Chris made a feast and we all sat down and toasted to it all. As I sipped my glass I slowly looked around the table at the smiling faces. Everyone was eating, talking, and enjoying the meal and the setting. I suddenly thought, Who are these people and why are they in my house? I started to feel like I was receding into the atmosphere. What were they all doing in my home and at my table? Where was my mom? I looked at all their faces and finally settled on my girls’ backlit silhouettes. They seemed to have left me. They looked so happy and in their own skin. They were playing some joke on their “Opah,” which is what they call Chris’s dad, and it occurred to me that they, my daughters, were actually related to these people. They were blood, and I, somehow, was the outsider.
This thought seemed to suggest to me that all the people at this table were related to each other except me. I saw Chris and his sister, Michele (who the girls call Aunt Mimi), both their parents, and the sole Henchy grandchildren. All of them, including Mimi’s husband for some reason, were all one big happy family rejoicing in Christmas. Where had my family and my life gone?
Sitting there, as the noises became more indiscernible, it slowly dawned on me that I no longer had any parent with whom to share this day. I felt orphaned.
I started to feel as if I could sneak away from the table while they all laughed and celebrated and walk out of the house and just keep going. My kids would be fine. Look at the great family they had! They might miss me, but not for long, and they would grow up just fine. Look at all those Disney princesses—their moms had been vanished from their lives way earlier than this and their futures turned out to be more glorious than they could have imagined. Maybe it was even better for my kids if I, too, vanished.
Chris startled me by repeating some question even louder and I regained consciousness and tried to shake off my mood. I got a huge lump in my throat and tried to smile it down. I lingered with the feeling for another second, though, and recognized it as similar to a sensation I encountered years back and at the beginning of my bout with PPD. I resisted the urge to panic.
I finished my glass and slowly refilled it with champagne, watching every bubble trying to stay afloat and feeling slightly like one of those helpless bubbles. Nobody seemed to have noticed my “absence” and I attempted successfully to reengage in the table chatter.
After dinner, as I was clearing the table, my husband said, “I see that look in your eyes. You are leaving again, aren’t you? You are retreating and I want to go on record and say that I am a witness to your starting to disappear.” I looked at him with tears starting to well up my eyes and said, “I have no parents.” He held me tight and said he understood.
Do you? I thought. Does anybody really know what it feels like to lose a mom, until it happens? No matter what the quality or situation of one’s life, the end of a living mother is profound.
I was happy for Chris’s sake that he didn’t know from experience what I was feeling, of course. And I also knew that he was really just saying that I had him and the girls, and that he was aware I was struggling. I didn’t feel like Christmas-crying anymore. So I took a deep breath and told him I loved him and the girls, so much it “horts.”
Later that night I went over it in my head. How could it be that I had everything in place, but there remained a huge void?
I found the wonderful husband and grounded relationship, my kids were healthy, we had the full and vibrant home with the tree and the decorations and the music, and even the snow, for Christ’s sake. I had everything I had always wanted, but now I had no mom. She used to be my barometer for joy. If she was happy, I was happy. I wanted to show her how well it had all turned out. Sure, life had kicked us in the ass for various reasons but no one’s exempt from that and there had been and currently was a tremendous amount of good. The blessings were continuing. I wanted to show off my beautiful table and how I had utilized the special possessions she herself had taught me about and collected. I knew she’d love it when she saw it.
Denial can be so very shrewd. The first year after Mom died didn’t seem to be so bad. Because Mom had been failing for a while, there had been a few recent celebrations during which we were not together. That first year I just tricked myself into thinking Mom was not with me because she was still at the assisted-living facility. But this Christmas was a shock. It had been about a year and two months and I still had not had any dreams about Mom or any emotional outbursts. I suppose it was crafty denial, but I was beginning to realize that my mourning had only just begun.
I now needed to do what Mom was never capable of doing—let go, even just a little bit. Because I wish she knew she didn’t ever have to let me go. All she needed to do was stretch her arms out farther and relax her fingers.
Epilogue
Dear Mom,
My first feeling is that I miss you very much. It is hardest on your birthday and on my birthday, because those were the days that we celebrated each other. I never thought I could live without you. To see you dying in that bed with its rails and thin sheets, in a curled-up and scared position, devastated me. Watching you actually die was one of the hardest, more unreal things I have ever experienced, and it was the day I had dreaded most my whole life.
I never felt as though I told you enough how much I loved and appreciated you. I wish we had had a heart-to-heart while you were still of sound mind. You always said, “Let’s talk,” but it never happened. I think we wanted to avoid disrupting the good times. Or, when we did try, we’d just fight or not know what to say. It was as if the intimacy was too scary and embarrassing.
