A few weeks ago I attended an event known as The Moth. It is an event that occurs once a month all over this beautiful country of ours. During the course of the evening, strangers will gather to share stories. Ten lucky ones are able to stand in front of the room and share their true life stories, be judged and rated, win and lose. It is a competition. I have put speaking like this in public on my bucket list. However, that night I didn't speak, didn't even try. The topic for the evening was Mothers....I didn't know what to say on this oh so very complicated subject. For weeks, I have been thinking, what would make a good story? If I had spoken, who's story would I have shared? My amazing grandmother? My complicated childhood? My own mom who has so many stories buried inside her, but very few she will share? and then I remembered one of the amazing speakers from my night at The Moth. The mother was talking about her son and his food allergies and how she loves him but she could kill him...which I kept repeating because it was so profound...then I realized if I had spoken that night of nights there was only one woman whom I would have been able to speak of. This woman saved my life.
*This is not easy for me to write, friends, but I would like to pay tribute to this woman today. For her I will be brave and speak truth.
Growing up with an alcoholic for a father was a challenge. I loved my dad, and I know that he loved me, I say this truthfully: He was a good man. However, when he drank he was either super funny or incredibly bitter. There were a few shades of grey in there, but these were the most frequent realities of life with him. There were nights when I would wake to hear him yelling, my parents fighting, nights when my siblings and I would huddle together on the stairs holding hands with our hearts pounding and our eyes super wide...terrified of what would happen next. Sometimes his rages would carry on until the early hours, or sometimes the police would come to the door and "encourage" our family to go somewhere else until my dad calmed down. Sometimes we would all barricade ourselves in my moms bedroom until the morning.
How do I describe the jealousy and angst I felt toward my normal friends and family? I don't have the words. But it is a personality trait that I still carry. I don't share well. Ever. and I want my kids to feel normal so badly that I have built an invisible wall of acceptable behavior that you cannot cross if you want to be in our lives...it can be a little stifling.
As a young girl, I felt out of place. I truly thought every neighbor could see our shame. That when I would step out the door, those lights on top of the police cruiser would be going off and everyone would be looking out their windows. When I was 11 years old, in the fifth grade, I wanted to die. Every night for months I would steal a bottle of pills from my dad, usually his blood pressure medicine and stand at the bathroom sink, looking at myself in the mirror and seeing the ugly girl who didn't have a future because of where she came from...sometimes I would pour the pills into my hand and once I even put some in my mouth...I was so very sad.
I'm not sure how she heard, maybe I screamed at my mom in one of my adolescent rages that I wanted to die, maybe my mom told her...but one Easter at my grandparents house, she took me aside and asked me to take a walk with her. With a serious look in her eye, she asked me if I wanted to talk. She listened and then she told me how special I was. She gave me this little notebook with a puppy on it. Then she sang to me. She made me laugh and she made me cry. She gave me hope that day. She made me feel loved.
My aunt Linda Kay didn't forget about me or my problems. She called me to check up on me. She invited me to sleepovers at her house. She called herself my second mother. She called herself that for a lot of kids. But for me, she meant it and I knew it. She gave me life.
Linda Kay Berger...my moms fun loving younger sister was born with a hole in her heart and was never expected to live to see 18 or be able to have children. This grandmother passed away in her sixties after living a full life--getting married a few times, having a couple of kids, bingo, bowling, and having a good laugh the whole way. When she died, my quirky aunt was loved by many and missed by all who knew her.
