Don't Call Me Mother

by Linda Joy Myers

  Relatives of my father told me that he originally thought I might not be his child, probably because he thought my mother was “nutty,” as he put it, and loose with her affections. Her flirtatiousness was indeed outrageous enough to arouse his suspicions. Thus, perhaps, his comment on his deathbed: “So, you’re a Myers after all.”

  Daddy’s emotional ambivalence about me disappeared when he was dying, but I was not mentioned in his will. I had often wondered if the distance I felt from my parents was just my imagination, but indeed, in their own ways, they both rejected me.

  Mr. Brauninger and Eva were missing from my life for twenty-nine years. During that time, I often dreamed that I was searching for them, as I also searched for Jodie and Keith. Perhaps my rather obsessive searching, before the Internet made locating people much easier, was related to the years I had spent waiting for my parents, yearning to know more about them.

  I found Jim and Eva again through Keith’s mother, who had their address. One morning in 1991, on my way to Uncle Willard’s funeral, I waited for my old mentors in an airport corridor. There they were, as if appearing out of the mists of time: tall, willowy Mr. Brauninger and petite, delicate Eva. We hugged and gazed rapturously at each other. Mr. B.’s red hair was white now, but he exuded love from his blue eyes just as I’d always remembered.

  I asked them if they had sensed my grandmother’s violent temper and controlling nature. Mr. Brauninger said that he tried to help me just be a little girl and have fun by playing marbles with me. He added, “I used to look into the faces of my students and see the face of God.”

  For ten years we saw each other about once a year. Once we had a reunion with Keith and his wife. Mr. Brauninger put Bach on his stereo system and closed his eyes. We all sat with him as if in prayer while the music washed over us. Many shared childhood memories were revisited that weekend—all those Saturday mornings at Youth Orchestra, discovering Beethoven and Mozart together. When Keith and I reminisced, we saw and heard the same things—the flow and discovery of amazing music, Mr. Brauninger’s bright blue eyes, the open plains, and a time that never will be again.

  Mr. Brauninger was eventually diagnosed with stomach cancer. Sensing that he would die soon, I felt a compelling desire to say goodbye and took the train to see him during January, the height of the Iowa winter. For two days after I arrived, he seemed healthy and he and Eva and I had a wonderful visit, but he became ill and had to go back to the hospital. I sat with him there, remembering my hospital vigil for my father. As I was thinking of this, Mr. Brauninger took my hand. Looking into my eyes, he said, “I guess I’ve been like a father to you, haven’t I?”

  Tears instantly flooded my eyes. Though he was weak, his grip on my hand was firm. I told him again, as I had many times before, how his love had made my childhood bearable. I kissed him on the forehead, and we sat together, quietly holding hands, until he fell asleep. He died a few months later.

  I feel so lucky to have known him. Jim Brauninger touched hundreds of young people in his life, giving them full respect as human beings, imparting his love and musical skill. He was able to read the chapters I wrote about him in this book, so I know he understood the very special place he inhabits in my heart.

  Jodie and I have lost and found each other several times over the years. She has been a professional cellist in Italy for thirty years, married a Russian violinist, and has a daughter and grandson. Thanks to the Internet, recently we renewed our special friendship. I am grateful to know her again after our long absences. We often reminisce about our good times together long ago in Enid, which seem to both of us like a dream. We talk about looking in the mirror these days, marveling how the faces of our mothers appear in our own, wondering where the years have gone since we met. When we were nine years old, we were protected and nurtured under Mr. Brauninger’s wings, and now our lives reflect his gifts to us.

  It took determined research to find out what happened to Aunt Helen. When I last spoke with her in the early 1980s, she hardly remembered me, which broke my heart. After that, all contact faded. I learned a few years ago that she died in 1989 in a nursing home in Tyler, Texas, and is buried in the heart of the Texas plains, which she so loved. There are many nights when I want to talk to her, to find out more from her perspective. I often reread her letters. In one she tells me, “Your mother is nutty and your grandmother depressed, but don’t you go living your life that way. You have a lot to offer, so go do it. You have a lot of common sense and you have your father’s get up and go.” Thank you, Aunt Helen, for saving me many times over with your glop, your belly hugs, and “God love ya, darlin’.”