I still feel as though I knew and understood you better than anyone else in your life, and that was hard to do because you so rarely told anybody how you were feeling. And yet I feel as though I never got the full story. I think I hated your drinking so much because the you I knew existed and loved was stolen away from me.
I was always free enough to sob to you, but it did not bring us closer. I think that was because I was your baby in those moments and you felt needed. But as I grew up and tried to make changes, these moments were fewer and farther between. It was as if we no longer knew who we were together.
I also have to believe that because you never really lived in sobriety, even your dry days were colored by your addiction. You were ambitious and street smart, and although also intensely loving, and often well intended, you were also an addict. It was as if you were not only addicted to alcohol but also addicted to me. You never did the work to fully embrace sobriety, and you robbed yourself. I became the meaning in your life when it would have served you to find the meaning from within.
I see now how much pain and sadness you carried. I believe your heart was such a fully feeling heart that you were not strong enough to heal each time it was broken. I have read some of your old journals and was deeply affected by how you regarded yourself. You always proclaimed how tough you were and how strong you were, but you never seemed to feel good enough. It is hard to love ourselves, but I have learned to love who I am inside. I can always strive to be better, but I am enough. I don’t know if you ever really did love who you were. I don’t believe your mom ever helped you to believe in your own self-worth as you did for me.
I know I fought you, but it never meant I did not love you or did not need you. Your approval meant the world to me, as did your happiness. That was the hard part, because I wanted your approval for my growing up independently of you, yet I feared my independence was the root of your unhappiness. But if I had not fought to differentiate myself from you and from our tight bond, I would not have been able to survive. I’m sorry for the way I handled our “divorce,” but I did not have the strength to break away from the life we were living without taking drastic measures.
I loved you so much, Mama, that for so long I put you before me. I blindly defended you because you were my mom. It was often just that simple. As a mom, I admit I sometimes wish my daughters looked up to me with the sa
me undaunted devotion as I did you because I imagine it felt good. But I also don’t want them to have to carry that burden. I carried you because I loved you and needed you, but I needed to learn to care for myself, too. I remained conflicted because I felt like you never really let me in, yet you absorbed me so far in that I could hardly find my way out.
I appreciated you and all you gave me in my life. It was very hard to get past the alcohol and yet, when you were not drinking, we were so unique and glorious together. The laughter healed everything.
I am just so sad that you were so sad and that you could not get your life straightened out or fully actualized. And yet, it was your life, and you chose to do with it what you wanted.
I remember when we were being interviewed by Barbara Walters when I was sixteen. When Barbara asked you what message you wanted to leave with the public, you simply and resolutely said, “I’m not going to change.” And you didn’t. But in life I believe change is healthy and necessary for growth. You saw it as defeat, and I believe that was unfortunate. I knew you meant that you were never going to take criticism lying down or cave to others’ wills, but it also carried into your life.
I realized that up until the end I was fighting the same fight. I was navigating your demons. I was trying to do for you what only you could do for yourself. I was never going to “fix” you. I see, too, that much of your unhappiness was independent of anything I did or was, but as a child, one carries that responsibility. I did not have faith that you would be OK, so I kept trying to be the source of your happiness and self-worth.
I wrote this book as a way to shed light on your complicated yet vibrant and, at times, tragic personality. I wanted you to live longer. I wanted you to be a more integral part of our lives, but the booze killed everything. You died too early. You had more to enjoy and do. We had more to laugh about.
But we did share an extraordinary life together, and you taught me so many wonderful things. I learned about humor, survival, and perseverance. I learned the power of observation and the necessity of generosity and good manners. I learned how to always work hard and try my best. I even learned how to have better posture. “Stand up straight, Brookie. . . . And keep your head held up high.”
I learned how to “never take no for an answer” and how to fight for what I want. I learned how to pick myself up when I fall and never allow defeat to define me. You taught me to cast off any negative comments often hurled at me and not to “sweat the small stuff.”
You taught me to look for the good in people and to admit that life could always be worse. You taught me how to adapt to my surroundings and to jump into life with both feet. You taught me how to find treasures at flea markets, to love both NECCO and Choward’s Violet candies, sneak into a second movie, and be silly for a laugh. I learned to dab perfume in various, and even precarious, places because “ya never know where you might be kissed.” And most important, you taught me to “never say fuck in front of the B-A-B-Y!”
Throughout the good and the bad, I would not have traded you for any other mother. I would have exchanged some of your behaviors, sure, but I can say that about practically everyone I know, including myself. You did the best you could, and so did I.
It is sad, though, and that was the overriding emotion that permeated my life throughout writing this book. Sadness. I wish I had written this letter while you were still aware.
