Preface: Perhaps you've noticed the changes in our Banner on our Blog. To personalize the space some more, our creative genius buddy Miz Bohemia added both my face, see the character with the torch, and Wonder Woman's (she's the one backing me up and providing the 'spark' for my torch). We are together burning down the Tower that represents the Ego.

MY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER

When my mother was still alive I couldn't and wouldn't write about her. My initial problem was that I had promised my grandma Goody, her mother who I loved a lot, that I would never 'tell' anyone (especially my father) that my mother was being mean to me. That when we were alone she would sometimes yell at me, and hit me, and pinch me, and say mean things to me. That she sometimes locked me in the closet and that she gave me enemas when I for sure didn't want them and she would knock me to the bathroom floor and she would make me have an enema when I was screaming for her not to do that to me again–I would be a good girl!

To almost everyone in the world my mother didn't look like a mean person. Her High School Year Book said about her, "A laugh, a snort, a snappy retort, that's Sue, a jolly good sport"! I heard her friends say this about her even before I could read it for myself in that book that has her pretty, young, and smiley face in it. Under her face was written all the good things that she had done, all the Clubs she belonged to. She was a Booster, she was in the Drama Club, she was in the French Club and she had made the Honor Society. Her friends would all be laughing when they said that "jolly good sport" thing, because someone, usually my mother, had just said something funny. Something that she said that once again made her look like a "jolly good sport." In those early days my Mother and her happy and fun loving witty spirit, her laugh and her quick footedness, her readiness to go out, and to dance, and to entertain, made her a hero to her friends.

They never saw what she ever did to me, because mostly she was laughing and being cute and smart and having a good time with them and being a perfect hostess and a good cook all the time they were all there and would see the two of us together. But usually just before they came over, while she was hurrying around to get ready for their company she would be mostly very angry and even seem sort of scared. She'd be racing around and yelling at me to stay clean, not to dare get my dress or my shoes dirty, and be rushing, and cooking and dusting, and smoking Pall Malls. But then just as soon as the first person arrived, she would become my 'good' Mommy, the jolly good sport again.

I loved it when we had company, and fortunately for me that happened a lot. My mother was very popular, and so was my father too, and so their friends and their families would come over a lot. She would usually say good things about me then in front of everyone, very different than the things that sometimes she would scream at me when we were alone. I loved to listen to those conversations. I maybe wasn't very cute, like Shirley Temple was, but I was very smart, maybe even smarter than Shirley Temple. My Mother told me that too, I mean that I was very, very smart. She told me that I was so smart that I wouldn't bear grudges. She told me that smart people never bore grudges.

I talked when I was 4 months old, and walked when I was 6 months old. My mother told me that. So did all her friends and all my relatives. People that I hardly knew in Sea Gate where I grew up would sometimes stop me on the street, or on the beach, or in the Sweet Shoppe, and tell me things that I said when I was not even a year old, and that I would run down to the edge of the ocean water, strip off my bathing suit and run the beaches, and I was just a baby. I was kind of famous in my neighborhood.

My Mother also told me that I would unscrew the screws on my crib and make the sides fall down, and I somehow knew that I was just trying to run away from her. She told me how she had to use adhesive tape to cover over the screws because no matter how tight they would screw the screws I would unscrew them with my little thumb nails and take my crib apart and start running away again.

But I also had my good Mommy sometimes when people weren't over at our house. I can remember when I was very little being in bed with her. That she would be holding me and telling me wonderful stories. My mother told me stories about Gods and Goddesses, and Romans and banquets and myths and fairy tales just like we were there. I knew about Pegasus, and Icarus and Daedalus, and flying too high in the sky so the wax melted and the boy fell and died. I knew about Medusa, and Apollo, and Narcissus, and the little Goose Girl, and the Toy Soldier and his Tin Heart. Before my sister was born she would have me in her bed with her and tell me these great stories. But that all seemed to stop at some point. I used to think that it was because I didn't take naps anymore. Today, I think that it was because I got potty trained and stopped wearing silk diapers. I also got toilet trained, she said, when I was very, very little.

