Living proof at my fingertips
It was one of those
conversations that I'm tired of having, but I
couldn't seem to stop myself.
Mr. Trinkle and I were standing against the
wall at the Fox
Theater in Oakland, this
over-the-top restored venue from the late
1920s, drinking our beers and waiting for
the group Echo
and the Bunnymen to come onstage. We'd
already had a lot of laughs that would be
almost impossible to explain here (for
example, the image of us wearing cucumber
and cabbage outfits, just to find our
moment of glory in the truly ridiculous
[but very cool-sounding] Echo song
Thorn of
Crowns). Without warning my
dead son winnowed his way into the
conversation, which lead to talks of
alternate lives and then my father showed
up, too, unrepentant, demanding the old
song and dance of anger.
My father and stepmother visited us last
month, which was a truly wonderful visit, one
for which I am grateful. As a result of nerve
damage in his back, he is in constant pain
and traveling is very difficult on him, but
they made the trip and we all had a good
time. There was just one ripple in the visit,
one that I tried to ignore, in a discussion
that would have been impossible without the
blog. He found writing to
survive over a year ago and read
through it in its entirety. Eventually he
apologized via email for any pain he had
caused me, which was the extent of our
interaction on the topic. During this most
recent visit he asked "Are we ok?" meaning, I
suppose, "Is everything all right between
us?". Yes, I said, we were ok -- when he read
the blog I felt like he was listening to me.
Did he
feel like we
were ok?
Well, sure, but he wanted me to know that,
despite my accusations to the contrary,
he had
tried. I had no
idea what he was talking about, but his
response was probably to this
post,
where I write about my anger at my parents
for doing nothing when I desperately needed
help: "My mother stopped
parenting; my father never even started. They
deserve my compassion. It's no use getting
angry at those who don't see their own
worth."
It's a heavy
accusation and I stand by it. The truth
hurts. We didn't dig any deeper into that
particular pit, but our discussion bothered
me, still does, and that
was what I was
talking about in the lobby of the Fox
Theater, that and imagining my
never-to-be-24-year-old son, dressed in
skinny tapered pants and an ironic t-shirt,
angry at me for my own form of neglect, of
the fetal variety.
The band started. We hustled to our seats,
suddenly surrounded by the music that was a
part of the soundtrack of my mid-teens and I
started to cry. I sobbed through the first
three songs while Mr. Trinkle patted me
reassuringly, probably feeling bad about the
tickets, which were a birthday present. The
music transported to a bleak time in my life,
when things started really getting bad and I
was indescribably
alone. I felt
the direness of my situation at fifteen and
sixteen, combined with the beauty of my
current life. I am forty years old, married
to a good, supportive man. We have a healthy,
creative, wonderful child. My life is in
enveloped in love and warmth. How did I get
so undeservedly lucky?
Our conversation in the lobby -- the clinical
look at my father, the ghostly appearance of
my son, my guilt over that time of terrible
fear and anger -- began to make sense. No
matter how much work I've done here on
revealing secrets, writing out my pain and
anger, trying to forgive my parents, I can't
take the experience of what happened in the
Little House away. Even thinking about the
music we were about to hear brought me to the
edge of that past, to the isolation and
neglect. And my father's main reaction upon
reading this entire blog, apart from a
generic, though I'm sure heartfelt apology,
was to tell me that he tried. He has never
acknowledged any direct responsibility for
(or curiosity about) that time. I wish his
acknowledgement didn't matter. Maybe someday
it won't.
I've put so much effort into trying to
forgive the unaware that I've forgotten to
pay attention to my own grief. I still carry
around sadness for things lost, for not
mattering enough, for acknowledgment that
will never be. So I cried and cried until Ian
McCulloch started singing about vegetables.
Mr. Trinkle turned to me and raised his
eyebrows. We started to laugh.
I really am lucky.
Echo and the Bunnymen play "Silver" in
Oakland, courtesy of some fellow fan:
Image:
Living proof at my fingertips, or me and
family at Muir Woods, August 2009. Photo by
my mother.