I would say that my mom never has shown much ability to remember. Considering the sheer, mind-boggling number of drugs and treatments she's been subjected to since 1960, I have generally given her a pass on that. My own memory has bits I wish I could lose, bits I wish I hadn't lost, and quirks that annoy me mightily.
But some things seem to me to be just too big to lose. When I was five months old, mom says she left me with dad and took a little trip--one time she said for a week, another time she said it was no more than three days. For a nursing mother to take even three days off seems a bit odd to me, but not impossible to believe.
The problem comes when I compare to dad's side of the story. He came home from work to find his infant daughter home alone, obviously untended for several hours, and no sign of his wife. He called friends, neighbors, her parents (more on that later) and the police. Nobody knew where she'd gone, when she'd left, or why. Considering some of the other stunts mom has pulled, I have little trouble believing this.
Somewhere about a week after she disappeared, dad found out that she had gone home to her parents, but they wouldn't return his calls. He got help from the neighbors to take care of me, kept working, and played the waiting game. Nine months later, out of the blue, her parents brought her back, and left without a word.
I just have to wonder. How do you forget your nearly-new baby for nine months? To say nothing of a husband. Did none of her friends ask? If her parents thought dad was so bad that he wasn't worth talking to on the phone, why did they leave me with him? Or if they thought dad and I were so bad for mom, why did they bring her back?
Needless to say, I don't remember any of that. I barely have any memories at all before I was four years old. Which just happens to be when my brother was born, and mom spent over a year, total, in something like four different hospitals, split among maybe a half-dozen or more separate visits. That time makes perfect sense to me. The medical and mental health care of the mid-70's was still trying to figure out what was wrong with her, and what treatment(s) might help her, and that took time. But in 1971 she did not go to any hospital, and there's no indication that she saw any doctors.
The trap, here, is that there probably isn't any way to understand, because over the years we have figured out pretty conclusively that her brain chemistry is just not right. So we can't expect her to be normal. I'm not sure which diagnosis was being used then--I've been told that in 1960, she was deemed to be Paranoid Schizophrenic. Some time later, (perhaps in the 70's) they decided she was Manic/Depressive. These days they call it Bipolar disorder. She doesn't follow the herd there, either, since there is no evidence that she has ever had a depressive event. Ever. Apparently depression is very common, mania less so, and manic-only bipolar people are quite rare, like maybe 5% of people with bipolar disorder. Having a rare diagnosis is emphatically not a good thing. Because almost nobody knows how to help.
One of the things I'd like to do, and part of the mindset behind starting this blog, is to see if it's possible that any of those neighbors remember. In our mobile society, I doubt that many, or even any of them might remain there. 1971 was a long time ago, after all. Is it important? Probably not. Do I disbelieve my dad? Absolutely not. But since it's a he said/she said situation, I'd like one more "said" just because I want to know. Or maybe I'm just... too stubborn, and I want to prove that mom forgot. But I wonder--what did it look like to the neighbors? Did they notice? (Some of them knew at least some of the details, because some of those kindly neighbor ladies babysat little me.) There's been a lot of turnover in our old neighborhood. It's not like we stayed, after all. We left when I was about 18 months old. But as of about the middle of 2014, the house my parents built, and the neighborhood it stood in were still standing. (But the house has been painted. No more Forest Green with Orange Trim. (Nobody said dad had popular taste in colors.) It blends with its neighbors much better, now. I've driven by, and seen it.)
The grands are gone. They will answer no questions from beyond the grave, even if they would, since they were remarkably tight-lipped before. I've been given the impression that the aunts weren't aware of the events as they were happening--whether they were out of state, or weren't read into the full details, or some other unknown detail, I'm simply not certain. And as mentioned above, communication was not happening with my dad, so he wasn't even able to find out at the time who knew what was going on.
This is one of those things I wish I could have skipped.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
But sometimes it's Really Bad.
Three years ago, mom decided that tickling was some nebulous sort of sexual torture, and my husband and I are child abusers because we refuse to abstain 100%. She also tarred one nephew with that particular broad brush. (Seriously--watch some TV, read a novel or magazine, and talk to... I don't know, a dozen random people. Count how many times tickling is referenced as ordinary and harmless.)
