My Mother's Story

Joan Bell Moroney, born January 11, 1922, Edmonton, Alberta. She was the eighth of nine children: the youngest girl after six sisters, her brother was the youngest of them all. Her eldest brother, had died when he was three years old. She shared a bed with her Momma, from the time she was thirteen. Her father was a drinker and a gambler. He was larger than life. He lent my mother and father the down payment for their first house.

She told a story of going to the lake to swim with a bunch of friends when she was in her early teens. She stayed behind because she had her period and overheard all the boys in the group talking about the girls and about things they had 'done' with them. She drove home to her daughters that boys were like that and it was a lesson to not be 'easy' because boys would talk.

She met my father, William Donald Burton, when he was 18 and she was 21. It was April 1942. They were both in the army stationed in Red Deer, Alberta. They got in trouble for fraternizing - she was a private, he was an officer. She had many boyfriends before him, and had become engaged to more than one as these boys headed off to war. Dad joked that when he met her she had to return more than one engagement ring.

On a first date he insulted her by saying he wanted to be the father of her children.

They married on September 3, 1942. His parents didn't approve. Did I mention he was 18?

He went overseas soon after their wedding. She didn't see him again until he returned from the war in 1945. He returned with a dishonourable discharge (which was eventually overturned). She did not meet him at the train. He lived at the Salvation Army for a time. She finally took him home. The whys of this are all a mystery. I asked my Aunt about this once and she wouldn't tell me the details, only that I should ask my mother. I never did. I wish I had.

My father needed psychological support after the war. He went to work, and told my mother she had to quit her job. "There was no point him getting out of bed if she was working". He went to UBC to work towards an engineering degree. She became a housewife. They tried and tried to conceive - even going to a fertility doctor. The doctor told her she would not ever be able to get pregnant. In 1947 she walked into his office, 5 months pregnant, refusing to pay his bill.
Her first child, Tami Jean was born June 18, 1947, followed by Wendy Ellen, February 8, 1949, followed by the first son, John James, March 25, 1951.

They moved to Hamilton - my father taking a job with Westinghouse. At some point while there my mother started to drive off a cliff with all the children in the car. She regained her sanity for a moment and drove to a doctor. She woke up three weeks later in a mental ward.

They moved back to Burnaby BC where I was born. Mary-Anne, October 17, 1955. Then they moved to Victoria. My father was working for BC Electric in sales. We lived in Oak Bay. My father's namesake was born, William Donald Burton, February 10, 1959, and 16 months later my sister, Sherry Lynn, June 1, 1960. My mother often joked that my youngest sister's birthday coincided with the invention of the Birth Control Pill.

She miscarried once, between me and my younger brother.

The family moved to Vancouver in 1963. My father worked for BC Hydro, we all attended local schools, and my mother was an exemplary housewife, mother and gardener. She sewed clothes and curtains, wall-papered and painted, baked bread, made soup, prepared meals, shopped, waxed floors, canvassed for the Salvation Army and the March of Dimes, and entertained 'the ladies' for lunches.

My father died of cancer September 1, 1973. It was a long drawn out illness and my mother kept him at home as long as she could.

After my father died, my mother, only 51 was left at home with three teenagers still to raise. I was 17.

Our relationship had been complicated through my teens. I seemed to be caught between my mother and father. I loved him fiercely, and this seemed problematic for her.

However, there was some respite. We would go clubbing together, drink together, she would let my girlfriends and their boyfriends and my boyfriend all sleep in the living room together while she 'chaperoned'. It was bizarre.

Despite my father stating that he would pay for my university, my mother told me this would not be so. She didn't like my boyfriend. She would get angry that I didn't spend enough money on presents for her, or enough time with her. We fought. Alot.

I moved out wheb I was 19. Once I moved out, our relationship improved.

I had emergency surgery when I was in 3rd year university. She was there for me.

At first she didn't like my now husband. But he grew on her. She grew to love him. He called her Joan. I think she liked that.

She refused to pay for my wedding. I wasn't a virgin and that was a problem for her. She did end up paying for the cake and the sparkling wine. I was married in her back yard.

I moved far away up north and was in a bad car accident. She came up to take care of me, and to help me pack up and move back to Vancouver. She was there for me.

She played bingo, darts at the Legion and taught Yoga to senior ladies. She dated. She swam. She ran a boarding house in the family home. She had sons and daughters-in-law. She was a grandmother. I think there were times of great happiness, and great sadness. She talked of my father often. She missed him.

