Scars of Who We Are. Intermission Part 3
For my mother, I have this to say, I wish you never
gone away,
and I would have preferred that you would have stayed.
and I would have preferred that you would have stayed.
I wasn't ever the perfect son, I often did a lot of things wrong. I suppose more often than not, I was a
coward and often struggled with finding ways to express myself. More often than not this usually resulted in
me writing how much I hated my mom or the phrase “I have no mom,” on my belongings, because well for
the most part it didn't feel was much a mother, to me anyway. And occasionally she would find or stumble
upon something that I had written in a fit of anger. Which I know had to hurt her a little bit, but it always
resulted in her giving me the third degree, making me feel two inches tall. When in truth all I
really wanted was to have the courage, the strength of character to just ask her why, why was she always
so hard on me? And ask her, what it was she didn't like about me, did she even remember giving birth to me
and that she was my mother? I was very unlike my older brother, who was cool when I a dork and
popular while I was invisible. Even when he fell into a bad crowd, got detentions and suspensions from
school, I was always still left feeling like the bad kid, even though I never got in any kind of trouble and even
when my brother managed to get himself expelled. But no matter what he did my mother was
always there for him, behind him every step of the way, she supported and defended him. Even when my
brother dropped out of school, fell into the drug scene, gotten arrested, sent to jail, she was there for him.
She even defended him when my step-father had enough of his shenanigans and the drugs, etc and kicked
him out of the house. All the while my mother was still on my brother’s side, so much so that her and
my step-father almost got a divorce over this whole ordeal.
My brother with me as a new born.
I still remember that day that my brother had forgotten, when he came by the house late at night, knocked on my window and asked to come inside. He looked aged nearly ten years, and was thinner than I remembered and he tells me how he hadn't ate in days and asks if I can make him a sandwich since he didn't want to risk going upstairs and being seen my our step-father. So I crept upstairs, made him some food and brought him a bag of chips, we talked for a bit and before he left, I stopped him and dug into my wallet, giving him all the money I had, which was about fifty bucks. I told him to take care of himself, I knew it wasn't much, but I figured it’d be enough to get him a place to stay for maybe a night, or afford him a hot meal until he got on his feet. It’s amazing how quickly some people forget the little things and quick he was able to turn his back and forget about me. But as I said before, I don’t blame him, he saw only the best in her, and he wasn't singled out like I was. Also for those who are curious my brother did eventually clean himself up and left the drug scene behind, he eventually went on to get his GED, got a good job and has started a family of his own. Although we still don't talk much. But he knows I write this blog and I pray one day he'll read it from beginning to end and maybe then we'll be able to reconcile our differences.
At seventeen, I was given my brother’s room in the basement, which I actually preferred; it was bigger
than my old room and always cold in the summer. The one night at seventeen I woke up in the middle of the
night starving, so I decided to slip out of my bed and sneak upstairs for a little midnight snack.
I was tired and still half asleep, so my senses weren’t really on full alert, so even after I crept silently up the
stairs, daring not to make a noise I hadn't heard any other movement throughout the rest of the house.
So when I reached the top of the stairs I managed to crack the door all the way open before I heard my
mother talking, so I froze with my hand still on the door.
Me and my brother at my grandmother's house.
I held my breath then and I listened intently, weighing my options, with my heart pounding within my breast, too afraid to make a noise, but still curious as to why she was up and why she wasn't in her room, believing she was having a conversation with my step-father and wondering why they had to have this talk in the kitchen. Then as I slowly began easing the door shut and slip back down the stairs wince I came, I realized he wasn't in the kitchen with her, no one was, for I could hear him snoring down the hall. So I assumed she had to be on the phone, which I was grateful for and meant she wouldn't hear me retreating back down the stairs to my room, but then I heard her sob. Again I stood frozen there on the steps, with my heart hammering in my chest, still holding my breath as I quietly debated what I should do. A part of me told me to retreat and go to bed, because nothing good would come of this, because nothing good ever did.