Last year, she decided that my niece, her granddaughter, was seducing any man in sight. That girl's own somewhat tragic history makes this claim illogical at best. (Even that is probably saying too much--it's her story to tell or not as she sees fit. But anyone who knows her ought to realize this claim was ludicrous. One advantage that year was that there is a three hour drive between niece and grandma.)
This spring, she began by saying that requiring my children to help with housework (cleaning their own rooms and washing dishes, primarily) was going to drive them to run away or commit suicide. I caved in to blackmail and took eldest to see a therapist, who proclaimed us a normal family, including the arguments and the pre-teen drama.
So mom upped the ante. Now we're abusive because we own guns (both girls have said they want to go hunting this deer season, and they also like to fish, but I digress) and sometimes use spanking as a punishment. When SRS and the local Sheriff's department closed that investigation, she upped her game again.
Now, since eldest doesn't want to sit down and have a long, detailed conversation with her grammy about her private parts, she must therefore be suffering molestation by her father. As evidence, mom said that hubby's brother expressed that there is a family history of incest. (Brother-in-law in question has, in my hearing, told the following "joke:" Vice is nice, but incest is best! And while it may be off-color, politically incorrect, and offensive to some sensibilities, I do not believe for one minute that it the statement she claims it to be.) Mom has tried to trick me into taking the girls to the local emergency department for a pelvic exam to prove her point. My girls are nearly-nine and just-turned-twelve years old. I believe that is too young for such an invasive and inherently embarrassing, if not truly humiliating inspection. Especially since the "evidence" has been invented in the mind of a madwoman. (When eldest reached menarche earlier this year, I asked her doctor if I needed to schedule a visit. He said not for a few more years yet, unless she develops problems. But he did recommend the Gardasil vaccination. Which reminds me, I need to set that up. Eldest won't be happy with me--she hates shots.) Mom insists that since I don't agree with her, my husband must "have something on me" to stop me from speaking up. That's the most charitable thing she's said about me, since this all blew up with her initial abusive call on Mother's Day morning. I'm also, apparently, a lazy slob, a screamer, and a horrible mother. I'll claim the slob--I dislike housework with a burning passion. But while I may put it off, I generally get it done eventually, and hubby does more than his share. I'll have to accept the screamer designation--I'm battling severe pain in my feet, and walking is agony. So I'm more likely to call them to me to tell them something, rather that walking all over the house looking for them. Also, when my preteen screams at me, I'm not perfect, sometimes I scream back.
Mom has announced that she's moving away. (it helps to "hear" that with the tone of a three-year-old stomping off in a tantrum-induced huff.) She claims that she moved to this town to be near family (that's another story, I'll try to get to it later) and since now none of her family is speaking to her, she's going to go live near her friend at the other end of the state. That this leaves all her local friends behind doesn't seem to matter. The fact that she's the reason I'm not speaking to her (I can't see how getting verbal pins stuck into me at every conversation is supposed to be pleasant) doesn't register. One of her sisters isn't speaking to any of us, because she has been mad at us for over a year--she's bipolar, too, but in denial about it. And the peacemaker sister has a full time job with a local school (she's a nurse and counselor) as well as a part time job as a landlord, AND has her own husband, kids, and grandkids to give her time to. She doesn't deserve the stress, either.
When I'm being a caring daughter, I'm afraid that mom won't have the support team she needs. Her friend is bipolar, and has attempted suicide in the past--an unfortunately frail personality to be leaning on. When I'm being the hurt and vengeful victim, I want to say good riddance, and I hope the door doesn't smack her on the rump on her way out. She's already tried to move once--about a month ago. She blew the engine in her car just over an hour away (it's about a nine hour drive to where she's going) and had to be rescued by my brother. She stayed with him for a week, and scared the shoes and socks off of him. But nobody can seem to see the trouble in a therapy visit--she can pull it together for an hour, or under conscious control. I desperately want her to get inpatient treatment. I hope that if she were observed for a few days, or even a week, that medical professionals could see the problems and perhaps help her. I don't know if she's taking her meds on time, or at all, I'm not sure if the meds she's taking are the right ones, or the right dosage. She might need more, she might need less, she might need different ones. She has never, in nearly 50 years, been able to keep control without medication. She's tried to control herself with diet before. Just one disaster of many. But for an involuntary commission, she needs to be declared a danger to herself or others. I doubt she will harm anyone (unless she drives me to a heart attack) and I don't think financial suicide is what they mean. She's on a fixed income anyway, so it's not like she has a job to stay here for. I'm just... at a loss.
