At the age of eighteen I’d been living a lifestyle I once feared. Back in middle school and early high school I had feared the kids who used drugs. Looking back I knew that I had not only passed that point, but I had become the one that even “stoners” would walk away from. I was finally ready to put a stop to my childish and irresponsible ways.
By the time I made it back to the dorms, the rain had stopped and I was happy with myself. In the courtyard, I saw that the ground was dry: the rain hadn’t reached the house. Perhaps the rain was an acknowledgment from God, perhaps it was his way of washing away my past and giving me a chance to start anew.
Over the next several weeks, Clay and I spent just the right amount of time together. We always did so in certain settings, so that the other teenagers had no notion of how much he was counseling me. We would take walks around the compound, or sit at the back of the atrium during a movie and talk quietly. Over time, Clay and I were able to tell when either of us was becoming insensitive to the other’s feelings—we could read each other’s face.
By May 1982 I had been clean for a month and felt better than I had in years. I was able to sleep at night with my eyes closed—most of the time—and wake with a sense of purpose. All the time I spent as a child training myself to sleep with my eyes open was very necessary at the time. But now I found that I had to remember the fact that Mom was nowhere around me and that I was not in danger anymore. My health improved and I no longer looked like death. I had regained the weight I had lost over the last few months.
I felt like I was becoming me. I was more than comfortable with myself, and I was feeling pretty good about life. I was working on the issues that Clay suggested for me, and I was making progress with finding the answers to the whys that had eluded me for so long.
Everything was going smoothly until Saturday, June 5, 1982, when I received a letter from Mom. She had apparently heard from Clay, asking her to take a few minutes to think about reconciling her feelings toward me, in the hope that we would be able to rebuild a halfway normal relationship.
I usually received no mail, and was excited to get something from Sandy City, Utah. I opened the letter, and was shocked to read what she had written.
In a few short sentences she reiterated what I had known all along. She had no intention of seeing me come back to Salt Lake. As far as she was concerned, she said, I was dead. What really upset me was what came at the end of her letter: She was able to get on with her life, she informed me, now that she had finally got rid of the last thing in her life she regretted after Dad and David—me.
She acknowledged she had “issues,” but brushed it off as due to the great strain of being a single parent. She went as far as to say that she accepted she was an abusive parent, but since it was only me and “that other one” (David), it was okay. She now intended to focus on Keith and make sure that he had the things in life that David and I had never had. Her closing words suggested she was being sincere. But I didn’t really know if I could believe her or not. I had no way of knowing.
She closed with a simple: “Go to hell—don’t come back to Salt Lake.”
I kept the letter to myself for a while. Over the next few days Clay and I talked about how I was feeling. He asked if I had received anything from Salt Lake yet.
“I did receive a letter from Mom, but it was nothing I really want to talk about. Why?” I said.
“I asked your mother to take a few minutes to send you a small present for your birthday. I didn’t want the chance to pass by for her to let you know she loved you. What did she send you?”
I handed him the letter I’d kept in my pocket. As he read it, I could tell where he’d got to by his facial expressions. Once he got to the end he simply handed it back to me and said: “I’m sorry. I had no idea that she could do that.”
“I did. I’m not really worried about it, I just deal with it,” I snapped.
We talked about the letter from Salt Lake, about how I was doing and where I was in my struggles. As we talked, I faded in and out of listening to Clay. Mom’s letter was preoccupying me. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. Then the way Clay reacted, as if he was shocked to read her words. Hadn’t he learned anything?
Within a few minutes I started to feel that same feeling I got whenever I wanted to just get away from it all and get as high as humanly possible—and beyond.
When our conversation was over, I took a stroll out to the pineapple fields. For over two hours I struggled with the urge to go off the deep end again, while at the same time wanting to show not only myself, but Clay, too, that I could master this continuing relationship with Mom. I knew in my heart that she was simply a drunk, and a mean one at that. I knew she had no self-respect and enjoyed dragging others down to her level to make herself look better, and I wanted no part of that.
I had to find a way to get over her either constantly being on my mind or the reason I went off on some tangent. I had to find a way to just let her go, fade away. All along I’d wanted to rebuild whatever was salvageable and take another shot at making something of our relationship; but I also wanted just to end it altogether and walk away for good. I knew in my heart that somehow I loved her as a mother—but I wouldn’t give her the time of day. I had vowed to myself that, if it ever came to it, I would make sure she wasn’t homeless, but I wouldn’t do much beyond that. In some overriding way I loved her; and I hated her for it.
As I walked, I pondered the fact that these two feelings had been bothering me down the years: on the one hand, loving someone who was evil and completely devoid of any conscience, while at the same time hating her. Perhaps the issue that I had been fighting all this time was really with me and not her.
