Journal
By accident, I found a journal of my mother’s last night. As I started to read, I couldn’t believe that she had actually kept a journal, and then as I read further and the truth of what it was dawned on me, I broke down sobbing. Perhaps, not so oddly, John and the kids were in the room with me at the time and none of them seemed to notice. There were only about 5 pages. The first entry was a poem she wrote in 1988, and the second was a poem she copied out from the newspaper that she would have liked to have been read at her funeral. The remaining entries, but one, were written around the time when she tried to kill herself in 1990. The last entry was written in April of 2003 when I was pregnant with Winston.
As I read, I hoped to find unexpected depths in her words. I wanted some explanation or some insight into why she was the way she was. In 1990 she wrote about the pressure she felt being placed in the middle between my sick grandfather and the rest of her family. My cousin was unexpectedly pregnant and my mother felt that her family expected her to act as the messenger and the diplomat between them and my grandfather. Her entries don’t say and I don’t remember why my cousin’s pregnancy caused so much turmoil in the family. She was 21, for God’s sake. Old enough to make her own decisions. At the time my father was unemployed, and my mother was trying to run a daycare business out of their home. She was completely overwhelmed by trying to meet the expectations given her and her all consuming sadness. These were the things she mentioned in the entry. She didn’t talk about her children at all except to say that her daughter had asked her “what goals [she] had set for herself.” And what she wrote was that she would very much like to be happy and move into a gloriously exciting old age and retirement.
The poem she wrote was about how she loved her family unconditionally, and hoped that they would give her the same, even though she felt that her family’s words of love were simply lip service. I think she was talking about her parents, brother and sister. Their love was certainly conditional, and it was only in the last minutes of her life that they might have finally realized how deeply they hurt her again and again - but, you know, I doubt it. She was so busy trying to please them that she neglected her husband and children. Frankly, I hope they all rot in a sea of their own misery and really, I don’t care how childish this sounds. I am still very angry.
The last entry remarked on how much had changed and happened in the intervening 13 years since the last time she wrote. She wrote how she had two grandchildren and another on the way.
I want to analyze these entries, and maybe if I could understand her then I might be able to control my own demons. But, for now, I don’t think I’m ready to form a fair perspective.