Family drama. I really wish I could skip that.
Last year, she decided that my niece, her granddaughter, was seducing any man in sight. That girl's own somewhat tragic history makes this claim illogical at best. (Even that is probably saying too much--it's her story to tell or not as she sees fit. But anyone who knows her ought to realize this claim was ludicrous. One advantage that year was that there is a three hour drive between niece and grandma.)
This spring, she began by saying that requiring my children to help with housework (cleaning their own rooms and washing dishes, primarily) was going to drive them to run away or commit suicide. I caved in to blackmail and took eldest to see a therapist, who proclaimed us a normal family, including the arguments and the pre-teen drama.
So mom upped the ante. Now we're abusive because we own guns (both girls have said they want to go hunting this deer season, and they also like to fish, but I digress) and sometimes use spanking as a punishment. When SRS and the local Sheriff's department closed that investigation, she upped her game again.
Now, since eldest doesn't want to sit down and have a long, detailed conversation with her grammy about her private parts, she must therefore be suffering molestation by her father. As evidence, mom said that hubby's brother expressed that there is a family history of incest. (Brother-in-law in question has, in my hearing, told the following "joke:" Vice is nice, but incest is best! And while it may be off-color, politically incorrect, and offensive to some sensibilities, I do not believe for one minute that it the statement she claims it to be.) Mom has tried to trick me into taking the girls to the local emergency department for a pelvic exam to prove her point. My girls are nearly-nine and just-turned-twelve years old. I believe that is too young for such an invasive and inherently embarrassing, if not truly humiliating inspection. Especially since the "evidence" has been invented in the mind of a madwoman. (When eldest reached menarche earlier this year, I asked her doctor if I needed to schedule a visit. He said not for a few more years yet, unless she develops problems. But he did recommend the Gardasil vaccination. Which reminds me, I need to set that up. Eldest won't be happy with me--she hates shots.) Mom insists that since I don't agree with her, my husband must "have something on me" to stop me from speaking up. That's the most charitable thing she's said about me, since this all blew up with her initial abusive call on Mother's Day morning. I'm also, apparently, a lazy slob, a screamer, and a horrible mother. I'll claim the slob--I dislike housework with a burning passion. But while I may put it off, I generally get it done eventually, and hubby does more than his share. I'll have to accept the screamer designation--I'm battling severe pain in my feet, and walking is agony. So I'm more likely to call them to me to tell them something, rather that walking all over the house looking for them. Also, when my preteen screams at me, I'm not perfect, sometimes I scream back.
Mom has announced that she's moving away. (it helps to "hear" that with the tone of a three-year-old stomping off in a tantrum-induced huff.) She claims that she moved to this town to be near family (that's another story, I'll try to get to it later) and since now none of her family is speaking to her, she's going to go live near her friend at the other end of the state. That this leaves all her local friends behind doesn't seem to matter. The fact that she's the reason I'm not speaking to her (I can't see how getting verbal pins stuck into me at every conversation is supposed to be pleasant) doesn't register. One of her sisters isn't speaking to any of us, because she has been mad at us for over a year--she's bipolar, too, but in denial about it. And the peacemaker sister has a full time job with a local school (she's a nurse and counselor) as well as a part time job as a landlord, AND has her own husband, kids, and grandkids to give her time to. She doesn't deserve the stress, either.