My sister was 4 years younger than me, and I think that the nap times had stopped way before she was born. Another funny thing was that even if this was supposed to be my nap time, my Mother would be the one who fell asleep first. I'd stay awake. It was like I always felt that I had been asleep already, and would just watch her as she fell asleep. I would lay there close against her body and if she was turned the right way I would play with the hairs on a big mole that she had on her arm. Very quietly, I would lay there. I would be very still because I didn't want to wake her up.

When I was an infant I had a condition called, "eczema" that I was born with. My mother told me these things. The eczema was in one area of my body only, the 'diaper area', which my mother told me had big open sores. My mother told me that it was so bad that she and my grandmother had to make me special diapers that they made from real silk. My mother told me that because I had open sores all over my bottom, it really hurt me a lot for her to ever change my diapers. I would scream and scream.

Modern medical information about eczema is that it is an atypical form of dermatitis. Babies are sometimes born with skin that is super sensitive. Most babies who are prone to having hay fever and asthma often start with eczema. I never had hay fever or asthma. My metaphysical resource for the cause of dis-ease, Louise L. Hay, says this about eczema: "Breath-taking" antagonism. Mental eruptions." The healing affirmation is: "Harmony and peace, love and joy surround me and indwell me. I am safe and secure."

My Mother tip toed into the room and peered into the crib. Good, the baby was asleep. She picked her up very gently and quickly brought her to the bathroom, stripping her clothes off as she walked fast. The sink was already full of warm water, and she poised over it ripping off the baby's dirty diaper. Quickly she ducked the little head under the water. The baby's body stiffened for a moment, only a small amount of gagging and at that teeny moment when the baby's body went limp, she quickly withdrew it from the water. While the baby was coming to she deftly wiped and oiled her bottom and redid a clean silky smooth diaper, done! Then she hurried to her own bed cradling the half conscious baby and cooed over her little inert body as she exercised her little arms and coaxed the breaths back into the child.

I was the little girl who never would play with her baby dolls, except in one particular way. I would strip off their clothes, and I would take them under my bed and tie them up by the neck to the springs that were under my mattress. To this day I still can picture the images of dangling doll babies under my bed hanging there in orderly naked rows. I remember that even if I went under my bed to try to untie them and take them out of there to play with, that the knots were too tight and twisted for me to ever untie.

I also remembered during my first rebirthing experience–which happened while my Mother was dying and unconscious in a months-long coma–that I found myself in a conversation with her about what my gender would be when I was born. I wanted to be a boy; she would only have me if I agreed to be a girl. Her promise to me was that if I would give in to her and be a girl, she would be the most wonderful and attentive mother to me that there ever was. She promised me that she would be there always, and would take the best possible care of me. She didn't keep that promise.

She herself told me that she was unconscious when I was born, and sent me away when they first brought me to her to be nursed. She was too tired to feed the baby she said, and they took me back to the nursery and gave me a bottle. She told me that she could hear me screaming all the way back in her room which was way down the hall from the nursery.

She told me that I subsequently refused to nurse from her. Then I turned out to be allergic to all formulas and finally had to be fed milk made from soy beans. Cow milk and not even goat milk would do. I had determined that if my Mother wasn't safe, no sentient being could be safe and so I would only trust the milk of non sentient beans. In fact I was told that I would hardly eat at all and was a rather anorexic infant and toddler.

Louise L. Hay on Anorexia: "Denying the self life. Extreme fear, self hatred and rejection."

This is where I have to begin to be clear about my belief systems. I don't want to in any way impose these beliefs on you, dear reader. I am asking you however, to suspend your own beliefs for a while. I want to be up front and very clear about what I believe now, and I especially want you to know what I believed while I was growing up: I believe that before babies can even talk, before they are even born, babies hear and think and make up their minds about a lot of things.