Through all these years alcohol played a large part of her life, as it had in her years with my father. He lost his license from a DUI while they lived in Victoria The first time I remember seeing her drunk was on Dad's homemade plum wine. After that it was more and more common. It was the time. Everyone's parents drank. Well not everyone's, and I started to suspect when I was in my early 20s that my family's relationship to alcohol was different.

I wanted to have some sort of intervention around her alcoholism around her sixtieth birthday. My siblings were not supportive of this idea. It was her life. It wasn't my business. Every family dinner/event was ruined (for me) by her drinking. It was my problem.

Once my son was born things got worse. There was alot of jealousy around my relationship with my dad's sister. I tried to maintain a relationship with my mother. By the time my second child was born this became more and more difficult. After a one year estrangement my mother and I reconciled. I vowed to only visit before the alcohol came out. It was an uneasy truce, but one that lasted until her death.

She moved to Vernon. Her drinking got worse. I visited her. I missed her. I loved having coffee with her in the morning. No alcohol, and she was funny and interesting and loving. She became estranged from my older sister, and then later from my younger brother and his wife.

As a family we soldiered on. I took on supporting my aunt, now suffering from Alzheimer's. My eldest sister took on supporting my mother.

My mother was suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. She was on oxygen. She was drinking a bottle of vodka a day. From early afternoon on, it wasn't a pretty picture.

She died August 24, 2004. I had seen her, for the last time, earlier that summer. I cried with a primal grief when I received the call from my eldest sister that she had passed. I hadn't expected my grief to be so deep, or so profound.

It has been over eight years since she passed. I am still reconciling my relationship with her, my anger, my sadness, my loss. We had some horrible fights. She said some horrible things to me. Things I find hard to forget, or forgive.

I know she was unhappy. Unhappy probably from 1942. Alcohol was a way to self medicate that unhappiness. I know that and I am trying hard to forgive it. To have compassion as a good friend once told me. I think of myself as a compassionate person, and it saddens me that perhaps to this woman, who needed my compassion the most, well, I wasn't able, still am not fully able, to give it.

But I am working on it.

I saw the play, My Mother's Story, last Thursday night. It made me sad. It hit a little too close to the bone. It made me see that all these stories of women born in that generation are so similar. Those stories are her story.

What a life. One of seven children. Mother of six. Married to a man to whom I believe there was a passion, but not necessarily a connection. She was happy as that young married woman, her husband overseas, she working and living independently. She loved Vancouver, the beaches, the bustle of the city. I think she even had a good relationship to my father's family, my grandmother and aunt, though this was not to last.

When she was dying, although neither of us would speak of it in those terms, she told me her friend, Amy, had died. Amy was a friend from the war. She said that Amy had asked her some years back to move in with her. My mother said she wished she had. She said Amy was a true friend that she missed. I had never heard her talk of this person before.

People loved my mother. They loved her silliness, and her kindness.

I would have loved to know her in the early 40s. I think she would have been a good friend.

But, that is just my interpretation, and it could be totally wrong. This is my mother's story as I know it. And alot of pieces are missing.

the conversations I don't have

The hardest thing about estrangement is the conversations I don't have. Well, to be clear, I mean the ones I don't have out loud. I have the conversations over and over again in my head. They take many forms. There are the conversations to clear up misunderstandings. There are the conversations that ask why. There are the conversations that share my side of the story. There are the conversations where I express my disappointment, or anger, or sadness. There are the conversations where I ask "Are we ok?" or "Are we going to be ok?" or "Do you talk about me and about this estrangment with others?" or "Did you get their side of the story?" or "Do you want to hear my side of the story?" or "Can you fix this?" or "Do you have an opinion?" or "Is there something you want to say to me about this?". Sometimes the noise in my head is deafening.

The silence is worse.

The most difficult thought, I suppose, is that the other person doesn't think about any of these things, doesn't care at all that I am not in their life.

This is harder than any break-up. It is harder because I imagine it is affecting my other relationships and I don't know how to reconcile myself to that. And maybe it isn't even true.

It is the unspoken silences between myself and others. The unspoken silences where I fill in the dialogue.

I think it is why I feel I have no voice these days. I do have a voice, but I am afraid to use it. I also am afraid to hear the answers to the questions I am afraid to ask. Not knowing isn't better, but it does give me a glimmer of hope. Once you know, you know.

I fret when texts aren't answered, phones don't ring, facebook replies are short, or non-existent. I just fret.

Well, that can't be good.

It is my own fault, really.