  For a long time after my mother died, she hovered as a ghostly figure in my mind and my dreams, just as she had when I was growing up. Any day she might show up at my door wearing a jaunty hat, any day I might get on the train to go see her in Chicago. She had lived for so long in my imagination, far more alive there than in my flesh-and-blood life, that I had a hard time realizing she was truly gone. It was a relief not to have a mother who kept rejecting me. Still, she was my mother, and I grieved for her—for what we never had and never would. I had to learn to quit waiting for her to transform into the mother I kept hoping for.

  For seven years I delayed setting her gravestone in the Wapello cemetery. I visited her grave once a few years after she died, ashamed that there was no stone for her. I was uncertain about what to say on the stone, but I began to realize I was delaying this final step as a way to hold on to the ghost she had always been.

  For a long time I tried to find the right words to encapsulate a lifetime in a single phrase. When I visited the stone carvers, they asked me what I wanted to say. I thought for a few minutes, and then realized that, finally, I could have the last word:

  Josephine Hawkins Myers,

  daughter of Lulu and Blaine,

  mother of Linda Joy

  A fitting end to a story of mothers and grandmothers is to tell about my grandson, Miles. Amanda gave birth to him on February 25, 2003. I was in the room, helping him emerge into the world to the strains of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune.” Connected to us in the room were all the generations of our foremothers. I could almost see Blanche and Gram and Mother hovering around. It is said that it takes seven generations to heal a family, and Miles represents the seventh generation from the original Josephine who began it all on a patch of land near the Mississippi.

  Miles is now nearly two. His eyes light up when he sees me, his face opening into a big smile. Within minutes of my arrival, he picks up one of his books and nestles in my lap. “Read,” he commands me.

  I love the feeling of his sturdy body nestled next to me, the dark glow of his brown eyes. “Nana, Nana, Nana,” he repeats over and over again as he touches my cheek. My daughter says that he asks for me when I’m gone, but for some reason, I keep being surprised that he remembers me at all. My old insecurities have not completely left me. “Of course he remembers you!” Amanda laughs. “You were there when he was born.”

  I read Goodnight Moon to Miles. This wonderful book is a gift from his Uncle Andrew, who recently married a woman who adores him. Andrew waited a long time to get married, waiting to be quite certain in his relationship, determined not to repeat the family pattern of divorce.

  As Miles snuggles against me, tears fill my eyes. Amanda gives me that look that says, “Oh, Mom, you’re so sentimental.”

  “It’s so beautiful—we’re the first generation in one hundred years to have this.”

  “You’ll never get over parts of your past, will you?” she says tenderly, giving me a kiss.

  Miles looks up at me, squinching his face like a monkey. I want to laugh and cry from sheer joy. I am the bridge between my painful past and the vibrant present.

  “I love you much,” Amanda says, beaming at Miles.

  “Much,” he says back, meaning, “I love you.”

  I know my children have internalized the shadows of my life. We have all talked about it—too much, acc
ording to them. I have taken full responsibility for the mistakes I made, but I can’t escape the fact that my sons and daughter were damaged by them. My fifty years of internal stress and struggle about my mother, my father, and Gram—not to mention the emotional and physical violence they inflicted—has marked me indelibly, despite my great strides in healing. My children are marked, in turn, but they are doing well, living their lives, working out the kinds of problems that everyone faces as adults.

  I wrote this book to honor the people I have loved, to give them life again, to honor them in memory. I offer it as a legacy and a lesson, and let it go.

  Today, I feel free of the past as I cuddle Miles and kiss his soft cheek.

  He giggles. “Read more.” His small finger points to the page.

  “I love you,” I say before I begin: “Once upon a time…”

  But Miles interrupts me. “Much,” he says, cuddling closer. “Nana.”

