ve blogged about the fact that I have three mothers – my birth-mother, my ‘stepmother’ and my ‘first mother’ – my dad’s first wife, who adopted me, along with Dad. I’ve had a few things to say about my ‘first mother’ in the past, but I haven’t given a very full account of her story, so perhaps it’s time I did that, just a bit.
My ‘first mother’ was born in Germany in the 1920s. She was a pre-teen when the Nazis took power, and that fact pretty much set the tone for the next decade-and-a-half of her life (as it did for virtually all Germans of the time). Because her mother was ill, her father was able to keep her out of the Hitler Youth, to care for her mother. She was a young adult when the war started, and by the end of the war, she was working in a field hospital somewhere in Austria. She told us once about the last days of the war, and how everyone she worked with simply headed west as fast as they could, so as to fall into the hands of the Americans, if possible, but anyone besides the Soviets. Which she managed to accomplish.
After the war, she got a secretarial job working for the US State Department in the postwar reconstruction (which was only possible because she had never been a Nazi, including the Hitler Youth), and it was there that she met my dad. They were married in Germany just before Dad’s tour of duty ended, and she came to the US with Dad when he returned home to finish his college degree on the GI Bill.
They were married for nine years without any children, before they finally adopted me, and two years later, my brother. When I was little, we lived in the Detroit suburbs, but when I was seven years old, we moved Up North.
I’m not sure exactly what sort of marital difficulties they were having, but during the winter in which I had my ninth birthday, she left. I remember my dad sitting down with my brother and me, telling us that Mom had left, and she probably wouldn’t be coming back. And that was effectively the last we heard from her, until many years later. There were a few awkward phone calls, and she sent us birthday cards for a few years – I recall that the last one was for my 13th birthday.
My brother and I lived a kind of ‘bachelor’ existence with Dad for the next year, but he pretty quickly took up with the woman who would become our ‘new mother’ (and would instantly add three more children to our ‘new family’), and they were married before my tenth birthday (the ink was hardly dry on the divorce papers).
Fast forward now to my early 30s; Molly and I had been married for a while, and 3M had just been born. 1F had started school, and she was also exhibiting some fairly remarkable musical aptitude. And it caused me to think of my ‘first mother’, who had been quite formative of my own musical abilities – she had insisted that I start piano lessons when I was five, and she had brought music into our home (my dad, on the other hand, was pretty thoroughly tone-deaf), and that had always stayed with me.
Somewhere along the line, I thought that I wanted to thank her for having brought that into my life, so I decided to try to find her, and re-connect with her, if possible. I followed a few leads, but mostly ran into dead ends. But I did register with a ‘people-finder’ service through Social Security, where they would, blind to me, and if possible, contact the person being sought, and inform them that I was desiring contact with them. At that point, any contact would be up to them.
And, over Thanksgiving of 1988, she called me, and we re-established our relationship. I learned that she had remarried in 1969 (roughly corresponding to when the birthday cards had stopped). She and her new husband had no children; and he’d had no children with his first wife, who had died a few years previously. In the 70s, they’d moved to a warm-weather state 1000 miles from Michigan, and that’s where they’d lived ever since.
She had never told her new husband that she’d had children, so when I came onto the scene, she had some ‘splainin’ to do. (I think this was partly to do with her insecurity over her own infertility; even when she was still married to Dad, I don’t think she really, deep in her gut, thought of herself as our mother). But, in the fullness of time, we formed a warm friendship with her and her ‘new husband’ (to whom, by the time of our reunion, she’d been married nearly 20 years).
The following spring, we went Down South to visit them (and swim in the ocean for the first time), and we had roughly annual visits with them for several years afterward, until her husband’s death in the mid-90s.
Since his death, she has lived as a widow, independent and active in her church. She moved to an assisted-living facility a few years back, but she has always had a strong network of relationships.
