No doubt it was a mistake to have related this story to my parents but I fall again and again into the trap of believing that they are normal people — and the topics of weather and grain prices only take us so far. Once committed to writing1 my tales come out the same time after time2, so I can say with almost 100% certainty that what issued from my mouth that day deviated little from what faithful readers consumed two weeks ago.
“That’s terrible,” said my mother, “that he would say something so vile to the child!” I agreed, but as happens in a room full of children, someone’s lost Care Bear, extra-difficult math problem or gaping head wound derailed the conversation until the original topic was hopelessly lost.
Until the next day, when my mother called to ask the time for an upcoming event at my child’s school. “I gave you the paper,” I reminded her. “Remember? It was yellow.” She claimed no knowledge of said paper. I cast about, as I was far from home and unable to visualize the calendar on the fridge which held the correct time. “I emailed it to you,” I finally remembered. “Check your inbox and you’ll see.”
That also produced no result; she swore I’d neither handed over any letters nor sent any mail. “And I want to talk to you about something else,” she said, and proceeded to tell me how she’d stayed up all night stewing over the fact that my ex-husband had insulted our child by saying he wasn’t her “real” daddy.
While that man has many faults (no doubt he’d say the same of me), disparaging a child with hurtful comments about her parentage is something he’d never do. “Mom,” I said, with as much patience as I could muster. “Our neighbor said that. A little boy said that, not your ex-son-in-law.” And then the accusation that I’d never invited them to Thanksgiving dinner — despite my offers to pull up the pertinent emails — suddenly made so much more sense.
I have no doubt but that one piece of this puzzle is insanity. My own issues are evidence enough of the chaotic and destructive power of poorly-managed mental hygiene. But perhaps it’s time to accept that fast-encroaching senility also plays a role, a role which will grow more and more pronounced as the years tick by.
So we’re no closer to a solution than when we started, and all I can do is forgive and forgive and forgive, and hope that maybe, one day, we’ll all figure out a way to be kind to one another.
I say this, not to snatch hope from your grasp, but to rather rally you to find new ways of coping with your parents–very hilly pasture?–if that’s a good enough analogy to convey what I’m thinking.
My aunt who now cares for my widowed grandmother in her home must deal with the perks of that relationship in such close quarters. She was telling me one morning of how well, my grandmother’s remarks get her goat. Now I know my grandmother very well. I lived with her all my life, and I call her mom. She raised me. Just like everyone she has her good and her bad. Now, I’ve found, there are some people who let their “bad” become prevalent late in life, and as they age it grows in its intensity. We are simply bewildered by how her memory is so poor, or why she sees the slightest intent to help as a means to ambush her in some way. When I say a memory is poor, what I really mean, is that the way she has perceived a situation, has so colored the facts, that she only remembers the colors, and not the truth. Make sense? She is not senile, but getting there at 76 years of age.
Your situation in this case sounds familiar to something they suffer daily. It sounds to me like you might do a bit of arguing, validating, defending, justifying, and re-explaining situations. I don’t know what your phone call sounded like but in my head it went something like:
AAG: “..I gave you a yellow paper with the information.”
Mom: “No, no you didn’t. I would’ve remembered that….”
AAG: “Yes I did, it was Tuesday, when you came with A, and we did B.”
Mom: “I know you did not give that to me. I distinctly remember ….”
And this of course goes on for 5 mins +. When you can round out the conversation politely with:
“Ok, well either way, I’m not at home, but when I get home I’ll phone/text/email the information to you, or (my favorite) since I’m really busy at the moment and I might forget–Call the school.” (I love doing that to someone..put that ball right back in their court, one less thing on my list.) Lets face it, with that ball in her court, if she doesn’t show up without you spoon feeding and chaperoning her every step of the way, she doesn’t really want to be there. We have to be proactive as adults don’t we? Especially if something is important, or we miss out. In the end it was our choice.
“You didn’t invite me for Thanksgiving.” My answer: “I didn’t mail out personal invitations, you’re always welcome in my home” OR “I didn’t invite anyone for Thanksgiving, I was too overwhelmed and we just relaxed.” What? What are they going to say next? Huh? Every relationship is a two way street.
