The Sound

The sound of motorcycles revving in the driveway meant that Uncle Dan was home, and with him came the entourage. One by one they pulled in, taking their place in Dan's court. He'd sit in his King Louie throne in the living room, and maybe his pet owl would be perched above him, sleeping in the day, unperturbed by Uncle Dan's loud and boisterous storytelling, his laugh that sounded like a pack of wild hyenas yipping all at once. Or was that just the pack of wolves he kept in the backyard? 

He'd tell stories from the movie set, and the motorcycle boys would hang on his every word, endure his sharp criticisms and sarcasm, and the nicknames he'd pegged them with: Bullet, Tall Boy, Rags. To stay in his orbit was to defer to him, and no matter how tough and intimidating they may have appeared, they did defer. Not because he threatened. He never had to prove his brute strength. He only had to cast a "look" your way.
It wasn't that they, or I, were afraid of him. We only feared not being in his orbit. To try to understand this is to try to understand the universe. He was the sun around which the rest of us orbited. And he was the black hole, sucking us all in, until we'd disappeared to ourselves.
He was the sun.
He was the king.
He was our savior and he was our destruction.

#TinyStories

Picture Perfect

Yesterday I posted this photo on facebook for #throwbackthursday. This is mini-me with my grandma Helen, my mother is center, and my Aunt Laura in yellow. I think my mother was 19 or 20, and my aunt was still in high school.

The photo got a lot of happy comments. So beautiful! Precious! Love it! Things of that sort.

It's one of those picture-perfect photos. But what no one knew is that my grandmother, just years later, would die of cancer. That my grandfather was a violent alcoholic who used to beat her. That my father, at this time, had just gone to prison. That there was incest, violence, alcoholism and drug abuse in this family. That years later the family would be shattered. That to this day we are estranged.

These are the characters in my first memoir which I will most likely never publish. 

For those of you who are writers, this is a great writing prompt. Look at a family photo, and write (imagine) the story. I guarantee you it is ten times deeper than what you see.

On the lighter side, I am grateful for my life. Everything I have experienced has grown my soul, and helped me to have empathy for others. I love my crazy, damaged family even though I don't see them.

Just a reminder that every person you see walking down the street has a rich and complicated story.  We are so much more than what we appear to be.

The Scorched Earth

This is the only childhood photo I have of my mother and I together. Like this photo, our relationship is faded, tattered at the edges. Things happened in our family, horrible things, that not only burned the bridge between us, but blew it into a million sharp fragments. We carry the shrapnel beneath our skin.

My mother and I have been estranged ten years. Recently, because of an illness in the family, we spoke. It was not a healing exactly, but it was something. I turned to my friend Laura Davis, who has written books on healing families, and asked her how I could even begin to heal with my mother.

“Start where you are,” she said.

But where are we?

We are zombies, walking wounded over the scorched earth, searching for signs of hope

behind the black-grey clouds of anger, pain, confusion.

Another year comes and goes and it’s Mother’s Day again, and I am bombarded with warm, fuzzy images on TV, in ads, in magazines, reminding me of what we are not.

There is no Hallmark card that fits us.

There is no card that says this;

You are my mother

You brought me – your choice at fifteen- into this world.

My DNA and history, my roots come through you

Your toxic relationships with men damaged me and yet in the aftermath,

I saw you stand alone, and understood how a woman could be fierce and strong

My scars, my tears, my nightmares, my courage, my fire, I owe to you

You created in me a warrior woman

For that I thank you

I’d like to list the things I love about you

But I’ve never really known you

I’ve seen glimpses– in the way you love animals and children, in your spirit of adventure, in the moments when you are soft and kind and vulnerable

Those glimpses are what gives me hope

It’s taken me a long time to forgive you

for the times you weren’t there to protect me

But I’m grateful for the times you were

I don’t know how to heal this sad and broken family

I only know it’s going to take something much bigger than me to map that road

I’ve spent years making peace with the bad memories,

while trying to hold on to the good

while praying we can get it right before we both leave this planet

You are my mother.

I wish you love. I wish you joy. I wish you hope.

I wish it were different.

I wish.