1.
Growing up, the TV was always on. I could tell time by what kind of show was on, our schedule was: Mr. Rogers and cartoons, game shows, soap operas, sitcoms or the movie of the week.
The sitcoms were the only shows watched by my mom and my sister and I (dad worked days and nights). They taught me the most important lesson about love:
People who love each other are mean to each other.
They are sarcastic, because being funny is more important than caring for the feelings of others.
They lie for really ridiculous reasons.
But every episode ends with declarations of love. They must love each other. Why else would they say it and hug each other?
No one said anything about my mother beating me. We all loved the same shows. I hope those are the main reasons it took me so long to understand that most parents didn’t hit their kids regularly, that most kids didn’t think about suicide as ‘winning’ the race against their mom.
I was in 6th grade the first time I struggled with making a Mother’s Day card.
2.
It was the last Mother’s Day before we moved to my father’s home. The divorce was nearly final and we were moving in less than a week.
My mother spent the day crying, screaming at me about how I betrayed her, arguing she only hit me when I deserved it. She wouldn’t let us play outside – she only had ‘a little time left’ with us, and we were going to spend it with her. Even though I was a lying, scheming, ungrateful fucking bitch who manipulated her poor baby sister into lying in court.
We lived in a basement apartment. The windows were above my head and barely let in any light. My dad’s new apartment was on the first floor. I could look out any of the windows. There would be light. One week and I could see the light through the windows.
The day we moved was my 14th birthday. My dad handed me 2 cards. One was a birthday card. The other was a creamy pink card with red embossed foil roses. “To A Wonderful Mother…” Inside was some poem. And my dad’s handwriting: “I want to acknowledge what a great job you do taking care of your sister. You are her real mother in so many ways.”
I knew the part he left unwritten: And me. You take care of me. I knew the bargain I had made in choosing him.
He gave me a Mother’s Day card for the next 10 years. Always at the same time as my birthday card, for convenience.
3.
I’m a parent now.
My kids are too young to really know about Mother’s Day.
I’m enjoying that while I can.
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