When I'm being a caring daughter, I'm afraid that mom won't have the support team she needs. Her friend is bipolar, and has attempted suicide in the past--an unfortunately frail personality to be leaning on. When I'm being the hurt and vengeful victim, I want to say good riddance, and I hope the door doesn't smack her on the rump on her way out. She's already tried to move once--about a month ago. She blew the engine in her car just over an hour away (it's about a nine hour drive to where she's going) and had to be rescued by my brother. She stayed with him for a week, and scared the shoes and socks off of him. But nobody can seem to see the trouble in a therapy visit--she can pull it together for an hour, or under conscious control. I desperately want her to get inpatient treatment. I hope that if she were observed for a few days, or even a week, that medical professionals could see the problems and perhaps help her. I don't know if she's taking her meds on time, or at all, I'm not sure if the meds she's taking are the right ones, or the right dosage. She might need more, she might need less, she might need different ones. She has never, in nearly 50 years, been able to keep control without medication. She's tried to control herself with diet before. Just one disaster of many. But for an involuntary commission, she needs to be declared a danger to herself or others. I doubt she will harm anyone (unless she drives me to a heart attack) and I don't think financial suicide is what they mean. She's on a fixed income anyway, so it's not like she has a job to stay here for. I'm just... at a loss.
Family drama. I really wish I could skip that.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
It's not always bad...
There have occasionally been fun things that happened because of mom's mental illness. Such as, when she was in a Denver hospital, small town me, and little brother, used to get to ride in a real, live, elevator up to our hotel room when we'd visit. The hotel where we'd stay had a glass one, stuck on the outside corner of the building, so we got a good view.
Sometimes we'd also go shopping, and ride the escalators. Probably drove the parents bughouse, but I don't remember getting in trouble. I don't know if we'd have gone to Denver at all as little kids, if mom hadn't been in the hospital there.
There's also the time... wish I could remember the year for certain... I was in high school, we were living in the white and blue house, and mom was hospitalized again. Grandpa came up and hired a college girl to stay with us. She was in the Vet Tech program, and one of their practice dogs was de-barked. We adopted her, called her Penny. Gave Max someone to play with. (But when the guy training sled dogs came along, mom gave Penny to him. That wasn't so nice. But I suppose getting a dog while she was in the hospital wasn't perfectly nice, either.)
I can't recall, just now, if Max was another case like that. I remember who I got him from, and the story he came with, but I can't recall if mom was home when I got him. I sure do miss that dog.
Mustn't forget one of the most fun times... I think I was... 16, perhaps. Mom came home at... 4 am, I think it was, with a guy who drove truck for a custom cutting crew. He taught me how to braid my hair with four strands, and then we all went out and he taught me how to drive his big, ten-wheel Mack grain truck. Scary sort of thrill, 'cause even then I knew I wasn't old enough to get a license. We all got home, mom locked herself in her room with him, and we didn't see hide nor hair of him for about four days. Then he woke up, realized how much trouble he was in, and was gone in a flash. I can't say I know well how to double-clutch, but I still put that on the "fun" side of the scales.
Sometimes we'd also go shopping, and ride the escalators. Probably drove the parents bughouse, but I don't remember getting in trouble. I don't know if we'd have gone to Denver at all as little kids, if mom hadn't been in the hospital there.
There's also the time... wish I could remember the year for certain... I was in high school, we were living in the white and blue house, and mom was hospitalized again. Grandpa came up and hired a college girl to stay with us. She was in the Vet Tech program, and one of their practice dogs was de-barked. We adopted her, called her Penny. Gave Max someone to play with. (But when the guy training sled dogs came along, mom gave Penny to him. That wasn't so nice. But I suppose getting a dog while she was in the hospital wasn't perfectly nice, either.)
I can't recall, just now, if Max was another case like that. I remember who I got him from, and the story he came with, but I can't recall if mom was home when I got him. I sure do miss that dog.
Mustn't forget one of the most fun times... I think I was... 16, perhaps. Mom came home at... 4 am, I think it was, with a guy who drove truck for a custom cutting crew. He taught me how to braid my hair with four strands, and then we all went out and he taught me how to drive his big, ten-wheel Mack grain truck. Scary sort of thrill, 'cause even then I knew I wasn't old enough to get a license. We all got home, mom locked herself in her room with him, and we didn't see hide nor hair of him for about four days. Then he woke up, realized how much trouble he was in, and was gone in a flash. I can't say I know well how to double-clutch, but I still put that on the "fun" side of the scales.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
What's in a name?
Perhaps this is a good day to come clean: I named my blog as I did because I've skipped over a number of things. Skipped several college courses, for instance. (Tested out, actually, but regardless of how it happened, I didn't have to go to those classes.)
