Dig my grave

From the time I was a child, I knew the way my mother treated me wasn't normal. It wouldn't be until I was in my 40s that I would accept the truth that not only did my mother not love me she hated me. 

When I got the phone call that my father has Parkinson's Disease, I wasn't surprised. He had been shaking for years, and neither of my parents are the pinnacle of health. This wasn't to say that I wasn't crushed by the news. I had always felt close to my dad. I believed that no matter how nasty or impossible Mother was, I could trust Dad to have my back. 

It was my husband's idea to offer our home and lives to my parents. My mother had made it clear that she was incapable of taking care of Dad, claiming that their doctors in Oklahoma recommended they live with us in Virginia. 

I remember standing in our old kitchen in our beloved townhome, asking my husband if he was sure about this offer. We both knew how difficult Mother could be, and my husband was also aware of her dislike for him. She had made that painfully obvious years prior when we decided to homeschool our children. 

Her adamant negativity towards homeschooling came on the heels of her disappointment with my decision to retire from the military. She was always convinced I was too stupid and incompetent to function on my own. The military was where she shoved me before I could know better, and it's where she wanted me to stay. So, she was beside herself when I dared to believe I could be happier, thrive outside the military, and retire without consulting her. She wouldn't speak to me about retirement or our possibilities post-service, not without bringing up all the possible adverse things that could happen.

It’s comical thinking on it now. Mother used to chide me endlessly when I would feel down by chanting “Attitude attitude attitude!”. Turns out Mother is the most negative positive person one could ever meet. And yet, even with all that history, my husband was still on board with bringing them into our lives because, as he rightly said:

"It's the right thing to do."

What we didn't know was how much that decision would change our lives and fundamentally change how I view my existence. 

As we merged our homes and lives, it became obvious that things were not okay. Mother, who would often claim she was the most intelligent and capable member of our family, was entirely incapable of doing anything with the transition. Part of me wanted to believe that this was just because of her age and the shock of learning about Dad's illness. But I knew the truth. 

My mother is and perhaps always was sick.

Once the house was sold and it was time to help them move, we came across a reality we couldn’t escape. My mother is best described as a highly organized, clean hoarder. As we dove into packing their home, it became evident that my parents did not intend to downsize their lives to fit within ours. In fact, they both expected that we would downsize and fit within theirs. To be fair to my mother, she isn't the only hoarder; my dad is just as bad. We watched as boxes were sealed with hundreds of decades-old modeling magazines, years' worth of saved losing lottery tickets, over 50 decks of playing cards, many of which never opened, decades-old clothing that isn't just out of style but no longer fit either of them and some of which still had tags on them, boxes of paperclips purchased for me when I was in middle school, and the list goes on and on. 

Yet we pressed on, hoping that some of the stockpiled items would be trimmed once we found a home and merged our lives. 

There is very little Mom and I both like, so finding a house we all wanted within our price point felt impossible. However, we did find a home. It was bigger than our townhome and bigger than their house in Oklahoma. When we toured the home, everyone seemed to love it. Later, when we were discussing if we should make an offer on the house, my mother said these words:

"It's rare that all four of us would like a house, and we all liked that house immediately."

So, we bought our house. 

Homeownership was not in our original plans. My husband and I prefer the renter lifestyle and were proud that we were debt-free. But we entered a massive amount of debt with an accompanying life anchor under the false promises given to us by my parents. They both agreed that we would be the family leads, with them saying:

"You drive the train; we follow."

They made claims like:

"We can live anywhere in any size space."

My personal favorite was:

"We don't want to interfere with your plans. We want you to keep writing and Beau to keep doing art."

None of this was true. 

The first big lie revealed was the truth about how sick Dad really was. It turned out Dad was much worse off than they had told us. We realized this truth during a rare moment of clarity expressed by Dad in a fit of rage while hospitalized. He looked at Mom and said:

"You told me to hide it, you told me to lie and say everything was okay, you promised it would be okay!"

Shortly after moving into our new home, my dad was in and out of hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and then, ultimately, a nursing home. There was no time for my writing and the art business, let alone for my family. So, both ceased to exist, which meant the income from both also stopped. 