I have been in the habit of calling each of my mothers during the major holidays. This year, when I called my ‘first mother, she didn’t answer her phone. I didn’t think much of it – I figured she was probably spending the time with friends from her church, and we’d eventually hear from her. But she didn’t call back, and after a couple days, we started to get worried. Fortunately, she’d given us the phone number of one of her neighbors, and told us to call the neighbor if we couldn’t contact her, for some reason. So Molly called the neighbor, and we learned that she’d fallen three times in the week before Thanksgiving, and was in the hospital. She didn’t have any broken bones, but she was sore and bruised, and her legs had essentially stopped working. And then, while she was in the hospital, she’d contracted pneumonia.
We had quite a bit of difficulty getting to actually talk with her, and by the time we did, this past weekend, we found out that she was being moved to a temporary nursing home, and her nephews (her late husband’s brother’s sons) were working on moving her to a home back in Michigan (God bless her nephews; they have treated her as a beloved family member since the day she married their uncle; it is a little bit daunting for us to think about contacting them to ask them to keep us in the communication loop).
It will be nice to have her closer at hand, and to be able to visit her much more easily than when she was Down South, but it is clear that now both of the women who spent any amount of time raising me are in the ‘end game’ of their lives at the same time. I’m absolutely glad that we were able to be reunited, and to be part of each other’s lives, to whatever degree, for the past 20 years.
It’s a little bit difficult to sort out just what the demands of ‘Honor your father and mother’ are, when referring to multiple mothers in various situations and relationships to us. But I do want to give each of them the honor, and gratitude, that they are due, and that God requires of me. But it’s not always clear just what that is. . .
And, just in case anybody is wondering, my birth-mother’s health is just fine; at least, as of a couple days ago. . .
Well, it turns out that ‘as long as possible’ was about a month-and-a-half. Something about leaving her familiar surroundings and into a new-and-unfamiliar place seemed to ‘disorient’ Mom, and she fairly quickly started up with some more ‘difficult’ behaviors that just made it impossible for Dad to take care of her, so in September, she moved out of the assisted-living place, and into a full-out nursing home, about a ten-minute drive from Dad.
She seemed to do well enough at the nursing home, and the staff there complained, just a bit, that she was always ‘on the move’, and they spent more time than they’d have liked just ‘tracking her down’. Then a couple months ago, she just stopped. She wouldn’t get out of her chair, she didn’t want to get up and walk around at all. And nobody seemed to be able to tell us why. Finally, a couple weeks ago, some tests were run which determined that she’d had a pretty significant stroke, probably right around the time when she stopped walking.
And since then, her health has just continued to deteriorate. My sisters are now telling us to make sure that everybody comes down for Christmas, because it’s starting to seem like we won’t have her around for much longer.
It’s quite sad for my dad; he put a lot of thought and effort into finding a place that would keep them together for as long as possible, and it just seems cruel that it couldn’t have been just a bit longer. But, as we well know, there are no guarantees. . .
-------------------------
I’ve blogged about the fact that I have three mothers – my birth-mother, my ‘stepmother’ and my ‘first mother’ – my dad’s first wife, who adopted me, along with Dad. I’ve had a few things to say about my ‘first mother’ in the past, but I haven’t given a very full account of her story, so perhaps it’s time I did that, just a bit.
My ‘first mother’ was born in Germany in the 1920s. She was a pre-teen when the Nazis took power, and that fact pretty much set the tone for the next decade-and-a-half of her life (as it did for virtually all Germans of the time). Because her mother was ill, her father was able to keep her out of the Hitler Youth, to care for her mother. She was a young adult when the war started, and by the end of the war, she was working in a field hospital somewhere in Austria. She told us once about the last days of the war, and how everyone she worked with simply headed west as fast as they could, so as to fall into the hands of the Americans, if possible, but anyone besides the Soviets. Which she managed to accomplish.