Some of my skips were deliberate, like those courses. Others just happened. Like skipping over some parts of adolescence. No, I didn't magically age a decade overnight, and no, I wasn't magically mature, either. But when I look at some tween being a happy, silly, apparently carefree tween, I'm dead serious when I say "I was never that young."
The first time I got to admit my mother to a mental hospital, essentially all by myself, I was eleven years old. Up until that point, I would have said I'd been having a fairly ordinary life. Even having parents get divorced was part of the ordinary-ness of it all. (While it's true that my parents were the first divorced parents I knew about when I was ten, I'm pretty sure that has more to do with my circle of friends, rather than nationwide divorce rates.)
Watching the meltdown of a full-blown manic episode evolve over the course of roughly a week was... transformative.
As mom devolved, I found myself changed, whether I willed it or not. I tried to figure out what was happening with her. I tried to keep up with her (anyone who's ever stayed up for 36 to 48 hours without sleep probably knows how well that didn't work--my mother on a manic episode could stay up for a whole week with the merest blinks for naps) and when I couldn't, I worried. It's very difficult to pin down, since her apparent IQ skyrockets along with her ability to be convincing, but if you're paying attention, the logic is missing, and the attention span steadily gets shorter and shorter. The essential person who I thought of as "mom" was gradually engulfed in this... other.
I can't recall all the details of that first one I got to be up close and personal for--there have been too many. It might have been the time she wrote letters to Lech Walesa supposedly telling him all the things he needed to know to successfully lead Poland out of its troubles. (I don't know if she sent them, and if so, if she had a good address for them. But she wrote them, and told people around her that she was going to help him save Poland. Being a savior is frequently one of the signposts we need to watch for.) What I do know is this: She was going to college, and surrounded by students who are traditionally rather vocal about their take on current world events. And her meltdown coincided with finals week, fall term, 1981.
In the final analysis, I wasn't able to DO the admitting myself, but I was the driving force behind my friend's mom taking mom in. And while I won't say I was instantly a grown-up, I consider that the end of my childhood. Adolescence, and the chance to be carefree? Yeah, I skipped that.
Some of my skips were deliberate, like those courses. Others just happened. Like skipping over some parts of adolescence. No, I didn't magically age a decade overnight, and no, I wasn't magically mature, either. But when I look at some tween being a happy, silly, apparently carefree tween, I'm dead serious when I say "I was never that young."
The first time I got to admit my mother to a mental hospital, essentially all by myself, I was eleven years old. Up until that point, I would have said I'd been having a fairly ordinary life. Even having parents get divorced was part of the ordinary-ness of it all. (While it's true that my parents were the first divorced parents I knew about when I was ten, I'm pretty sure that has more to do with my circle of friends, rather than nationwide divorce rates.)
Watching the meltdown of a full-blown manic episode evolve over the course of roughly a week was... transformative.
As mom devolved, I found myself changed, whether I willed it or not. I tried to figure out what was happening with her. I tried to keep up with her (anyone who's ever stayed up for 36 to 48 hours without sleep probably knows how well that didn't work--my mother on a manic episode could stay up for a whole week with the merest blinks for naps) and when I couldn't, I worried. It's very difficult to pin down, since her apparent IQ skyrockets along with her ability to be convincing, but if you're paying attention, the logic is missing, and the attention span steadily gets shorter and shorter. The essential person who I thought of as "mom" was gradually engulfed in this... other.
I can't recall all the details of that first one I got to be up close and personal for--there have been too many. It might have been the time she wrote letters to Lech Walesa supposedly telling him all the things he needed to know to successfully lead Poland out of its troubles. (I don't know if she sent them, and if so, if she had a good address for them. But she wrote them, and told people around her that she was going to help him save Poland. Being a savior is frequently one of the signposts we need to watch for.) What I do know is this: She was going to college, and surrounded by students who are traditionally rather vocal about their take on current world events. And her meltdown coincided with finals week, fall term, 1981.
In the final analysis, I wasn't able to DO the admitting myself, but I was the driving force behind my friend's mom taking mom in. And while I won't say I was instantly a grown-up, I consider that the end of my childhood. Adolescence, and the chance to be carefree? Yeah, I skipped that.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Nightmares
As I mentioned in a previous post, bad memories stick, for me. I'm not quite willing to have amnesia to get rid of them, but I would really like to have good memories that are that sticky.
