We make the best of bad situations—that’s what we’re good at.
When my mom finally divorced Hank after he fired his gun at me, we became a team of three—battered but still beautiful Connie; her sassy, smart-mouthed daughter; and her mischievous little boy. The years when my mom was a single mother were lean and tough—we weren’t dirt poor, but we were pretty darn poor. And yet, looking back on those years today makes me smile. Why? Because we found a way to make being poor seem like a big adventure.
My mother had gone to school to become a dental hygienist, and after the divorce she worked long hours for two dentists in town. She stretched her paychecks as far as they would go, but they never stretched very far. I remember she always served us what she called “poor man’s spaghetti” for dinner—just spaghetti and sauce, no meatballs. It didn’t dawn on me until I was much older that we were the poor men.
Mom tried to make all occasions feel special. The first day of school was always a big deal. Somehow she bought us new clothes and shoes before each fall semester, and she always let us pick out our own pencil cases and lunchboxes. If one of us got an award at school, no matter how small or silly it was, Mom was always there to see us collect it and cheer us on. If we played a shrub or a snowflake in a school play, my mom was there, front and center. When I was a Brownie from the first to fifth grades, my mom helped me sell tons of cookies. I remember our living room was literally jammed with stacked boxes of Girl Scout cookies, which we had to sort and deliver all over town. At the end of it I might have only gotten a tiny stuffed animal as a prize, but the true reward was all the time I spent with my mom in that cookie-crowded room.
I can recall so many small acts of kindness on her part. My mom packed our lunches for school every day, and every day she’d write me a little note on my napkin, saying she hoped I was having a great day or how she couldn’t wait to see me again. Another big treat was going to the drive-in movies. Mom would make tons of popcorn and fill up a big brown grocery bag to bring with us. She’d spread out a blanket beside the car and let us kids lie on it by ourselves while she sat in a lawn chair behind us. I swear, I can still taste that salty popcorn, still see my brother’s face lit up by the screen.
Even when I didn’t deserve it, my mom was sweet to me. One summer she bought a small aboveground pool for the backyard, and she asked Jayson and me to help her set it up. Jayson, of course, got right to it. But it was a particularly hot day and I didn’t feel much like helping, so I didn’t. My mom said, “If you don’t help, you don’t swim.” Fine, I told her, I won’t swim, and I sulked away.
Later I looked out the kitchen window and saw my mom and brother frolicking in the pool. They looked like they were having a blast. Clever kid that I was, I put on my bathing suit and stood near the pool, waiting until my mom felt sorry enough for me to let me in. I knew from experience she didn’t always stick to her punishments. Sure enough, after a while, she let me into the pool. I’d been pretty bratty, but she still wanted me to have a fun day. I’ve never forgotten that one little loving gesture.
Memories come in different forms, some sunny and bright as a summer day, others much darker. And try as my mother did to help me hold on to my childhood as long as possible, the truth is, it was already slipping away.
I REMEMBER THE first time I told God that I hated Him.
I was seven years old and in the second grade. There weren’t a lot of places in the world where I felt safe, but there was one place where I always did—alongside Grandma Ernie.
Grandma Ernie was the only person in my life who always took my side. She was my champion and my biggest fan. I remember staying with her when I was young and wanting to watch a TV show in her living room. I asked her husband, a nice but gruff old guy named Jim (who I called Paw Paw) if I could watch. He said no; he was watching something else. Well, Grandma Ernie came in and chased Paw Paw into their bedroom where he had to watch his show on a tiny TV. And I got to watch my show on the big set.
But having the big TV all to myself suddenly didn’t seem like fun. So I went into the bedroom and watched TV with Paw Paw.