The ex-husband misunderstanding comment I would’ve let roll over like a cold breeze….and the ensuing babble, that of a brook while I zone her out and thought of changing the radio station. That my friend is called selective hearing. To the tune of “…you know what I mean?” “Yeah, you have a point.” Because lets face it, he’s history and so is the situation. If you find she’s mis-informing your children you can correct them as they’re the ones who’s thoughts on this really matter the most.
You said: “So we’re no closer to a solution than when we started, and all I can do is forgive and forgive and forgive, and hope that maybe, one day, we’ll all figure out a way to be kind to one another.”
Girl you chose every subject you go to battle over with every single conversation. It really isn’t about a solution or forgiveness, it’s about accepting our mothers or whomever, for who they are. You KNOW this woman well enough by now, to not let every sentence she speaks become a battleground. “She said that shit to make me mad.” “How can she think that?” “Where does she come up with this crap?” Well duh!
With much hope, and a massive sense of humor, I wish you a great day Aaggy!
I use the term “selectively re-writing history”. My mom is a pro, she’s been doing it for most of my life.
However, now my mom has Parkinson’s disease and meds truly DO mess with her memory, so it’s fuzzy to everyone if she’s attempting manipulation or the meds are to blame. The Indian culture have a saying that “your parents become your children, and to treat them as such”. I agree, however, nothing is more frustrating than a toddler with an income and a driver’s license. :)
Acceptance and deep breathing will help keep your blood pressure under control. Keep in mind an abridged version of the Serenity Prayer, “If you can’t fix it, fuck it.”
Is it insanity or just selective hearing? She is hearing and creating what will cause the most drama, pain, family disruption. You’re a good daughter for trying to heal a very broken relationship but you may have to just stop at one point to save your sanity.
“poorly-managed mental hygiene…” I am loving that phrase. Hmm…
So I hovered over the “this story” link to view the URL and refresh my memory, which worked, I remembered “Greatest Insult” clearly. Then the alt or title text popped up and I burst out laughing at “Summary for the lazy”. Thank you!
PS: Estrogen aids forming more synaptic connections, so women tend to form stronger (even if incorrect) memories until menopause. They still recall remembering well though, even if now the associations are all twisted. Even the best of us don’t remember what happened, we remember what our brains interpreted of our observations.
I try to make my “alt”s interesting. :)
Selective memory is what I deal with .. I keep enough of an emotional gap between them and me that keeping that constant contact is something I do not and can not deal with.
Parents becoming senile is something I can handle. I can look at it as a medical issue and thats how they are now. By going that route, I can easily brush off their insensitve behavior towards my family and not take it so personally.
My own mom had that selective memory. I called it crazy making behavior. I was never sure what was on purpose and what was actual selective memory. I always just felt so utterly confused after talking to her sometimes. There are a lot of things I miss about her, that – is not one of them.
It was about 5 or 6 years ago that we were first alerted to something going on with our mom. She called me one day, frantic about my next-oldest brother, and related a story about a huge fight he had with his wife. It was very believable since these two did live a sort of “Jerry Springer Existence” at times. It was a very detailed account, involving his late brother in law, and a funeral that no one would pay for, or even go to. I promised her I would call him and offer some support, and possibly a bed to sleep in if things were that bad.
Upon calling him though, he told me that NONE of it had happened. His wife didn’t have a recently-deceased brother. Our oldest brother carefully spoke with mom and managed to piece together that it was a conglomerate of dreams and stories that other people had told her.
These episodes came at random for the last 5 years, usually related to changes in medications and/or anxiety causing sleep deprivation. Doctors tell us that it is not Alzheimers, but we have placed her in a special home for Alzheimers and Dementia patients now that dad has gone.
It’s hard to imagine someone as “correct” as mom getting like this. She was the one who’s job it was to correct the world (a task that my oldest has inherited it seems), going through life getting strange looks as she tells the toll collector “it’s WHOM, not WHO”. Now, I find myself trying to explain that the place where she lives isn’t “a day behind us because they don’t observe leap-year”.
The problem when someone as exacting and intellectual as mom goes through this is that the results are just as extreme, and the awareness of a problem is a hard thing to accept for them. I think this is just another example of something my late brother always used to say to me. “As we age, we become caricatures of ourselves”.
Good luck with this. I hope it doesn’t get as bad.
“As we age, we become caricatures of ourselves”.
That’s a really good thing to remember. Thank you.