One of my really horrible ones is actually quite simple. My mom was in the hospital (again) and had been dosed with Haldol, and perhaps other things. Dad took me for a visit, and I remember this long hallway, and a stiff, drooling, staggering zombie shuffling down the hallway towards me. Dad and the doctor both told me it was my mother, and tried to encourage me to go and hug her. I couldn't imagine anything I wanted less. I wanted, desperately, to run away screaming. I was probably four years old.
Another shouldn't have been so awful, perhaps. My parents had a record cabinet, a box fitted for LP's, perhaps twice as long as it was wide, on casters, with a padded lid to sit on. I had to have been small, because I was crouched behind the cabinet, curled up small enough that a glance would not see me, and mom was sitting across the room talking with a friend, laughing over some silly thing I'd done or said. I don't remember what action of mine was being discussed, but I cried with the shame of being ridiculed. Did she know I was there? Did she realize it hurt? Would she have cared if she did?
A third that has really stuck with me was the time the teenage babysitter pretended to have a fatal accident. She eeled through the railing of our second story deck, dropped down, and pretended that she'd fallen. I even remember the hollow-sounding thud, like thumping a ripe watermelon, she managed to make, out of my sight. I ran around and took the stairs down, crying and tugging at her, trying to get her to wake up. She played dead convincingly (how hard is it to fool someone four or five years old, really?) and I ended up running across the street to the my best friend's mom for help. When I dragged Mrs. S back to see, the babysitter was gone. We couldn't even find her in the house. In point of fact, I don't know if I ever saw her again. I suspect that she was tired of babysitting daily. Mom was in and out of hospitals for roughly three-quarters of the first two years after my brother was born. Dad has always worked extremely long hours, and I'm sure that was true then, as well.
One of my really horrible ones is actually quite simple. My mom was in the hospital (again) and had been dosed with Haldol, and perhaps other things. Dad took me for a visit, and I remember this long hallway, and a stiff, drooling, staggering zombie shuffling down the hallway towards me. Dad and the doctor both told me it was my mother, and tried to encourage me to go and hug her. I couldn't imagine anything I wanted less. I wanted, desperately, to run away screaming. I was probably four years old.
Another shouldn't have been so awful, perhaps. My parents had a record cabinet, a box fitted for LP's, perhaps twice as long as it was wide, on casters, with a padded lid to sit on. I had to have been small, because I was crouched behind the cabinet, curled up small enough that a glance would not see me, and mom was sitting across the room talking with a friend, laughing over some silly thing I'd done or said. I don't remember what action of mine was being discussed, but I cried with the shame of being ridiculed. Did she know I was there? Did she realize it hurt? Would she have cared if she did?
A third that has really stuck with me was the time the teenage babysitter pretended to have a fatal accident. She eeled through the railing of our second story deck, dropped down, and pretended that she'd fallen. I even remember the hollow-sounding thud, like thumping a ripe watermelon, she managed to make, out of my sight. I ran around and took the stairs down, crying and tugging at her, trying to get her to wake up. She played dead convincingly (how hard is it to fool someone four or five years old, really?) and I ended up running across the street to the my best friend's mom for help. When I dragged Mrs. S back to see, the babysitter was gone. We couldn't even find her in the house. In point of fact, I don't know if I ever saw her again. I suspect that she was tired of babysitting daily. Mom was in and out of hospitals for roughly three-quarters of the first two years after my brother was born. Dad has always worked extremely long hours, and I'm sure that was true then, as well.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Books and toys
When I was in third grade, I read and re-read a book, over and over, written as if through the eyes of Comanche, the horse that ended up being the last US Cavalry survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn. (I've even been to visit him in person--he's in a museum here in Kansas.) Drove the school librarian half crazy, because I kept checking it out again and again, and the fact that it was 8th grade reading level didn't make her very happy, either. That was many years ago, and only small vignettes remain. I wish I could find it again, but unfortunately none of those vignettes include the title or the author. It's probably long out of print, anyway. Considering that it was written as if from the horse's point of view, I'm sure it was fiction, but I think there was a fair amount of historical research woven into it. I'd like to read it again, and see if my grown-up self remembers any of it correctly, and might correct or flesh out things that may have been skimmed over.