I believe that we are all 'someones' coming from each of our own unique past histories. That we are influenced by our parent's behaviors and beliefs before we are born and certainly after we are here and in their charge. I believe we make our own decisions that are unfortunately frequently influenced by self-selective and therefore limited information; that this information is usually rather narrowly focused, we ourselves being our own leading experts. I believe that most parent's model that behavior to their children.

At times, my beliefs create what I then call my true life, part and parcel of the drama, the whirl and world of illusion and delusion that frequently gets me into the predicaments that are my personal soap operas. I do believe that I can change and alter the course of my own life as I change my beliefs, which can then be subject to change as I learn to be aware of the various options that life presents, “just like that,” and make new changes–just like that. Dealer's choice - I being my own 'dealer' and therefore, always my own chooser.

I grew up with grave inconsistencies in my life. I was either being an intuitive genius in school or failing something rule based like Algebra. I was kind to strays and slaughtered the crabs that I caught at the beach at the end of every day by bashing them against the rocks after building them beautiful habitats out of drift wood and sand and rocks to live in. I was a liar who stole money from my parents, and cookies from our neighbors. I had a terrible temper and was subject to raging fits and I was a volunteer who worked patiently and diligently with under privileged children. I was a great Mother to my infants and toddlers and I had an adolescent period in my life as an adult along with my adolescent children when I would disassociate and then be an adolescent rivaling them. I was an over achiever who had great periods of procrastination, having problems completing most projects. Over and above all other things, I was always careful to go out of my way to be a 'jolly good sport'. I would face up to other peoples needs and frequently at sacrifice to myself be the bigger person and even give them an undeserved win and then feel very sorry for myself.

There are broadly varied statistics about abused children. Some of us never make it out of our childhoods. Some of us grow up to become child abusers. Some of us become very high achievers. Some of us are suicides. Some of us go crazy. Some of us become criminals. Some of us become hopelessly drug addicted. Some of us just lope along never becoming very independent in life. Some of us demand to be in control and are ruthless competitors. Some of us never talk about it. Some of us get into abusive marriages. Some of us write books about it. Some of us become therapists. Some of us become homeless. Some of us do combinations of all of the above. There is even evidence that some of us very lucky ones are resilient.

Resilient: (definition from The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary) adj.(of a body or material) "Capable of resuming its shape, position, etc. after being subjected to stress, elastic.” (of human temperament) “…capable of recovering rapidly, esp. from an emotional shock, to spring back."

In the 80's, researchers published the results of a 30 year study of families parented by members who had severe emotional dysfunction. The study showed that some members of severely dysfunctional families didn't develop the most disabling emotional symptoms apparent in the family; they demonstrated resilience. The study showed that the resilient family member usually was mentored by some one. Another family member, a friend of the family, a teacher, some one, or something intervened.

What's the difference between "A laugh, a snort, a snappy retort" and being resilient? The image of my Mother and her High School persona has the sweet smell to me of her rebellious nature, something we had in common. Also, I did, in fact, later watch my Mother go 'sane' after many years of mental illness. I also knew first hand the members of her immediate family. So what caused her to be resilient enough to make her remarkable recovery and not to be resilient enough to want to live after she seemed to have recovered? Since I was there when she made her decision to live or to die, and watched helplessly as she began to set the wheels in motion for her own death, I want to finally sort this out by finally writing about my frequently beloved and frequently certifiable Mother, and me her oldest daughter, and my younger sister, and of course my Father.

Pieces, some giving me peace

Pieces

some only giving me more pieces,

fragments,

more un-answers,

information only

as I begin to lower myself into the pool,

the under ground depths,

as I seek to perhaps challenge my own former solutions.

Many pieces of my memories are making me

relive the resistance

that positioned persistent and powerful

I

as an angry child lost

in my own nature.

As I

resistant and righteous,

stood on what I called then firm ground.

I

the thrice landed bull

wanting to take on that watery slippery fish my Piscean Mother and hold her down,

while I puzzle this all out and

find the fine tuning

that my own study

that I have resisted for 30 years will lead me

finally fully to accept,

that even without her specific bait,

I always meant all by myself,

to be

my Mother's Daughter.