Some Q & A:
[Son]: Why was your father so mean?
Me: I don't know, [Son]. I think he was depressed and it made him feel angry.
[Son]: Why was he so mean to his own kids? You can't be mean to your own kids.
Me: He got mad because he expected everything to be exactly as he wanted it, and when it wasn't, he would get really mad. (Difficult to explain that he actually just expected us to read his mind well. I remember his getting mad at me for wearing some large stone ring he didn't like, and when I said, "What?" he angrily said, "If you don't know what I like and don't like....") Most people do get angry with their kids, but not that much. I think he just used to get mad and Mama never did anything about it and so he just got madder and madder.
[Son]: Why didn't Mama tell him to stop?
Me: (wondering how my five year old knows more about protecting your young children than my mother and his grandmother) She was afraid of him. (I know it's too much to tell him about the threats early in the marriage that he would kill her and cut up her face.)
[Son]: Why didn't Mama try to protect you?
Me: [I don't remember how I answered this one, since it's something I've wondered about for more than fifteen years and have never gotten an answer from my mother, except that I should be grateful that she stayed with him because otherwise [Husband’s] family would never have accepted me.]
[Son]: Did you love your father?
Me: [long pause] I don't know, [Son]. That is a good question and very difficult for me to answer. I did when I was very young. When I was a little older, I did because I felt that I had to. When I was a little older than [your older sister], I realized that I didn't. [didn't tell him that I would pray every night for him to die]
[Son]: Were you sad when your father died?
Me: That is also a very good question and also difficult for me to answer. I was shocked. I was just reallh, really shocked. I always thought I'd be glad to hear that, but by the time it happened, he had already made me so sad that it didn't really matter. When [my sistee] and I went back to Roswell for his funeral, I was sad and even felt sorry for him. There were other times I felt sorry for him, but I don't know whether I loved him [I thought his death would be closure for me, but I guess it wasn't. Seven years and four episodes of depression later, I still feel anger and hatred toward him and sadness and frustration that I cannot express it to my father.]
There were several other really good questions. The kid gives the impression of being a goofball, but is actually dangerously insightful. I can't remember other specific questions right now, but since we have this conversation every day or two, I'm sure my memory will be jogged.
Another question I got/get all the time, usually from white folks, but recently from a friend who is an Indian immigrant herself, is "Why didn't your mother leave? She was a doctor. She could have supported you financially. Why would she put up with that?"
I don't blame anyone who asks me this question. It's predictable, it's obvious why anyone would ask, especially white folks.
Just thinking about it makes me sick. It's so damn frustrating. I don't know myself. I got a zillion different answers from my mother. When I was young, it was, "This is a small town and people talk." Later it was false vacillation when I should have known she had no intent. Despite the violent threats of the early years, there came a point when she could have done it. I mentioned in a post a couple of years ago that once she answered back with, "If I leave him, whom do I have? How do I know you won't turn against me?" (now I see that those unbelievably cruel words were just an excuse for "I'm a big chicken shit.") She did also offer cultural explanations. A few years ago, she told me that just as in this American born generation I can argue with my husband, in her day, she couldn't and could not leave him and that I just couldn't understand. Oh yeah, another early on excuse which I cannot go back and edit into the paragraph since this text editor is weird on my iPad - she told us once that if she left she wouldn't have money to raise us. Also that the courts wouldn't give her custody. Later, in mor recent years, one excuse offered was that she would feel bad leaving him when he was so sick with diabetes.
I now know that these were all lies and excuses. I also know that there is no way I would ever let anyone hurt my kids like that. I would take them away and live on welfare or steal if I had to. I would do whatever it took to protect them. I know that I'm not the only one. This is a primal instinct. It says a lot about the woman who won't do it for self preservation.
This was the cause of a lot of resentment I've had toward my mother the last few years. For some reason, and I have absolutely no idea why, I seem to have lost the anger. Not let go, but just lost. I guess that's better for me and for the kids, but I also hate a part of myself for not getting my mother back for this. In my eyes, failure to protect when you can is akin to actively participating in the offenses.
I ask myself all the time why she didn't leave. And although I don't know why, I feel TREMENDOUS shame that she didn't. I am ashamed of her and ashamed of myself for being her daughter and still associating with her.
In the end, I guess I'm just supposed to be grateful that she didn't, because, according to her, if she had, [Husband’s] family never would have accepted me. I owe it entirely to her for her perseverance and martyrdom that I have this wonderful husband and family. Thanks mom - great job.
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