  Afterword

  A memoir is a living document. The lives described within its pages live on; the themes and story threads, the dreams and dilemmas, continue through the passage of time. If you are a memoirist, you have the opportunity to think about your story beyond the confines of the page or “what happened.” Through finding your wisdom, courage, and voice, having written a memoir, perhaps you will discover new aspects of your story and yourself. The stories that follow are all intimately connected to my memoir, Don’t Call Me Mother, and tell about the resolutions I was not able to discover before writing the memoir. When it was complete however, the book took on a life of its own—becoming a living document which propelled me into more growth and discovery, and allowed me to develop and flower into a more whole person.

  Time Traveling in Memoir:

  Encountering the Past in the Present

  I’ve seen how much truth there is in William Faulkner’s famous quote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Though our bodies live in linear time, our minds and souls can lift off from earthly realms and into thoughts, dreams, and memories, transporting us into timeless places.

  Unfortunately, some of the dreams and memories that stay with us the longest may not be from our happiest times. Dr. James Pennebaker and other psychologists have said that writing about these experiences helps to heal, and can lighten the darker moments of our lives. This is true, but sometimes a new experience—such as facing our dragons—is even more effective and can amaze us with its power.

  Through the years, I have reflected on the dark dreams that came from my experience living with Vera. All my life I had nightmares about Vera; my memories of her dark, spidery basement had me in their grip for decades, causing me to tremble in fear and dread. I chose to write about them, and I discovered that nothing struck me down—no lightning from the skies punished me for telling my truths. But still the dreams continued from time to time—dreams of the Kansas landscape, fields of wheat, Vera’s house, railroad tracks, and the haunting whistle of a train.

  To remind the reader briefly of the story I told in chapter two of my memoir:

  My grandmother bought a house for my mother and me in Wichita, moving us from the apartment in Chicago where I lived alone with my mother. The tension between them was like twisted metal wires. The fierce expressions on their faces made them look like angry mythological goddesses, and they filled the rooms with smoke and rage, piercing voices and accusations. One day this conflict rose to a peak, and Mother announced that she was going back to Chicago—alone. I threatened to cry, hoping to make her stay, but she disappeared on the train in a puff of smoke.

  Afterward, Gram and I settled into a routine: I played with my dolls; she called me Sugar Pie and read books. Then Vera and her brood came calling, along with her long-faced husband, Charlie, who was Gram’s cousin, and their four kids: twelve-year-old Bruce, ten-year-old Terry, six year old Ernest, who had curly dark hair and a sweet smile, and their little sister, Betsy, who was two.

  The boys buzzed around like bees, and it was a relief when they left—but the visits continued. Each time, Gram tried to make a good impression by wearing one of her nice dresses and putting on all her makeup. She bustled around the house cleaning, and she started fresh coffee. Why there was such a flurry over the lady with the knife-sharp face and her aw-shucks husband was hard to understand.

  Then, one day, Gram tearfully told me that I had to go live with Vera and her family in Wheatland. I promised to be good; I begged her not to send me away.

  “I’m sorry, Sugar Pie, but your parents have decided, and I have to do what they say.”

  “But why?” How could she send me away with those people?

  “Vera has children, and they think you’d be better off with them than with your old Gram.”

  For two days she washed my clothes and packed my suitcase, tears running down her face. I tried not to cry, knowing it would upset Gram if I did. My body grew heavy with dread. I whispered my wishes to the fairies—“Don’t let them take me!”—but I was only five, and I couldn’t stop the onrush of fate.

  The details of my time with Vera have already been written in the chapter. What truly stuck with me through the years, though, were Vera’s glittering eyes, the damp basement where Freddie, their sixteen-year-old friend, crawled over my small body, the frequent spankings, and the cruel teasing by her children. The fact that there was no protection from any of it. The isolation. Wondering if anyone remembered me—my parents, my grandmother? Anyone?

  Many times I’ve looked at photographs of me before and after living with Vera. I have revisited pictures of myself then: a skinny thing with big eyes and a vague smile, looking a little lost. In the early years of my healing journey, Reichian therapy helped release the traumas that had tightened in my muscles and cells. I would descend to Vera’s basement, or go back to a time when she beat me, her eyes glittering in the darkness. As the years progressed, I processed much of the intensity of the trauma, but fear and anxiety were still my constant companions.