I was moving before I even realized what I was doing, climbing silently back up the stairs, easing the door to the upstairs back open and set my foot on the smooth and cool hardwood floor as I crept up into the hall and poked my head around the corner into the kitchen, where I saw my mother sitting at the kitchen table in her faded pink bathroom and she’s crying.
Me, my mom, my brother and my dad.
“Are…are you okay?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper and to my surprise she wasn't startled by the sound of my voice or my sudden appearance, instead she looked up at me with red puffy eyes and waived me in.
Reminding myself to breathe, I slowly crossed the kitchen to her place at the table, not really knowing what to expect and when I make it within arm’s reach, I’m startled by the feeling of her arms wrapping around me, pulling me close, hugging me.
I’m seventeen and I don’t know how to react, I stand there with her holding me and sobbing against my
chest and I had forgotten how to return affection, or show it to my mother. It takes several minutes for my
arms to pull around her and return her hug. She’s telling me she’s sorry, she’s tells me she doesn't know
why she’s so hard on me, or why she mistreats me as often as she does. I tell her it’s okay and that I love
her. Which was true, I think and if it wasn't I wanted it to be.
She pulls away and musses with my hair, before grabbing me and pulling me back against her in a warm hug,
telling me how sweet I am, that I have a good heart and always been a good kid. I’m taken aback, not really
knowing how one such as me should react, with a part of me believing that this was all some dream and I
didn’t want to wake up. Because here in this place, in this moment in time, my mother was talking to me,
hugging me and making me feel this love she had for me.
After a while I slowly pull back and sit in a chair beside her, I never talk, I just look at her and she begins talking. She tells me about her childhood, how hard her father was on her all the time, how he beaten her and her sister. She tells me this whole history of abuse; she even professes her drug use and how she never meant to drive my father away, telling me how sorry she was for how she treated me. I listen to every word, weighing each one carefully in my mind and when she’s finished I tell her it’s okay and I understand, I tell her I love her, then I make a joke and make her laugh.
my father and mother and older brother.
We talk for a little while after that and I discover I like talking to her and I like making her laugh, so by the time we hug and say goodnight, I go to bed believing things would be alright. I wish I had been right, but even though I wasn't I still had this moment and other moments like it, whenever I would stay up late and she was still up, I would find we would connect in those late twilight hours, when sleep was at the forefront of our minds. It was in those moments we would share and talk, about anything, everything and nothing that we were most real. Perhaps that is what caused my insomnia to be so deeply ingrained into my very being, where even when I’m exhausted and I feel sleep creeping in, I fight it and try to stay awake for just a little longer. Finding that people in general, not just my mother were more real in the late hour, when you’re too tired to be angry, to lie or be false and you can only speak in simple truths. A lesson my mother had taught me, one that I won’t soon forget.
Me!
Thanks Debbie, wherever you are, near or far,
Thank you for being a mother to me,
even if was just briefly for mere moments at a time.
I still love you forever and always. .
-J Cooper
I wasn't ever the perfect son, I often did a lot of things wrong. I suppose more often than not, I was a
coward and often struggled with finding ways to express myself. More often than not this usually resulted in
me writing how much I hated my mom or the phrase “I have no mom,” on my belongings, because well for
the most part it didn't feel was much a mother, to me anyway. And occasionally she would find or stumble
upon something that I had written in a fit of anger. Which I know had to hurt her a little bit, but it always
resulted in her giving me the third degree, making me feel two inches tall. When in truth all I
really wanted was to have the courage, the strength of character to just ask her why, why was she always
so hard on me? And ask her, what it was she didn't like about me, did she even remember giving birth to me
and that she was my mother? I was very unlike my older brother, who was cool when I a dork and
popular while I was invisible. Even when he fell into a bad crowd, got detentions and suspensions from
school, I was always still left feeling like the bad kid, even though I never got in any kind of trouble and even
when my brother managed to get himself expelled. But no matter what he did my mother was
always there for him, behind him every step of the way, she supported and defended him. Even when my
brother dropped out of school, fell into the drug scene, gotten arrested, sent to jail, she was there for him.