After the war, she got a secretarial job working for the US State Department in the postwar reconstruction (which was only possible because she had never been a Nazi, including the Hitler Youth), and it was there that she met my dad. They were married in Germany just before Dad’s tour of duty ended, and she came to the US with Dad when he returned home to finish his college degree on the GI Bill.
They were married for nine years without any children, before they finally adopted me, and two years later, my brother. When I was little, we lived in the Detroit suburbs, but when I was seven years old, we moved Up North.
I’m not sure exactly what sort of marital difficulties they were having, but during the winter in which I had my ninth birthday, she left. I remember my dad sitting down with my brother and me, telling us that Mom had left, and she probably wouldn’t be coming back. And that was effectively the last we heard from her, until many years later. There were a few awkward phone calls, and she sent us birthday cards for a few years – I recall that the last one was for my 13th birthday.
My brother and I lived a kind of ‘bachelor’ existence with Dad for the next year, but he pretty quickly took up with the woman who would become our ‘new mother’ (and would instantly add three more children to our ‘new family’), and they were married before my tenth birthday (the ink was hardly dry on the divorce papers).
Fast forward now to my early 30s; Molly and I had been married for a while, and 3M had just been born. 1F had started school, and she was also exhibiting some fairly remarkable musical aptitude. And it caused me to think of my ‘first mother’, who had been quite formative of my own musical abilities – she had insisted that I start piano lessons when I was five, and she had brought music into our home (my dad, on the other hand, was pretty thoroughly tone-deaf), and that had always stayed with me.
Somewhere along the line, I thought that I wanted to thank her for having brought that into my life, so I decided to try to find her, and re-connect with her, if possible. I followed a few leads, but mostly ran into dead ends. But I did register with a ‘people-finder’ service through Social Security, where they would, blind to me, and if possible, contact the person being sought, and inform them that I was desiring contact with them. At that point, any contact would be up to them.
And, over Thanksgiving of 1988, she called me, and we re-established our relationship. I learned that she had remarried in 1969 (roughly corresponding to when the birthday cards had stopped). She and her new husband had no children; and he’d had no children with his first wife, who had died a few years previously. In the 70s, they’d moved to a warm-weather state 1000 miles from Michigan, and that’s where they’d lived ever since.
She had never told her new husband that she’d had children, so when I came onto the scene, she had some ‘splainin’ to do. (I think this was partly to do with her insecurity over her own infertility; even when she was still married to Dad, I don’t think she really, deep in her gut, thought of herself as our mother). But, in the fullness of time, we formed a warm friendship with her and her ‘new husband’ (to whom, by the time of our reunion, she’d been married nearly 20 years).
The following spring, we went Down South to visit them (and swim in the ocean for the first time), and we had roughly annual visits with them for several years afterward, until her husband’s death in the mid-90s.
Since his death, she has lived as a widow, independent and active in her church. She moved to an assisted-living facility a few years back, but she has always had a strong network of relationships.
I have been in the habit of calling each of my mothers during the major holidays. This year, when I called my ‘first mother, she didn’t answer her phone. I didn’t think much of it – I figured she was probably spending the time with friends from her church, and we’d eventually hear from her. But she didn’t call back, and after a couple days, we started to get worried. Fortunately, she’d given us the phone number of one of her neighbors, and told us to call the neighbor if we couldn’t contact her, for some reason. So Molly called the neighbor, and we learned that she’d fallen three times in the week before Thanksgiving, and was in the hospital. She didn’t have any broken bones, but she was sore and bruised, and her legs had essentially stopped working. And then, while she was in the hospital, she’d contracted pneumonia.
We had quite a bit of difficulty getting to actually talk with her, and by the time we did, this past weekend, we found out that she was being moved to a temporary nursing home, and her nephews (her late husband’s brother’s sons) were working on moving her to a home back in Michigan (God bless her nephews; they have treated her as a beloved family member since the day she married their uncle; it is a little bit daunting for us to think about contacting them to ask them to keep us in the communication loop).