  Through visits to my Iowa relatives over a period of forty years, I kept track of Vera—Charlie, of course, was our relation, and he had a brother, Davie Dee, who still lived in Iowa. During one of my summer visits, Davie Dee and his wife, Bobbie, who were in their mid-seventies, came to visit. As always, Aunt Edith rustled up some homemade cake and put on the coffee pot to perc, and we all settled in around the table. Edith kept looking at me nervously, wringing her hands. Bobbie seemed a soft-spoken and kind woman, and the usual chatting went on about weather, the river, and the price of corn. When there was a break in the conversation, Bobbie took a breath: “You know, Linda, I’m Vera’s sister.” I sat very still, the old fears coursing through my body. “But I’m nothing like Vera,” she went on to say, as if she knew my history, or perhaps had seen a flicker of dread in my eyes.

  Edith finally calmed down enough to pour the coffee. She must have felt nervous about Bobbie’s showing up like that, knowing my feelings about Vera. “Linda lived with Vera for a time,” she added on my behalf.

  “I know,” Bobbie said softly. I chimed in that I’d thought of finding Vera and talking with her someday. This was an era when people were being urged to confront their abusers, though I was not at all sure I wanted to do that—even the thought of Vera still sent a chill through me. Bobbie shook her head adamantly. “No, that is not a good idea. You see, she was always… different. She’s always been kind of mean. None of us sisters got along with her.”

  We talked about the fact that Betsy had taken her life in her thirties. “Poor girl” was all Bobbie could say. The cake eating and weather discussion proceeded, as they do in all Iowa visits, and they did so without strain now that the hard information had been shared. Bobbie looked at me a few times with sympathy, or some emotion I couldn’t name, in her watery blue eyes. I kept looking at this kind, white-haired woman, wondering how she could be Vera’s sister.

  As we moved to leave, I couldn’t help but notice that Davie Dee had the angular face and look of Blanche and our older r
elatives. I wondered what Charlie, his brother, looked like now. If he knew anything about what had happened. How he could love Vera.

  The moist Iowa air, replete with summer scents of the river and the fresh earth, wafted around us as we said goodbye. Suddenly, Bobbie stopped, threw her arms around me, and burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, Linda Joy. I have to tell you—it’s burdened me my whole life. I knew what Vera was doing to you; I visited once and you were so unhappy, just a little pathetic thing. But I said nothing. I should have done something to rescue you. I’m so very sorry! Will you please forgive me?”

  Shocked, I held the frail old woman in my arms, dazed by the new information I was getting about her and about myself. I started reassuring her—she was so unhappy, and she’d carried this for so long. I couldn’t blame her for anything. My mother and my father should have seen what was happening to me. I patted her and told her I forgave her and not to think about it again, and I felt somewhat lightened of my own burdens in doing so.

  That day I realized my nightmares were based on reality. Another human being had seen what was going on, someone who knew Vera well—her own sister. It was reassuring and surprising to me, and to Aunt Edith as well, who had long known what had happened when I was little. Edith had mothered me the best she could to make up for it, but there was another element in Edith’s family that countered the effect, a confusing dynamic that was neither light nor pretty, but sorting that out would come later.

  The story about Vera and my year with her is one that fits the pattern of a trauma story: a place in the psyche where the pain of the past gets dammed up behind the rocks in the river of life. During the years I was writing my memoir, I wrote the chapter about Vera over and over again—I was back in the basement, being punished for getting sick, getting spanked for being late and lying to her about eating sugar bread when I was hungry. I could hear the clanking of the belts fall to the floor when she whipped the boys; I could see her face and feel the desperate child within me who felt so powerless. I remembered my mother and father not noticing my troubled eyes. I thought of Betsy and wondered why she had to kill herself. Did Vera abuse her like she did me? Why didn’t anyone notice her pain and save her? Sometimes people can’t be saved, and sometimes they can. I don’t know what happened with Betsy, and I never will. But it still feels too close to home that another little girl in that house was so emotionally injured that took her own life.