I seem to think I can pick when, or when not, to be brave. Usually when I just speak it works out. But, not always. Like now. Speaking out has cost me.

Not speaking out has cost me.

Like now.

I could be drinking coffee and watching the sunrise and planning my projects for the day.

Unfortunately, I am such a good multi-tasker that I can do all that and still fret.

I also have to learn that I don't have to make the first move. Relationships are a two way street. Silence exists on both sides.

I guess my really worry is that the silence means they aren't even considering all this stuff and I am just spinning my wheels.

"Tilting at windmills", my mother would say.

I never got that expression until lately.

I wonder if tilting at windmills is a temperment thing.

I wonder if I can stop? Tilting at windmills, I mean.

Grief is a funny thing. It takes time.

And, clearly, I am not patient.

I would do it if I could

A death, an illness (or three), a family struggle and here I sit in the sun on the back porch unable to do anything.

"Can I do anything?", I ask. "You could take the treatment for me, and I would be the one to get better", he replied.

I would, if I could.

A few years ago my younger brother put together a dvd of family photographs - a slide show - with the soundtrack of ColdPlay's 'Fix You' playing in the background.

I sobbed uncontrollably the first time I watched it. Pictures of my mother and father and siblings from a time long ago. A time when, in my mind, we were the quintessential happy family.

I still weep when I see it - I weep out of poignancy, out of regret, out of feelings of missing my father so profoundly, out of realizing that in those photos there was still possibility.

The possibility that cancer wouldn't strike, a virus wouldn't strike, estrangement wouldn't strike.

I think, as the proverbial middle child, I have just wanted to fix everything for everyone. I think in the process I broke things, especially myself.

Lately the phrase "Depression is anger turned inward" has been rattling around inside my brain. I don't like this phrase; I never had. The first time I heard it a fourteen year old boy I know was struggling with anxiety and sadness. I blamed myself for not being able to fix it. I blamed myself for perhaps being the cause.

Recently I remarked to my husband that I was trying to protect him from something that brings him frustration. The content doesn't matter. What he told me does. "You are not responsible for my issues around this. You don't have to fix it for me."

I don't have to fix it. Now, there's a thought.

Last night I remember feeling 'Why won't anyone let me help them?" Because, dear one, it is not your job to fix everything. Sometimes in the midst of family struggles and health issues, and angst it is your job to be there, to listen, to help if asked, to not burden them with your anxiety, to let go and let god.

And sometimes, as a stanger told be yesterday, you have to give it time. Time for wounds to heal, and memories to fade.

And, dear one, that time is not a day, or a week, but perhaps months or years.

So listen up - you don't have to fix everything. You have to remember "It will be alright in the end. If it is not alright, it is not the end".

I have to trust that if someone needs my help they will ask. If someone wants to see me they will call. If someone has something to say they will say it.

Meanwhile I have prayer, compassion, and a shoulder to cry on. I thank god for that shoulder, that companionship, that often silent support.

So I am praying the chemo will work, the move will unfold smoothly, and that time will, in fact, heal all wounds. I am not sure about the last one - for some wounds to heal there has to be forgiveness, and I know I am not there yet.

I don't know if I believe there can be forgiveness without an apology, or explanation having been given. I am told there can be, but I don't know if that is true for me.

As I said at the beginning: I would if I could.

I miss you

I haven't written for a month. It has been a busy month, and I have lots to share, but that is not what this post is about.

I miss you. We have known each other for 52 years. Your 52nd birthday was 23 days ago. I didn't wish you a happy birthday. If I had, I don't know how it would have been received.

I miss you. We shared our lives intimately for a few short years when we were both young and newly married. We would shop together on saturdays. We would swim, and run, and ride bikes together. We would spend New Year Eves together. You were there for me. And I was there for you.

Our relationship, from the time we were teenagers, was not an easy one. At times we were confidants, at other times rivals, although I was never sure why. I think we competed for our mother's love. I think, but I am not sure.

We spent our pregnancies in silence after the first trimester. I was never sure why it happened the first time. I know why it happened with the second babies. It made me sad both times.

But, we moved passed that and kept each other company as new mothers. Both trying our best. We supported each other.

We became entangled in our mother's competition for our love with our aunt. I didn't want to choose, but I was forced to. Sides were taken, history has unfolded.

I called you a few years later, after my mother-in-law's sudden death. I made a gesture and you graciously accepted. We took our children to the ranch and had a lovely weekend together. Fences were mended.

