The Ugliness

I have been thinking about my grandmother a lot, and I realized that I have evaded the most shameful part of my story:  my mother's past and her time in prison.  This is what I alluded to when I said that my story would not always be chronological, because so many years made up what my mother became and the destruction of our family that resulted.

After hearing hidden stories from relatives and putting together what happened around me when I was younger I realized that my mother was a very hungry woman.  She also had a willpower that was hard to stand up to or overcome.  My older sister, who I no longer speak to, fought against it.  She ran away from home in her very early teens - at the age of twelve she stole my mother's car while we were living in Lake Forest, Alabama and made it all the way to Oklahoma before she was apprehended and my mother went to pick her up.  I am sure that the car ride home was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my sister's life.  I was the mouse - I didn't talk back and tried to do what was expected of me without making waves.  My brother?  He was probably the most victimized since my mother made him her "sympathy card" - after brain surgery as an infant she coddled him and protected him, refusing to let up on the reins even when he was in his twenties.  Her influence on him is still evident to this day.

I suppose it is best to lay out the facts of the events that led to my mother's imprisonment and then go backwards in subsequent posts.  

My grandmother developed Alzheimer's Disease in her 70's, but we were not aware of its insidious creep into her life until later.  Unfortunately for all of us, by the time it began to clearly show it's ugliness, my grandmother had moved into my mother's household to ease the financial burdens on both she and my mother.  

I left home on the night of Christmas Day, sneaking out in the middle of the night after a horrible fight with my mother.   My boyfriend (who I was not supposed to be seeing anymore...his "sin"?  Not leaving his parents high and dry after a hurricane to come help MY mother clean up HER yard - literally) had braved her hatred to call and ask if he could come by with a small gift for me and she allowed it.  This made him brave enough to call me later during her "awake" hours, and then to do it again a bit later.  Needless to say I had begun saying it was other friends, but she got suspicious.  It got very ugly.  At one point she tried to push me down the stairs, and when my grandmother tried to intervene I watched as my mother forced her back into her room and slammed her arm in the door two or three times until Grandma gave up.  When I left later I went to her and told her I was going and she didn't try to stop me.  Just told me that she loved me very much.  Then I snuck down and said goodbye to my brother. 

It didn't last long.  When my mother called my father (I guess she didn't want the embarrassment of the town knowing she had TWO runaway daughters so didn't call the police) he knew where I was and drove to Jody's parents house from where he lived in Birmingham.  They had allowed me to stay there that night, but they all explained that we had no choice.  So I "moved" to live with my father and stepmother. 

Those were my last days under my mother's roof.  I never went back, but the rest will come in another post.  I wonder if things would have been different for my grandmother and my brother if I had stayed.  Maybe not, because I am sure I would still have moved out and away before the worst of what was to come.