For the next several weeks I put more effort into staying clean than I had ever done before. I was able to control the desires and the feelings of failure, once I understood what caused those feelings. It had been nothing more than a lack of understanding, and a lack of desire to understand. I had been planning on the possibility of failure in my new attempt so that I wouldn’t be overly disappointed. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay in Hawaii forever. I was finishing the last few weeks of the season and looking forward to taking some time off. Before I left I was able to take a couple of weeks to tour the main island and a few others. The places I saw were so beautiful; I was sure I would never have the chance to see them again.
The two weeks passed and I had prepared myself for one last confrontation with Mom. I was now ready. And it had all been made possible by one man who cared enough to provide me with one more chance to learn what I should have learned ten years before. Clay gave me more than a second chance, he gave me hope.
9
“I’M SORRY”
I couldn’t believe it. She’d cheated me yet again. Mom was off the hook, and I was left with the memories that she had lost somewhere along the way. I was mad, I was furious, I was explosively angry. And yet, I felt sorry for her.
WHILE I WAS IN Hawaii I was supposed to keep up with my high school program and complete several tests and other requirements in order to receive credit as a student abroad. Of course I put as little effort into it as possible, but I managed to make the grades and become eligible to graduate from high school. I knew that when I applied myself, I could not only make the grades, but good ones. It was actually quite easy. I had known that I could slack off for a really long time, then in one step catch up and deliver very high marks—when I wanted to. I knew my graduation from high school was important. I had to return to my high school in Salt Lake and finish the last classes before graduation. That also meant I had to stay with Mom while I floated through my last few weeks of school.
In Salt Lake I found Mom to be different. She looked years older—her hair and her face wore more years than her age told. Something was wrong with her. I had no idea at the time, but she was well on her way to drinking herself to death.
We didn’t talk much about anything I’d done or what I’d seen in one of the most be
autiful places on the planet. She couldn’t care less. Disappointed yet satisfied with her low-level reaction to me being back in her house, I simply faded into obscurity once again as I finished the last few weeks of high school before graduating.
I was okay with her being short with me and demonizing me; I was okay with her ignoring me whenever it came to “her family.” But I became more and more annoyed with her bringing up the past. I could understand her feelings about me during the last couple of years. Things I had done recently still made her mad. But she insisted on bringing up things that I used to do wrong as a child. She was still drinking as much as a gallon of straight vodka per day: that hadn’t changed.
One of the easiest ways I found of getting out of any situation with Mom was work. I’d been working at the 7-Eleven convenience store down the street on 13th East in Sandy City for a few weeks now. I had gotten the job right after I came back from Hawaii and needed money for a car. Mom had always refused to sign for my driver’s license as a minor, so I’d had to wait until I was eighteen to get it on my own.
Anytime after work, if I came back and found Mom to be in one of her drunken stupors, I would walk out and go back to work. It was never hard to pick up another shift and make a few more bucks. After a few weeks of this Mom realized that I was completely avoiding her, and it made her mad. Also, my older brother Scott was complaining that I was never there to help out with any chores.
Finally Scott had had enough. He convinced Mom that the garage needed to be cleaned out again. We started early one Saturday, and worked the entire day on cleaning out old boxes that hadn’t been opened since we’d moved there from Daly City several years before. It was well after dark when Scott decided that the garage was now acceptable to him. Mom and I stayed and finished up the sweeping and did a final tidy-up, moving back in anything we’d taken outside.
We started to talk. It had been years since she and I just talked about something other than how much we hated each other. It was time for a break, anyway. She wanted a drink and I took her up on her offer of a beer. In the space of an hour we talked about the house, about the way Mom enjoyed being out of California—about almost anything that didn’t matter to either of us. She seemed comfortable with me, and I was comfortable with her. Mom had a few more drinks and I had a couple more beers. That was my mistake . . .
We were back in the garage reminiscing about the boxes we had discovered while cleaning up, and recalling better times—almost foreign territory to me. She was relaying stories of all the kids being together and playing at the Russian River back in California. I had vague memories of the river, nothing much. Having fun as a family wasn’t one of them.
As we discovered new boxes, we would quiz each other about what we remembered about certain events. I discovered that Mom really didn’t remember a lot about being abusive when we were kids. She had no recollection at all of being the vicious drunk. As I pried more into what she did remember, it became clear that she truly had no idea of half of the things she had done in the last fifteen years.
We brought out a few more beers and she fetched the bottle of vodka out to the garage as we went through yet more boxes.
“Do you remember when the neighbors’ house was shot at in Daly City?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“How about the time my bike was stolen when I was really little?”
“No, I don’t recall that, either.”
“Do you remember the first time I rode in an ambulance?” I asked her.
“You rode in an ambulance? Why?” she asked.
I couldn’t believe it. She actually had no idea what she had done.
I was furious with her, and yet felt sad that she had slipped away like this. The woman I had known was gone. I couldn’t decide if I was angrier at her losing the memories I had and that she should have lived with for the rest of her life, or angrier over the unbelievably simple way she’d got out of any guilt or remorse.
Looking at the pile we had created in the middle of the garage, I recalled the way I kept my room as a child. How I would pile up furniture and other belongings in the middle, just to be able to keep Mom at arm’s length when she was drunk and looking for a fight.