Yes, Paw Paw was grumpy but he also made me laugh—and not always because he was trying to. I remember my grandparents taking me to the zoo and Paw Paw lecturing me about something in the parking lot. Just as he said, “Do you understand me, young lady?” a bird pooped right on top of his bald head. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. I also liked how Paw Paw was always falling asleep when he was supposed to be watching me. One summer Grandma Ernie got me my own kiddie pool, and Paw Paw’s only job was to watch over me while I played in the pool on the back porch. Well, it wasn’t long before Paw Paw was out cold, so I tiptoed into the house and got my grandma’s bottle of bubble bath.
Soon, my kiddie pool was overflowing with bubbles. When Grandma Ernie came home and looked for me out the kitchen window, all she could see was a mountain of bubbles with my little head bobbing in the middle. My bubble-bath caper also led to the only argument I can ever remember my grandparents having. He wanted to dump the soapy pool water on the flowers so it wouldn’t kill his grass, and Grandma wanted to dump it on the grass so it wouldn’t kill her flowers. I don’t remember who won, but I do remember Paw Paw dragging my deflated kiddie pool down the hallway and throwing it in the garbage.
In so many ways, Grandma Ernie made me feel protected and loved. It’s funny looking back on all the little things I remember about her, like this pistachio pudding she always made for me, or how weird I thought she was for putting ice cubes in my milk. But to this day, the rich, nutty smell of pistachio pudding makes me feel comforted. Grandma Ernie also let me sleep between her and Paw Paw in their bed, which was actually two twin beds pushed together with a big sheet stretched across. I’d always end up slipping between the beds, and that was one of my favorite places to be—sunk down in the gap in my grandmother’s bed, safe from the world.
But then I learned Grandma Ernie was sick.
I didn’t understand much of what people were saying about her, other than that her heart was failing. She was only in her sixties, but she was a heavy smoker. I remember her getting thinner and frailer as the years went on. Then she wound up in the hospital. My mom drove us to San Antonio to visit her, but when we got there, it was too late to see her and we called her instead. I got on the phone and started telling Grandma about how exciting my day had been, but she said she was too tired to talk. I was surprised she didn’t want to talk—Grandma Ernie was the one person who never stopped me from talking. She always said, “People who talk a lot usually have a lot of interesting things to say.” My feelings were hurt, but I told her I’d see her first thing in the morning.
“Good night, Angel,” she said. “I love you.”
A few hours later, something woke me up in the middle of the night. I don’t know what it was, except that it felt like someone shaking me. Only no one was there. I looked for my mom in her bed, but the bed was empty.
Instantly, I knew Grandma Ernie had died.
I went into the kitchen and saw my mom pacing the floor. Just then, the telephone rang, the loud rattle so much more jarring in the dead of night. I watched my mom pick up the phone, listen for a while, then crumple to her knees, shrieking and crying. “No, Daddy, no!” I heard her scream. I ran to her, and she grabbed me and drew me close. We sat there on the kitchen floor holding each other and crying. I was clinging to my mother as she was losing hers.
To this day I’m not sure how I knew Grandma Ernie had died before the phone call came. I like to think that maybe it was her, gently shaking me awake to tell me good-bye.
Not much later, I told God that I hated Him.
I know anger is only one of the five stages of grief, but boy, was I stuck on that stage for a long time. I was devastated by my grandmother’s death and furious that a person who loved me unconditionally had been taken away. I remember telling God that I wished He’d taken anyone else instead. I know that sounds terrible, but back then, when I was
seven, I couldn’t process the loss of someone I cherished so much. It seemed like a horribly random act of cruelty directed squarely at me. Why did God have to take Grandma Ernie, of all people? Why would He do such a thing to me?
“I hate you,” I told God that day. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”
Only many years later would I realize that—even in the darkest moments of my life, even when my belief in God was at its absolute lowest point—I never stopped speaking to Him. Our conversations may have been filled with nothing but questions and curses and doubts and demands, but they were still conversations. I vowed many times to cut God out of my life, and sometimes I did, but never for long.
For whatever reason, even when I didn’t believe He was listening, I kept the channels open, and I had my talks with God.