She even defended him when my step-father had enough of his shenanigans and the drugs, etc and kicked
him out of the house. All the while my mother was still on my brother’s side, so much so that her and
my step-father almost got a divorce over this whole ordeal.
I still remember that day that my brother had forgotten, when he came by the house late at night, knocked on my window and asked to come inside. He looked aged nearly ten years, and was thinner than I remembered and he tells me how he hadn't ate in days and asks if I can make him a sandwich since he didn't want to risk going upstairs and being seen my our step-father. So I crept upstairs, made him some food and brought him a bag of chips, we talked for a bit and before he left, I stopped him and dug into my wallet, giving him all the money I had, which was about fifty bucks. I told him to take care of himself, I knew it wasn't much, but I figured it’d be enough to get him a place to stay for maybe a night, or afford him a hot meal until he got on his feet. It’s amazing how quickly some people forget the little things and quick he was able to turn his back and forget about me. But as I said before, I don’t blame him, he saw only the best in her, and he wasn't singled out like I was. Also for those who are curious my brother did eventually clean himself up and left the drug scene behind, he eventually went on to get his GED, got a good job and has started a family of his own. Although we still don't talk much. But he knows I write this blog and I pray one day he'll read it from beginning to end and maybe then we'll be able to reconcile our differences.
At seventeen, I was given my brother’s room in the basement, which I actually preferred; it was bigger
than my old room and always cold in the summer. The one night at seventeen I woke up in the middle of the
night starving, so I decided to slip out of my bed and sneak upstairs for a little midnight snack.
I was tired and still half asleep, so my senses weren’t really on full alert, so even after I crept silently up the
stairs, daring not to make a noise I hadn't heard any other movement throughout the rest of the house.
So when I reached the top of the stairs I managed to crack the door all the way open before I heard my
mother talking, so I froze with my hand still on the door.
I held my breath then and I listened intently, weighing my options, with my heart pounding within my breast, too afraid to make a noise, but still curious as to why she was up and why she wasn't in her room, believing she was having a conversation with my step-father and wondering why they had to have this talk in the kitchen. Then as I slowly began easing the door shut and slip back down the stairs wince I came, I realized he wasn't in the kitchen with her, no one was, for I could hear him snoring down the hall. So I assumed she had to be on the phone, which I was grateful for and meant she wouldn't hear me retreating back down the stairs to my room, but then I heard her sob. Again I stood frozen there on the steps, with my heart hammering in my chest, still holding my breath as I quietly debated what I should do. A part of me told me to retreat and go to bed, because nothing good would come of this, because nothing good ever did.
I was moving before I even realized what I was doing, climbing silently back up the stairs, easing the door to the upstairs back open and set my foot on the smooth and cool hardwood floor as I crept up into the hall and poked my head around the corner into the kitchen, where I saw my mother sitting at the kitchen table in her faded pink bathroom and she’s crying.
“Are…are you okay?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper and to my surprise she wasn't startled by the sound of my voice or my sudden appearance, instead she looked up at me with red puffy eyes and waived me in.
Reminding myself to breathe, I slowly crossed the kitchen to her place at the table, not really knowing what to expect and when I make it within arm’s reach, I’m startled by the feeling of her arms wrapping around me, pulling me close, hugging me.
I’m seventeen and I don’t know how to react, I stand there with her holding me and sobbing against my
chest and I had forgotten how to return affection, or show it to my mother. It takes several minutes for my
arms to pull around her and return her hug. She’s telling me she’s sorry, she’s tells me she doesn't know
why she’s so hard on me, or why she mistreats me as often as she does. I tell her it’s okay and that I love
her. Which was true, I think and if it wasn't I wanted it to be.