Neither writing the book nor this letter felt at all cathartic. People speculated it would, but in actuality it all just gave me a heavy heart. But soon I will only remember the good.
I am choosing now to concentrate on and revel in only the wonderful memories. They are as much a part of me and us as are the bad ones. I have always loved you, and I am thankful for all you were. That will be your legacy.
From now on, when it rains, I will know it’s just you up there being bossy. And from now on when I throw my kisses at the moon, I will hurl some your way.
I love you, Mama,
XX, Your baby girl
Preteen Mom with her beloved sister, Louise.
All photographs are courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted.
Mom at the age when she’d sneak into the “movin’ pictures.”
Mom the majorette. One of the only times she followed the rules.
Mom while she was working at Krueger Brewing Company.
Mom and her legs getting pinned.
Mom and Sal out on the town.
The “gams” that Mom was proud of.
Mom with some adoring sailors.
Mom out with one of her many attractive suitors.
Mom making sure we notice her favorite asset.
One of the only photos I have of Mom pregnant and wearing a wedding ring. Look how my dad is lovingly gazing at her.
I was two months premature and weighed only five pounds, four ounces.
Mommy kissing her baby. I loved blowing raspberries.
© 1965 Roy Schatt. Courtesy WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC.
Mom walking me into the beach club. Notice my diaper-only-clad body and hot dog with no bun.
Dad taking me on the same path. Notice the neat outfit and no hot dog. Dad was a smoker.
Chic Mom and me on the street where I met Greta Garbo.
Daddy and me at his Fifty-Second Street apartment. My baggy cloth diaper was Dad’s doing.
Mom and me on Southampton Beach.
“Hold still, Brookie.”
One of my favorite pictures of me with my dad. I loved to make him laugh by doing imitations.
Matching camel coats in front of my favorite store, Woolworth’s.
The Kennedy look-alikes, Frank and Didi Shields.
Mom and true love Antonio Rius in Brazil. I did not like sharing my mommy.
Mom’s birthday at our Seventy-Third Street apartment.
Teri Terrific shows off her bone structure on a flight to New Orleans.
I struck this pose every time I said trick or treat.
Mom with Chris Atkins in front of our bure on the Turtle Island location of The Blue Lagoon. Mom wore only blue jeans.
Our friend Mary Ellen Mark took this pic of Mom and me for Life magazine. I am in all Calvin Klein attire.
Mary Ellen Mark
Mom’s famous laugh with best friend and collaborator John Holland on The Brooke Book.
Mom and me in 1996.
Us at a barbecue. Mom holding her ever-present inhaler.
On my wedding day to Chris.
Lara Porzak
Happy Mom and Dad at the lunch I missed before my wedding.
Lara Porzak
Mom’s beautiful smile on the veranda during the rehearsal for the ceremony.
Lara Porzak
Surprise dinner party for Mom’s seventieth birthday at our California house.
Mom, Lila, and me in our favorite New York City photo booth on the Upper East Side.
Mom being silly on Thanksgiving with a doomed turkey.
My favorite picture of Rowan kissing her mama. She peed on me a second later.
Two of my favorite baby dolls, Rowan and Blabby.
Easter—Toots and Rowan.
Chris, Rowan, and myself in our backyard, Grier in the oven.
Lara Porzak
Grier eating my face and me loving every minute of it.
Elizabeth Messina
My real-life doll.
Ladies who lunch.
Delicious kisses from my Gdawg.
Mom with her two dogs, Blabby and Donut. See if you can find both. . . .
Me and my ladies.
Winter in Southampton.
Acknowledgments
I wish to say thank you to my literary agent, Stephen Barr, for his layered insight and basically just for the way his brain works; to my focused and incredibly organized and attentive edit
or, Jill Schwartzman, for filing every tiny random memory I sent to her at all hours of the night; to her assistant, Stephanie, who didn’t let a little thing like pregnancy derail her when it came to getting my changes transcribed and in on a deadline; to my godmother, Lila, for her years of support and for helping me reconstruct history; to my great friend Lyda for being attached to the past in the same way I am and for helping me remember all the details; to my friend and archivist Mike for knowing more about my life than I do and for caring and for tirelessly keeping track of every bit of the past forty-nine years; to my babysitters Kelly and Lauren for keeping my kids busy and alive while I slogged away at writing this book and for listening to me read out loud and for typing faster than I will ever be able to. To my assistant Dan, for caring for me and for becoming a part of our family. To Lisa, for remaining my “sassy.” To my husband, Chris, just because he asked me to marry him; and to my smart and stunning daughters, who inspire me to be a better person and who take my breath away because I love them so deeply. And finally to my mom, for loving me.
There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me Page 37