LOSING GRANDMA ERNIE made me grow up even faster. Her death just left me angry and confused. In time, after my grandfather got remarried, I surprised myself by becoming great friends with his new wife, Mary. She was spunky and funny, and I called her Gram-cracker. We are still best friends thirty years later. But back when Grandma Ernie died, I was inconsolable. As I mentioned earlier, I’d always been a little precocious, talking to adults as if they were my equals, but when my grandma died, I had the real sense my childhood was ending.
Unfortunately, my situation at home only got tougher and tougher. Part of the problem was that I was so headstrong, which you’ve probably already figured out. I was stubborn even before I was born, refusing to come out for twenty-four hours, until doctors had to come in and get me. As a young child I resisted my mother’s every effort to turn me into a pretty little girl—instead I was a defiant tomboy, never letting her touch my hair or put me in frilly dresses, except on Easter and when I dressed up for my imaginary playdate. All the other girls showed up for first grade in cute, colorful outfits; I wore a flannel shirt and jeans. And in the first grade alone, I got paddled by the teacher three times: once for wetting my hair in the sink on a hot day and the other two times—big surprise—for talking too much.
But even though I was difficult, I really don’t think I was all that much of a bad girl. I did really well in school, usually As and Bs. Of course it didn’t hurt that my dad—who was otherwise not involved with my schooling—agreed to pay me two dollars for every A I got. I remember how proud I was when I got to call my dad and tell him how much he owed me. He joked and told me I was going to make him go broke. But I knew he was proud of me, and I really loved that feeling.
So while I could be a little bossy and bratty—and often disobedient—I wasn’t what anyone would call a problem child. I wasn’t a bad girl.
But then once Hank came into the picture, and in the years after he left, that slowly began to change.
Looking back, I think I had some pretty good reasons to be angry at the world. My father, whom I adored, wasn’t around much, and there were long stretches when I didn’t hear from him at all. I remember my fifth-grade teacher asking me about my parents. I started crying and told her I hadn’t spoken with my dad in five months. She seemed surprised, but by then I already knew that not having a full-time dad was just going to be a fact of life for me.
Then there were the years my mother calls her “wild phase.” After she divorced Hank, she was still young and pretty, and she began dating quite a bit. I don’t remember a lot about the men she dated, except that I grew attached to some of them only to have them vanish from my life after a short while.
During those years, when my mom didn’t have a consistent partner in her life, she wound up confiding a lot of things in me. I knew exactly how poor we were, exactly which bills weren’t getting paid, exactly how bleak our future looked. She also bad-mouthed my dad from time to time, telling me things I had no way of confirming. It was way too much information to be sharing with a child.
And in that way I became a coparent. Around the time Hank left, my mom pretty much made me Jayson’s permanent babysitter, so I spent many nights taking care of my brother while my mom was out sowing her oats. I’d bathe Jayson and clean the house and sometimes get dinner ready. I became my mother’s partner, not her daughter.
And yet I didn’t begrudge my mother for doing this to me, because I believed it was my responsibility to make her life better. I knew she worked hard all day at the dentists’ office, and I knew money was tight. And I knew she was lonely. So I tried my best to lighten her load, to make her happy however I could. I didn’t want my mother to feel lonely and afraid.
But then abruptly, when I was ten years old, my mother stopped dating. All of a sudden, she decided she wanted to be a better parent. After three years of nonstop partying, she began staying home and making new rules and setting boundaries where before there had been none.
As you might guess, that didn’t sit too well with me. I was angry and resentful about everything I’d had to endure—everything I hadn’t been protected from. I felt it was way too late for my mom to get all protective.
By then I’d learned that in order to survive, I had to fend for myself. I loved my mom but felt I had no one I could truly depend on but myself. The abuse was still going on in Hank’s mother’s house, and there was no one I could talk to about it—certainly not my mother, whose burdens I was trying to lighten, not make heavier. I was on my own, taking on more and more responsibility, losing more and more of any innocence I had left until there was none left at all. At age ten, I was already a grown-up.