She pulls away and musses with my hair, before grabbing me and pulling me back against her in a warm hug,
telling me how sweet I am, that I have a good heart and always been a good kid. I’m taken aback, not really
knowing how one such as me should react, with a part of me believing that this was all some dream and I
didn’t want to wake up. Because here in this place, in this moment in time, my mother was talking to me,
hugging me and making me feel this love she had for me.
After a while I slowly pull back and sit in a chair beside her, I never talk, I just look at her and she begins talking. She tells me about her childhood, how hard her father was on her all the time, how he beaten her and her sister. She tells me this whole history of abuse; she even professes her drug use and how she never meant to drive my father away, telling me how sorry she was for how she treated me. I listen to every word, weighing each one carefully in my mind and when she’s finished I tell her it’s okay and I understand, I tell her I love her, then I make a joke and make her laugh.
We talk for a little while after that and I discover I like talking to her and I like making her laugh, so by the time we hug and say goodnight, I go to bed believing things would be alright. I wish I had been right, but even though I wasn't I still had this moment and other moments like it, whenever I would stay up late and she was still up, I would find we would connect in those late twilight hours, when sleep was at the forefront of our minds. It was in those moments we would share and talk, about anything, everything and nothing that we were most real. Perhaps that is what caused my insomnia to be so deeply ingrained into my very being, where even when I’m exhausted and I feel sleep creeping in, I fight it and try to stay awake for just a little longer. Finding that people in general, not just my mother were more real in the late hour, when you’re too tired to be angry, to lie or be false and you can only speak in simple truths. A lesson my mother had taught me, one that I won’t soon forget.
Thanks Debbie, wherever you are, near or far,
Thank you for being a mother to me,
even if was just briefly for mere moments at a time.
I still love you forever and always. .
-J Cooper
coward and often struggled with finding ways to express myself. More often than not this usually resulted in
me writing how much I hated my mom or the phrase “I have no mom,” on my belongings, because well for
the most part it didn't feel was much a mother, to me anyway. And occasionally she would find or stumble
upon something that I had written in a fit of anger. Which I know had to hurt her a little bit, but it always
resulted in her giving me the third degree, making me feel two inches tall. When in truth all I
really wanted was to have the courage, the strength of character to just ask her why, why was she always
so hard on me? And ask her, what it was she didn't like about me, did she even remember giving birth to me
and that she was my mother? I was very unlike my older brother, who was cool when I a dork and
popular while I was invisible. Even when he fell into a bad crowd, got detentions and suspensions from
school, I was always still left feeling like the bad kid, even though I never got in any kind of trouble and even
when my brother managed to get himself expelled. But no matter what he did my mother was
always there for him, behind him every step of the way, she supported and defended him. Even when my
brother dropped out of school, fell into the drug scene, gotten arrested, sent to jail, she was there for him.
She even defended him when my step-father had enough of his shenanigans and the drugs, etc and kicked
him out of the house. All the while my mother was still on my brother’s side, so much so that her and
my step-father almost got a divorce over this whole ordeal.
|
| My brother with me as a new born. |
I still remember that day that my brother had forgotten, when he came by the house late at night, knocked on my window and asked to come inside. He looked aged nearly ten years, and was thinner than I remembered and he tells me how he hadn't ate in days and asks if I can make him a sandwich since he didn't want to risk going upstairs and being seen my our step-father. So I crept upstairs, made him some food and brought him a bag of chips, we talked for a bit and before he left, I stopped him and dug into my wallet, giving him all the money I had, which was about fifty bucks. I told him to take care of himself, I knew it wasn't much, but I figured it’d be enough to get him a place to stay for maybe a night, or afford him a hot meal until he got on his feet. It’s amazing how quickly some people forget the little things and quick he was able to turn his back and forget about me. But as I said before, I don’t blame him, he saw only the best in her, and he wasn't singled out like I was. Also for those who are curious my brother did eventually clean himself up and left the drug scene behind, he eventually went on to get his GED, got a good job and has started a family of his own. Although we still don't talk much. But he knows I write this blog and I pray one day he'll read it from beginning to end and maybe then we'll be able to reconcile our differences.