I also read Black Beauty, and as many of Walter Farley's Black Stallion books as I could get my hands on. I had a serious case of horse-crazy. But I also lived in town, and nowhere near anything like a public riding stable, so I didn't get much contact with the real thing. (Unless you count feeding marshmallows to my uncle's cutting horse, and singing to him, when I was two.) Instead I had a rather extensive stable of toy horses. Breyer was my favorite maker (they have had some really wonderful artists to make their models) but since most of my steeds came via birthday and Christmas gifts, I had examples from many makers, in plastic, glass, acrylic, and porcelain. Toward the end of my collecting days, I also accumulated other things besides horses. Cows, bulls, elk, deer, moose, buffalo... I even had several bears. Though, simply by happenstance, I did not get even one "teddy bear" until I was 16 years old. I did, however, have two different stuffed rats as cuddly toys when I was small.
We had a small fire, a number of years ago, that thinned out my toy collection drastically, and two floods that cleared out a lot of books. Lucky for me, I can still remember at least some of the fun I had reading and playing. Probably worth more than the things, by any measure. Part of the drive to make this blog is the hope that I will be able to remember. Happy memories, for me, seem to fade too fast, or never take hold at all, while the nightmares stick like crazy glue.
I also read Black Beauty, and as many of Walter Farley's Black Stallion books as I could get my hands on. I had a serious case of horse-crazy. But I also lived in town, and nowhere near anything like a public riding stable, so I didn't get much contact with the real thing. (Unless you count feeding marshmallows to my uncle's cutting horse, and singing to him, when I was two.) Instead I had a rather extensive stable of toy horses. Breyer was my favorite maker (they have had some really wonderful artists to make their models) but since most of my steeds came via birthday and Christmas gifts, I had examples from many makers, in plastic, glass, acrylic, and porcelain. Toward the end of my collecting days, I also accumulated other things besides horses. Cows, bulls, elk, deer, moose, buffalo... I even had several bears. Though, simply by happenstance, I did not get even one "teddy bear" until I was 16 years old. I did, however, have two different stuffed rats as cuddly toys when I was small.
We had a small fire, a number of years ago, that thinned out my toy collection drastically, and two floods that cleared out a lot of books. Lucky for me, I can still remember at least some of the fun I had reading and playing. Probably worth more than the things, by any measure. Part of the drive to make this blog is the hope that I will be able to remember. Happy memories, for me, seem to fade too fast, or never take hold at all, while the nightmares stick like crazy glue.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Precious memories
I was recently told of a happy moment in my childhood that I was either too young to remember, or simply oblivious to at the time. I can't confirm it by myself, but I don't doubt the storyteller.
My dad had taken me to visit mom in the hospital, and I darted off for a detour into a stranger's room. A very nice lady, she didn't get angry, but instead sat and talked with me. Dad had been ready to grab me, but was assured that it was OK, and instead stood by and watched, somewhat in awe. She had a wonderful voice, but was dreadfully thin and frail. At some point, a nurse popped in and asked if she might like some ice cream. Dad says I piped up happily, "Yes, please!" and the kind lady in the hospital bed answered that "If this young lady wants ice cream, I suppose I will have some as well."
The nursing staff later mentioned, where dad could hear, that it was the first thing that nice lady had eaten in a week. Her name was Karen Carpenter.
My dad had taken me to visit mom in the hospital, and I darted off for a detour into a stranger's room. A very nice lady, she didn't get angry, but instead sat and talked with me. Dad had been ready to grab me, but was assured that it was OK, and instead stood by and watched, somewhat in awe. She had a wonderful voice, but was dreadfully thin and frail. At some point, a nurse popped in and asked if she might like some ice cream. Dad says I piped up happily, "Yes, please!" and the kind lady in the hospital bed answered that "If this young lady wants ice cream, I suppose I will have some as well."
The nursing staff later mentioned, where dad could hear, that it was the first thing that nice lady had eaten in a week. Her name was Karen Carpenter.
Looks like today is the day.
I've been dithering for years about creating a blog. Finally got around to making a start. I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but then, my crystal ball has been a bit cracked for a long time. Consider this a site under construction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)