“Do you remember the furniture in my room?” I asked her.
“I know you kept a lot of junk and it was always in the way—”
“Do you know why I did that?” I interrupted her.
“No. I guess I never asked,” she said.
The more we talked, the angrier I was getting. The few beers I’d had just added to my rage. I was furious at the fact that she was able to simply brush off the way she’d treated me over the last fifteen years, yet at the same time saddened that she truly had no idea of who she was back then, and couldn’t even remember any significant details about her own kids.
I pressed on: “What about David? What happened between you and David?”
“I’m not sure, I know I wasn’t the best mom, but I really don’t know why he was the way he was . . . Richard, I know I had issues back then, but you had problems, too. You weren’t the best son, you know.”
“No, I guess I wasn’t,” I said to her, sincerely enough.
Looking back at me as we edged around the far side of the pile, Mom stumbled over the ladder that was leaning against the wall. She fell on her side against the concrete. Instantly I felt concerned for her and rushed over to help her up. Her head was cut and she was bleeding just above the eye. I reached out my hand to her and, as if in slow motion, she hesitated, and I did too. I felt some difficulty reaching out to help her, and I’m sure she felt something similar at accepting it. But she took my hand, and I helped her upstairs and into the bathroom. As I reached for her hand, I recalled the time I was lying on the couch in the front room in California when my eye was bleeding from one of her “lessons.”
The cut was fairly deep and required stitches. But she was adamant about not going to the doctor and for me to just do the best I could with a Band-Aid and towels. As I washed the wound I saw how deep it was, and the fact that she was now physically hurt upset me. But she showed no emotion about the wound. She was only concerned about me making sure she wouldn’t have to get help from anyone else.
I realized that between the extra vodka and the constant state of intoxication she normally was in she really did feel no pain. As I saw to the wound I felt sorrowful when I looked in her eyes. I recalled her wedding picture where she was one of the most beautiful women I had seen. She seemed at the time to carry herself with pride. Now, as I looked at her, I saw the scars from the years and years of hatred and alcohol. I felt both pity and a sense of shame: pity for her loss, and shame for her current state.
The minutes passed, and neither of us said a word as I cleaned up the cut as best I could.
She shocked me when she broke the silence: “I want you to know how hard it has been for me. I know I can’t remember a lot of what happened before, and I feel sad about that, but I just can’t go back there. I just can’t. It hurts too much.”
“It hurts too much?” I snapped back, infuriated that she should assume she was the only one hurt. To say I was shattered would be nearer the mark. I just couldn’t believe that she knew she had permanently damaged the lives of several of her children and yet couldn’t recall the details.
Here I was, helping her and feeling pity for her, and yet she was coming out of it innocent, almost, by reason of insanity.
I felt robbed. I felt like she had the final victory over me. She had a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and didn’t even know it.
“Why do you hate me now?” I asked her. “You really don’t even know me.”
“I don’t hate you—I guess I’m . . . jealous,” she said.
“What!!!”
“You have friends, you have freedom—you have love.”
“What do you mean, I have love?” I retorted.
“The Nichols family—they’ve taken you in and helped you when I couldn’t, and they loved you w
hen I wouldn’t.” As she spoke, she took my head between her hands and turned it toward hers.
I was speechless.
I couldn’t tell if I wanted to hug her or slug her.
“I’m sorry, Richard. I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through. I’m sorry for the time I lost with you.”
“What about David?” I asked.
“I really don’t remember much. I just can’t find where all that has been buried,” she said softly.
She knew that over time she had forced herself to erase the pain and the shame. She was now living on what she was being told, and had the luxury of not knowing if it was true or not.
Inside I was crushed—crushed for her. I wanted to say: “I forgive you,” but the words never came.
At that moment she was stronger than I had ever been. In her way, she was facing her life and simply accepting who she was. I had struggled with that all my life, and now I was helping the very one that I had loathed for so long. I was ashamed of myself.
All I could say to her was: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She went directly to bed.
“Good night, Mom,” I said as I walked out of her room.
I hadn’t said that to her in at least twelve years. I went downstairs to my room and sat on the edge of the bed. I was so confused with the way I felt about her, and it bothered me more than I was willing to admit. It just ate at me that she was able to get herself off the hook so easily and walk away from it all, while I spent every waking minute trying to understand.
Taking my windbreaker, I left the house. I was on my way to Mesa Park when I realized that I needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere I wouldn’t be troubled by the memories of years past when I would hang out after getting high as a kite.
I smoked myself into the Stone Age there, I thought.
I passed the park and walked to the top of the street. I could hear the sounds of people playing basketball in one of the church buildings there. Through the open gym doors I saw several teenage kids playing. I slipped inside and sat on the sidelines watching, unnoticed. I couldn’t help but feel that I should be that carefree and comfortable with myself. I was jealous of their freedom. I knew that the freedom I was jealous of was the freedom from the ever-present consciousness of self.
A Teenager's Journey Page 9