At seventeen, I was given my brother’s room in the basement, which I actually preferred; it was bigger
than my old room and always cold in the summer. The one night at seventeen I woke up in the middle of the
night starving, so I decided to slip out of my bed and sneak upstairs for a little midnight snack.
I was tired and still half asleep, so my senses weren’t really on full alert, so even after I crept silently up the
stairs, daring not to make a noise I hadn't heard any other movement throughout the rest of the house.
So when I reached the top of the stairs I managed to crack the door all the way open before I heard my
mother talking, so I froze with my hand still on the door.
|
| Me and my brother at my grandmother's house. |
I held my breath then and I listened intently, weighing my options, with my heart pounding within my breast, too afraid to make a noise, but still curious as to why she was up and why she wasn't in her room, believing she was having a conversation with my step-father and wondering why they had to have this talk in the kitchen. Then as I slowly began easing the door shut and slip back down the stairs wince I came, I realized he wasn't in the kitchen with her, no one was, for I could hear him snoring down the hall. So I assumed she had to be on the phone, which I was grateful for and meant she wouldn't hear me retreating back down the stairs to my room, but then I heard her sob. Again I stood frozen there on the steps, with my heart hammering in my chest, still holding my breath as I quietly debated what I should do. A part of me told me to retreat and go to bed, because nothing good would come of this, because nothing good ever did.
I was moving before I even realized what I was doing, climbing silently back up the stairs, easing the door to the upstairs back open and set my foot on the smooth and cool hardwood floor as I crept up into the hall and poked my head around the corner into the kitchen, where I saw my mother sitting at the kitchen table in her faded pink bathroom and she’s crying.
|
| Me, my mom, my brother and my dad. |
“Are…are you okay?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper and to my surprise she wasn't startled by the sound of my voice or my sudden appearance, instead she looked up at me with red puffy eyes and waived me in.
Reminding myself to breathe, I slowly crossed the kitchen to her place at the table, not really knowing what to expect and when I make it within arm’s reach, I’m startled by the feeling of her arms wrapping around me, pulling me close, hugging me.
I’m seventeen and I don’t know how to react, I stand there with her holding me and sobbing against my
chest and I had forgotten how to return affection, or show it to my mother. It takes several minutes for my
arms to pull around her and return her hug. She’s telling me she’s sorry, she’s tells me she doesn't know
why she’s so hard on me, or why she mistreats me as often as she does. I tell her it’s okay and that I love
her. Which was true, I think and if it wasn't I wanted it to be.
She pulls away and musses with my hair, before grabbing me and pulling me back against her in a warm hug,
telling me how sweet I am, that I have a good heart and always been a good kid. I’m taken aback, not really
knowing how one such as me should react, with a part of me believing that this was all some dream and I
didn’t want to wake up. Because here in this place, in this moment in time, my mother was talking to me,
hugging me and making me feel this love she had for me.
After a while I slowly pull back and sit in a chair beside her, I never talk, I just look at her and she begins talking. She tells me about her childhood, how hard her father was on her all the time, how he beaten her and her sister. She tells me this whole history of abuse; she even professes her drug use and how she never meant to drive my father away, telling me how sorry she was for how she treated me. I listen to every word, weighing each one carefully in my mind and when she’s finished I tell her it’s okay and I understand, I tell her I love her, then I make a joke and make her laugh.
|
| my father and mother and older brother. |
|
| Me! |
Thanks Debbie, wherever you are, near or far,
Thank you for being a mother to me,
even if was just briefly for mere moments at a time.
I still love you forever and always. .
-J Cooper
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