This also left my husband alone to unpack. He unpacked bags filled with Allen wrenches, a microwave oven turntable plate, a Ziplock baggie filled with Ziplock baggies, dozens of sets of drinking glasses, boxes of baskets, old toothpicks, old license plates, and the list goes on and on. Any attempt to downsize these items was met with resistance and downright anger. Forget about trying to downsize any non-heirloom furniture to make room for our things, that would be met with tears and aggression.

Mother dreaded moving to Virginia from the start. Not because she loved Oklahoma, she hated it there before she even moved there. It was because of my relationship with my half-brother.

My estranged half-brother and his husband also live in Virginia. I had ceased to communicate with my brother years prior. My brother and I had a rocky relationship for the last 25 years. It started when I was a teenager. He told me Dad had physically abused him because he was gay. I didn't believe him and wanted nothing to do with him. In a vicious cycle I would be trapped in for over two decades, my mother would use my dad to get me to open communication with my brother again and again. Each time either my brother or his husband would get drunk and verbally assault me or ruin some family get together.

But now I had a family of my own to protect, and I was tired of their alcoholism ruining family holidays, and their cyclical verbal abuse. And so, I set boundaries. 

Then Dad got sick.

At first, my brother wouldn't come to the hospital. He didn't show up to "help" until many weeks later when my father was in a rehab center. But it didn't take long for Mother to latch on to his reemergence. It didn't matter all the pain he had caused the family and me over the years. Her obvious favorite child was back in her life, and that was all that mattered. So much so that she would neglect her grandchildren in favor of him. 

While that alone is hurtful, Mother has a track record of treating me and my family as second fiddle to literally anybody else. She would rob time from her grandkids for non-family members too, mere friends of hers who would pop in, stay in our home, sob about Dad, and then leave without helping.

Enough was enough. We had endured endless verbal and emotional abuse from her, and now our children were affected by her narcissism. 

My mother had decided to move out a few months before our last fight. She told us that she had been using her lawyer, whom we thought was for estate planning, to help her find a new home and move my dad in. This, of course, after months of Mother telling us that Dad couldn't move back home with us like we wanted. It wasn't that he could move back home; it was that she didn't want to live with us.

She never did. 

When we had finally had enough of her abuse and told her she needed to stop and be nice to us, after all we had done for them, she said:

"You were supposed to do this; this was your job."

This implies that I owed my parents my life, future, and that of my family simply because they decided to give me life. Interestingly, this same expectation was not levied on my older brother. I was expected to give up everything because, in her eyes, what we were working towards and what we had achieved were meaningless. Mother never believed in our ability to run a successful art boutique or my prospects as a writer. 

I'm unsure if I would've had the strength to say "enough" to a woman who had captured my soul for four decades. I chased her affection and acceptance my whole life, but neither was ever in her capacity to give. Luckily, I had my husband to support me, and he stood by me as we told Mother that she needed to treat us better, get help for her clear mental illness, or find someplace else to live. 

She made her decision, and now we are free. 

Mom chose her things, her equally as emotionally abusive son, and her illness over me and my family. I'm not sure the decision was hard for her, but I know it floored me. It wasn't just the lies Mom and Dad told us and the abuse we experienced that was torture. It was the realization of something else.

I was never going to be enough.

So, I dug my grave this year and buried who I was. A child desperately trying to believe she was loved as much as her brother. A young woman chasing acceptance that was never there. A daughter who was abused and manipulated her entire life, trapped in a family that perpetuated and tolerated the woman who abused her.

That woman is gone. 

I have my own children, and I won’t perpetuate the cycle of abuse I grew up in. I say goodbye to my family's known misery. I won't accept their destiny. 

I step into the future with the only family I ever needed – the man I love and my kids. Two wonderful beings who owe me nothing because to be their mother is an honor, not a burden to use to my advantage. 

My mom is proof that maternal love isn't always natural or automatic. My story is more common than it should be, but it didn’t destroy me, it helped rebuild me.

I wonder sometimes if my brother was telling the truth those many years ago. If he was trying to warn me of what he knew that I didn’t. 

I wonder sometimes if Dad will ever know that Mom would openly wish he would die. If he will ever know how hard I tried to help him at the cost of so much to me and my family. 

Then I remember, family is who you choose, and I don’t choose them anymore.