My mother’s depression worsened. She started disappearing on weekends, and nobody knew where she went. Brian and I were left home with Pop. On one of these sojourns, she totaled the car, so Pop had to get a new one very quickly. His friend Guy had a carburetor repair shop, and he somehow located a 1949 Lincoln for Pop.
This accident may have been the catalyst for Mom joining Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember men coming late at night. I guess they talked to Pop. He told me that Mom had “low self-esteem” and needed to go to work. We hired a housekeeper, Sylvia, who was great! I loved her. She gave me the most mothering I had ever had as a child, and she only lasted two months. She was Hispanic, and she just knew what mothers were supposed to do. Mom got a job working for a company that picked up Dempster-Dumpsters. (I thought the name hysterical until we moved to China Lake and we had Dempster-Dumpsters in the alleys behind our houses.)
Mom’s job didn’t last long because we moved again, this time to a housing project in Long Beach. As far as I know, Mom continued her sobriety and tried new things, like canning peaches. Within a matter of months, we moved to our own home in Whittier. Nine months later, Pop was offered a transfer to San Francisco. He didn’t want to raise kids in the city, so he got a job on the Navy base at China Lake, California. The move was good for Mom. She began to make friends and engage in activities she enjoyed.
Mom taught night school. As a mother-daughter bonding exercise, I took shorthand from her. (The bonding didn’t work.) She also substitute taught during the day. Her big challenge was managing the money she inherited from her mother. This was her true forte. She had a stockbroker in Whittier and another broker whose name I think was Red. Mom and Red were a team, and they did well. Mom was a good poker player, too. She and Joe would play, and she beat him every time. She was also a good bridge player and played pretty consistently until she died. I think that goes back to the way she liked to use her mind.
During this time, Mom was very active in AA. All I could do is piece together based on the evidence I saw. She and the photography instructor would go out several evenings a week. When she died, I found piles of AA materials stacked behind her mother’s dainty china teacups. My guess is that she and the other teacher were starting AA groups in the small towns that dotted the desert.
Mom was very engaged. She liked making money with her investments and enjoyed her teaching. She had friends and satisfying hobbies. She was fulfilled by her work with AA. She seemed to feel good about herself. Her closet was full of very nice suits, a skunk coat and one with a silver fox collar. She was taking care of herself.
In November 1955, when Mom was 41, things screeched to a halt. She was diagnosed with cancer and told she had only six months to live. She matter-of-factly told me what I needed to do. It was almost like she was packing to go on a long trip. Even as she was dying, there was no emotional connection between us. She just didn’t have it in her to reach out to us, and I had learned not to reach out to her.
When Mom died, I think we were all glad because it was wrenching to see her suffering. We could only watch her fade away. In the end, all I missed was the clicking of her high heels on the sidewalk late at night when she came home. The memorial service served to reinforce all my speculation about her life in China Lake. The service was in the Navy Chapel, which was a huge building rarely more than half full. For Mom, it was overflowing, with people standing outside. I didn’t know most of them. My guess was that they were her bridge partners, fellow teachers and folks from AA. I hope she knew how much she was respected and loved by so many people.
In trying to piece it all together, I could see where Mom’s frigid mother had her impact on her daughter. The aha moment came when I suspected that Mom had been sexually abused by her father. I asked Pop what he thought. I have never seen such a change in facial expression. It was like a light had come on. For him, that explained everything. He didn’t elaborate. It may have explained something about Mom’s relationship with Grandma. It would provide an explanation for the obesity.
If Mom had been born much later, I bet she would have been a hedge fund manager and made millions of dollars. She may or may not have married. She would not have had children. In its own way, my life has mirrored hers, with the same societal pressures. I went to math and science classes with the boys. I went to Antioch College and transferred out because of a man. I pursued a career in accounting when it wasn’t considered a field for women. I couldn’t get the housewife/kid thing down. I didn’t try canning peaches, but I was a good cook. Only recently have things started coming together for me.
My great sorrow is that Mom died just as she was coming into her own and able to enjoy her husband and her life. I had never thought about it, but she had approximately four years of relative peace and contentment. My loss was that I never had a mother. The effects were two-fold: I was always looking to be mothered and I didn’t know how to be a good mother. When I reached the age of sixty-nine, I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t need a mother. I was the mother. What skills I had as a mother I had to develop on my own. Mom really didn’t have a mother either, so she had to develop her own parenting skills. I think she did the best she could under trying circumstances.
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