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My mother passed away eight years ago this week. I don’t know why it’s hitting me harder than usual this year, but my suspicion is that I’ve grown into a Dorothy-clone and I’m at the same age she was when no one understood her either.
My mother was, as we all come to discover our parents are, a flawed individual. She fought her own battles privately and without drama, but she had her demons. As adults, we sometimes have difficulty pinpointing from where, in the scenes of our lives, the genesis of our idiosyncrasies began. But if we cast our minds far into the past, we’ll discover the images from our childhood-slideshow replay within our adult lives in various forms throughout the years. I think this was my mother’s script.
As I age, I realize I understand her more now than I ever have. We were a family of six children, and we were spitfires. I was only 3 months old when she became pregnant with my younger sister. Having her fifth and sixth child so freakishly close together was enough to bring any mother to her knees.
She had to span several age groups on the daily: As she was bottle feeding us, she was punishing my older siblings for bottle feeding their under-age selves, if you catch my drift. For her, parenting was a game of tug-of-war most days — and sometimes she just let that rope drop.
My mother was raised in a very strict Polish household and married my father when she was only 19 years old. At 19, I was selling my plasma at PSU for extra drinking money! Married? Only if it was to my bottle of Peach Schnapps.
The following year, she became a mother for the first time and every few years thereafter. It was a circus. Because my father ran his pharmacy by himself 12 hours a day, she was essentially a single parent during the week. It wasn’t until I had my own children that I understood her struggle. It’s a thankless job, with no time off and, really, no benefits, unless you count the love of your children.
And we weren’t that lovable. We were like a crate full of over-stimulated, hungry ferrets. Life was mass chaos, and for someone who had an orderly and precise personality, raising us must not have been that much fun.
We weren’t easy and neither was she. My mother put up with zero crap and never candy-coated her commentary. If you wanted someone to blow sunshine up your rear, Dorothy Jiunta was not the gal for the job. If you did want someone to tell you how you looked after you skipped school to bask in the sun all day slathered in iodine and baby oil, she would tell you that you looked like an Oompa Loompa.
Sigh.
She was right.
Dorothy never fibbed, even if it meant hurting one’s feelings. Sadly, we share this trait. In spades.
As I’m nearing the age my mother was when her life became more difficult to navigate, all I can say is: “Mom. I get it.”
Life is complicated. Mothers get a bum rap. Fathers get cut more slack. This reality is as old as time.
I now have more empathy and connection to her than I ever had while she was alive. I’m often facing the same road blocks she was up against as a woman and a mother, and I can fully grasp her level of trepidation and unease.
So, Mom, I understand why you were hard when I needed soft. I understand why you were tough when I needed easy. I understand why you struggled when I couldn’t see the wall you were trying to scale.
I now see the wall.
I get it. I get you. And I am sorry I never understood.
I understand now.