And so when my mom tried to become a parent to me again, I fought her tooth and nail. Anything she told me to do, I did the opposite. Any attempt to discipline me was met with screams and defiance. We fought constantly about everything—cleaning my room, watching TV, doing my homework; you name it. She’d taken from me my chance to be a regular kid because of all the adult problems she’d unloaded on me, and I sure wasn’t about to start being a kid now. And I hadn’t survived so many bad things as a child just to be thrust right back into childhood again. As far as I was concerned, my childhood was over, and nothing was going to change that.
The next couple of years were a nightmare for us both. My mother would order me to do something; I’d refuse and talk back to her. She’d push me; I’d push her back. Before long we were having real knockdown fights—wrestling with each other on the living room floor while a horrified Jayson looked on. Occasionally my mom would try to discipline us by spanking us or hitting us with a wooden spoon or a belt. But those punishments would only enrage me, and I’d strike back with all my might. When I was twelve, we got into a particularly nasty fight. I don’t remember if she was trying to spank me with a hairbrush or what, but I do remember that I pushed her really hard. She pushed me back, and I toppled through a shower door and into the bathtub.
For me, that fight—on top of everything that was happening at Hank’s mother’s house—was more than I could handle. The next day I took what little money I’d saved from babysitting neighborhood kids and told my mom I wanted to buy her lunch at Braum’s. We had sandwiches and ice cream, and when it was over, I told my mother what I’d come to say. She listened to me, then lowered her head and broke down into tears.
I’d told my mother I was leaving home. And that’s just what I did.
I WASN’T PLANNING ON HITCHHIKING TO CALIFORNIA or hopping a freight train or anything like that. What I told my mom that day was that I wanted to go live with my father in Illinois.
My mother, to say the least, was heartbroken. She was the one who’d stayed with me and raised me and clothed and fed me while my dad was out of the picture, and here I was telling her I’d prefer to live with him. I suppose she could have put up a fight and refused to let me go, but she probably knew that was a fight she couldn’t win. I had made up my mind. I was going.
Luckily for me, my dad agreed to take me in. Shortly before I was set to leave, my mom threw me a going-away party at the local skating rink. There were balloons and signs, and all my friends showed up to say good-bye. A couple of days later, my dad drove all th
e way down from Illinois to pick me up. I don’t remember if I cried when I left my mom that day, but I know for sure that she did. The truth is, there was no one closer to me in the world than my mother. And many years later I would realize she was the only person in my life who never abandoned me. She was my best friend, yet she was also my worst enemy. She wasn’t a perfect mother, but she loved me and it was killing her to let me go. But I think she also realized this was the way it had to be. So I packed up my things, including my beloved teddy bear Snoozy, got in my dad’s car, and left my mom.
GROWING UP, MY dad wasn’t poor, but his family didn’t do much better than scrape by. He remembers always being aware of all the things other kids in the neighborhood had that he and his brothers didn’t. He made a vow that when he grew up, he’d work tirelessly to give his children all the things he never had.
And that included the one thing he craved most of all from his own parents: attention. Odel and Mardel were strict Catholics who loved their children dearly, but they didn’t always show it, or perhaps didn’t really know how. So my dad’s plan was to give his kids the attention and approval he didn’t always receive as a child. Unfortunately, life got in the way of that plan.
When I showed up to live with him, my dad did his best to make me feel at home. He set up a room for me with pink curtains, a nightstand and clock, and a desk for doing homework on. He seemed very happy to see me and to have the chance to finally get to know me, but as the days passed, I could see he found it hard to show any emotion around me. That was quite a change from living with my mother. While my mom had an unpredictable temperament, kind and caring one minute and angry and screaming the next, my father was always the same—cool and distant. I was used to my mom yelling and cursing and letting all her emotions out, good and bad, and suddenly I had a parent who barely showed any at all. For much of the time, my dad was just a shadow presence in my life.
Waking Up in Heaven: A True Story of Brokenness, Heaven, and Life Again Page 5