It will be nice to have her closer at hand, and to be able to visit her much more easily than when she was Down South, but it is clear that now both of the women who spent any amount of time raising me are in the ‘end game’ of their lives at the same time. I’m absolutely glad that we were able to be reunited, and to be part of each other’s lives, to whatever degree, for the past 20 years.
It’s a little bit difficult to sort out just what the demands of ‘Honor your father and mother’ are, when referring to multiple mothers in various situations and relationships to us. But I do want to give each of them the honor, and gratitude, that they are due, and that God requires of me. But it’s not always clear just what that is. . .
And, just in case anybody is wondering, my birth-mother’s health is just fine; at least, as of a couple days ago. . .
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The Residue of Divorce
I’ve mentioned previously that the effects of divorce on children are sadly all-too-well documented. There is a whole set of fears and neuroses that cluster around the category 'children of divorce'. And I can see some of them in myself.
For virtually all of my post-divorce childhood, and into my young adulthood, I didn't particularly 'feel' any effects of my parents' divorce - I didn't cry myself to sleep, and, once we settled into the routines of the 'new' family, life was busy and challenging and intense. I had an 'alpha male' contest to work out with my step-brother (I'll call him my 'step-brother' for blogging purposes, just because it's easier; in real life, I've only ever called him my 'brother'; just so you know), and, for the first time in my life, I had sisters, which introduced a whole interesting set of parameters to my life.
My 'first mother' pretty much just disappeared from the scene of our lives. In retrospect, I think it had more to do with a sense of shame than any kind of rejection of us (but she had clearly rejected my dad, and didn't particularly want to bump into him, if she could help it). For a couple years after she left, she sent my brother and me birthday cards, but then, even that stopped, and I wouldn't hear from her again for over 20 years. I can't say that I ever consciously 'missed her'; maybe I did, but I don't remember it.
To backtrack just a bit, for the year between when my mother left and when my dad got married again, we lived in a different house. We had moved 'up north' when I was seven, and our house was right on the shore of one of the Great Lakes, which is a pretty good working model of heaven - long walks on the beach, going swimming at the drop of a hat all summer long, and beautiful scenery out the back window all year long. So, the first casualty of my parents' divorce was living in heaven. Dad moved us into an old house 'in town', where we could be more easily cared for while he was at work.
I look back on that year with a kind of odd amusement. Dad certainly did well enough by my brother and me, but - well, he was a guy. Lots of mac-n-cheese for dinner, and he was as likely to open a can of kippers for dinner as anything else.
When Dad remarried, we moved again, into another house on the edge of town, at the isolated end of a dead-end street, with the yard surrounded on all sides by woods. And that was where we lived for the rest of my youth.
My relationship with my step-brother was interesting. I'd grown up pretty sheltered and bookish up to that point; he'd grown up on the street. He was much 'tougher' than I was, more street-wise, and generally 'hipper'. When he wanted to assert his dominance, he would just pound on my shoulder until I cried. But, as we got older, I stood up to him more and more. I recall one time when he was taunting me during a football game with a group of our friends, and I chased him around the field in a blind rage; I was sure that I saw fear in his eyes, and he treated me better after that. Over time, we arrived at a decently respectful relationship with each other.
He always had trouble with Dad, and when he was 16, he ran away from home. His life has been a lot harder than it needed to be, but at the time, I admired him for being able to live 'on his own', and I wondered if I could do that, when the time came.
-------------------------
Anyway - the effects of divorce. When Molly and I were dating, and I laid out the story of my life for her - adoption, divorce, etc, etc - she looked at me and asked, in the way that only Molly could, "How can you possibly be normal?" (She found out, heh, heh, heh)
I sometimes see in myself a kind of insecurity, a fear that the good things in my life won't last, or will be taken from me. Molly will tell you that, right up until our wedding day, I was anxious that something would go tragically wrong - she'd get run over by a truck, or she'd change her mind about getting married, or whatever. I even worried that we'd get in an accident on our honeymoon, and be killed before our life together could really get started.