It has been tenuous since then. We spent time by our mother's hospital bed. We picked out a gravestone together. I remember that day well. It was raining, and I had a terrible headache, but together we laid our mother and father to rest.

I miss your laugh, and your quirky sense of humour. I love your capacity for compassion when others are suffering.

I know that you have one perspective. I have another. Each of our siblings has a perspective and they are all true. Every one of them.

Our last exchange was angry and hurtful. I was protecting the heart of one while neglecting the heart of another. I was protecting my heart.

I believe that we have made agreements with everyone in our lives prior to incarnating here, at this time, in this place. I believe you and I made an agreement to be what we are to each other. We have forgotten those agreements. We will meet again after this life and realize that we kept those promises and learned from them when we needed to.

But I have not forgotten you. I miss you, and I hope that one day we will find our way back to each other. I hope it will be a true meeting, not just polite, and we can be sisters once more.

Our mother, our aunt, our father are all gone. We don't have to compete anymore.

A week in a life

Alot has happened. Some of it tangible, like a finished play. Some intangible, like a shift in the cosmos. A week ago I was sad, alone, lonely and wondering how to get through the next few hours, let alone a whole week, and today, although I am very tired, I am more centered, more at peace. That peace comes from grace and faith, friendship, family and prayer.

My class performed last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Each performance was two hours. They were stellar. They were brave. They were humourous, dedicated and musical. As they often do, they stole my heart away. Each one of them so shining in their individual moments, but even more so at the last scene when they were all on stage. All 13 of them. So beautiful, so proud, so accomplished.

But, this was also a week of great pain and reflection. Past hurts, long past, once again surfaced and the scab pulled off to reveal the abcess of a wound unhealed and the realization that it will never be healed. It is like living with a chronic illness. But harder. A chronic illness I do live with, every day, although it is less in my mind as it seems I am in some kind of remission. This situation is not like that. It is not a diagnosis you can look up on the internet, or discuss with others who have experienced a similar medical situation. This feels, as Jaques says in As You Like It, "like a melancholy of mine own." Tolstoy said "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way".

A friend of mine said to me last Monday - "Our families bring us the greatest joy and the deepest pain". Last Monday I was in deep pain. The kind where you can't eat, can't swallow, can't sleep, can't imagine when the pain in your stomach will stop."

As I have written before, my relationship with my mother is complicated. That complication makes other family relationships complicated. Even when you are one of six siblings, even though you think that each of you are being raised by the same parents, you really aren't. Every parent/child relationship is unique. And some are easier than others. I have written in the past that I, at times, didn't like my mother very much, and even came to the place where I realized I didn't love her. Saying those words does not mean that I don't have familial love for the woman that raised me, that there weren't loving moments in our relationship. There are fond memories of her within the painful ones. Especially summer memories, talking in the garden, drinking coffee before anyone else was awake.

But this is not where the pain lies today. The pain is for the impossibility of unity, of reconciliation. The pain is for the realization that the stories are too far apart. A teacher friend of mine said recently that in any disagreement there are three truths. Their truth, your truth, and God's truth.

Perhaps, for this lifetime, I have to let the truth lie with God. There is nothing to gain in trying to give my side of the story, because the other can refute it, deny it, not recognize it, argue it.

It is not enough that there is pain in different perceptions. That, perhaps, I could live with. I could have learned to live with my mother's anger. I have been angry. We have all been angry. It is the meanness that lay behind, or sometimes in front of, the anger that I find hard to accept.

It is an anger I again recognize in another. That is where the pain lies. In the realization that it exists for another generation. And perhaps another after that.

Generational anger and hurt. That is where the true pain lies.

I used to believe that I could bring reason and rationality to the situation. I couldn't then. I can't now. I think at 56 it is time I accept that. It is over. My part in it is over. There is no percentage in hanging on to false hope.

So I will focus on the love and respect I have for those close to me. Some are family that I would choose to be friends. Some are friends that I consider family. I am loved by many, and I in turn love many. That is what took my pain away one week ago, and that is what will heal this wound once and for all.

ok, really, it is enough now

Earthquake, tsunami, funerals, hospital visits, and what is next?

It is enough, God, really it is. I get it. Life is fleeting. We should count each day as a blessing and make sure we tell the people that we love that we love them.

I get that we should do this today. I get that I should reach out, and overlook old hurts and move on. I get it. I really do.

So, can you just lay off for a while? Can you just allow everyone to catch their breath? Can you just give us a minute to collect ourselves for the next on-slaught? Just a minute.

Is it so much to ask?