Going back a bit further, I think that, with my girlfriends before Molly, I was a 'clingier-than-normal' boyfriend, which they eventually found kind of stifling.
I've been prone to depression most of my life. I've never taken medication for it, and it's never been debilitating, but, given the right day and the right set of bleak circumstances, life can seem pretty hopeless and dreary. That's the point at which having Molly for my wife really works in my favor - she's so sunny, so sanguine, that she just cheers me right up out of it. Most of the time, anyway.
So yeah - until ten or fifteen years ago, I'd have said that I was unaffected by my parents' divorce. I don't say that anymore. The effects haven't been crippling, and I've had a good life, even so. But the scars are there; they're 'deal-able with', but they are there.
-------------------------
Just as a kind of 'post-script', I did eventually get back in touch with my 'first mother'. 1F is very musical, and when she was five or so, we started her on piano lessons, and she took right off with them. I recalled that my 'first mother' had gotten me started on piano lessons, and had instilled in me a love of music (my dad can't carry a tune in a basket), which I then saw passing through to 1F, and I wanted to thank her for planting that seed in our lives. So, with that as the motivation, I decided to look for her. I was able to track her for a few years after she'd left my dad, but then the trail went cold, and I quit searching. Then over Thanksgiving - what, 18 years ago? - out of the blue, she called. Somebody I'd talked to had talked to somebody, who'd talked to somebody, who told her I was looking for her.
She'd gotten remarried four years after she left Dad, which corresponded to the time that the birthday cards stopped coming. She'd never told her new husband that she'd had kids, and the news that I was looking for her left her with some 'splainin' to do. (The 'adoptive' thing played into it, too - even when she was still with us, she didn't really, 'deep in her gut', think of herself as our 'real' mother; kinda sad, when I think about it).
Anyway, we've re-established our relationship, and she's happy to know us and our kids. Ironic, on one level, that she and my dad are both still living, well into their 80s; they'd have celebrated their 59th anniversary a few weeks ago, if they'd stayed married.
-------------------------
But, I don't have any 'yearnings' to go back and have the life we had before. As I hope I've conveyed, for all the bumps in the road, we wound up with a good family, one which gave life to its inhabitants. But sometimes I look back and just marvel at all the twists and turns that have brought my life to where it is today.
La-la, how the life goes on. . .
(8 comments)
For virtually all of my post-divorce childhood, and into my young adulthood, I didn't particularly 'feel' any effects of my parents' divorce - I didn't cry myself to sleep, and, once we settled into the routines of the 'new' family, life was busy and challenging and intense. I had an 'alpha male' contest to work out with my step-brother (I'll call him my 'step-brother' for blogging purposes, just because it's easier; in real life, I've only ever called him my 'brother'; just so you know), and, for the first time in my life, I had sisters, which introduced a whole interesting set of parameters to my life.
My 'first mother' pretty much just disappeared from the scene of our lives. In retrospect, I think it had more to do with a sense of shame than any kind of rejection of us (but she had clearly rejected my dad, and didn't particularly want to bump into him, if she could help it). For a couple years after she left, she sent my brother and me birthday cards, but then, even that stopped, and I wouldn't hear from her again for over 20 years. I can't say that I ever consciously 'missed her'; maybe I did, but I don't remember it.
To backtrack just a bit, for the year between when my mother left and when my dad got married again, we lived in a different house. We had moved 'up north' when I was seven, and our house was right on the shore of one of the Great Lakes, which is a pretty good working model of heaven - long walks on the beach, going swimming at the drop of a hat all summer long, and beautiful scenery out the back window all year long. So, the first casualty of my parents' divorce was living in heaven. Dad moved us into an old house 'in town', where we could be more easily cared for while he was at work.
I look back on that year with a kind of odd amusement. Dad certainly did well enough by my brother and me, but - well, he was a guy. Lots of mac-n-cheese for dinner, and he was as likely to open a can of kippers for dinner as anything else.
When Dad remarried, we moved again, into another house on the edge of town, at the isolated end of a dead-end street, with the yard surrounded on all sides by woods. And that was where we lived for the rest of my youth.
My relationship with my step-brother was interesting. I'd grown up pretty sheltered and bookish up to that point; he'd grown up on the street. He was much 'tougher' than I was, more street-wise, and generally 'hipper'. When he wanted to assert his dominance, he would just pound on my shoulder until I cried. But, as we got older, I stood up to him more and more. I recall one time when he was taunting me during a football game with a group of our friends, and I chased him around the field in a blind rage; I was sure that I saw fear in his eyes, and he treated me better after that. Over time, we arrived at a decently respectful relationship with each other.
He always had trouble with Dad, and when he was 16, he ran away from home. His life has been a lot harder than it needed to be, but at the time, I admired him for being able to live 'on his own', and I wondered if I could do that, when the time came.
-------------------------
Anyway - the effects of divorce. When Molly and I were dating, and I laid out the story of my life for her - adoption, divorce, etc, etc - she looked at me and asked, in the way that only Molly could, "How can you possibly be normal?" (She found out, heh, heh, heh)
I sometimes see in myself a kind of insecurity, a fear that the good things in my life won't last, or will be taken from me. Molly will tell you that, right up until our wedding day, I was anxious that something would go tragically wrong - she'd get run over by a truck, or she'd change her mind about getting married, or whatever. I even worried that we'd get in an accident on our honeymoon, and be killed before our life together could really get started.
Going back a bit further, I think that, with my girlfriends before Molly, I was a 'clingier-than-normal' boyfriend, which they eventually found kind of stifling.
I've been prone to depression most of my life. I've never taken medication for it, and it's never been debilitating, but, given the right day and the right set of bleak circumstances, life can seem pretty hopeless and dreary. That's the point at which having Molly for my wife really works in my favor - she's so sunny, so sanguine, that she just cheers me right up out of it. Most of the time, anyway.
So yeah - until ten or fifteen years ago, I'd have said that I was unaffected by my parents' divorce. I don't say that anymore. The effects haven't been crippling, and I've had a good life, even so. But the scars are there; they're 'deal-able with', but they are there.
-------------------------
Just as a kind of 'post-script', I did eventually get back in touch with my 'first mother'. 1F is very musical, and when she was five or so, we started her on piano lessons, and she took right off with them. I recalled that my 'first mother' had gotten me started on piano lessons, and had instilled in me a love of music (my dad can't carry a tune in a basket), which I then saw passing through to 1F, and I wanted to thank her for planting that seed in our lives. So, with that as the motivation, I decided to look for her. I was able to track her for a few years after she'd left my dad, but then the trail went cold, and I quit searching. Then over Thanksgiving - what, 18 years ago? - out of the blue, she called. Somebody I'd talked to had talked to somebody, who'd talked to somebody, who told her I was looking for her.
She'd gotten remarried four years after she left Dad, which corresponded to the time that the birthday cards stopped coming. She'd never told her new husband that she'd had kids, and the news that I was looking for her left her with some 'splainin' to do. (The 'adoptive' thing played into it, too - even when she was still with us, she didn't really, 'deep in her gut', think of herself as our 'real' mother; kinda sad, when I think about it).
Anyway, we've re-established our relationship, and she's happy to know us and our kids. Ironic, on one level, that she and my dad are both still living, well into their 80s; they'd have celebrated their 59th anniversary a few weeks ago, if they'd stayed married.
-------------------------
But, I don't have any 'yearnings' to go back and have the life we had before. As I hope I've conveyed, for all the bumps in the road, we wound up with a good family, one which gave life to its inhabitants. But sometimes I look back and just marvel at all the twists and turns that have brought my life to where it is today.
La-la, how the life goes on. . .
(8 comments)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)