Bearing Witness
Recently, the writer John M. Ford died. I didn't know him, apart from his brilliant comments on Making Light. I've never read any of his books (a deficiency I hope to correct soon). But this poem really does say it all: "Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate."
I can't believe it's been 15 years since my mother died. That seems like such a huge stretch of time--it's almost half my life at this point. I don't know what I can say other than what I've said before in other places but I feel like it's my duty to make sure that my mother isn't forgotten to the world.
My mother was not special or extraordinary, at least not according to the world's definitions of those words. But she was pretty special to me. And you know, I think she could have been extraordinary if she'd been given the chance--she just never was. Her life was not a good one or a happy one and I think that's what breaks my heart the most.
From the time she was a girl, no one gave her a chance. Not her parents and not the teachers at the Catholic school she briefly attended (before she was kicked out for being "dumb"--she had a hearing impairment and, I suspect, a learning disability; neither of these things make a person "dumb"). Of the four daughters my grandparents had, my mother was the wild one. She dropped out of high school and ran off to New York and eloped with a sailor when she was in her late teens/early twenties and after six months left him because he beat her. She was able to divorce him, but not without upsetting her parents and their local parish. When she was 26, she met my father and refused to dance with him. Eventually she relented and they dated for four years before they were married--by a justice of the peace (both me and my sister were married by JPs, too, which now makes it a family tradition!).
After living in Boston for pretty much her whole life, she was finally able to leave--before they landed in Hawaii, there was a stop in the DC Metro area. I think Mum really liked living in Hawaii, she always spoke of it positively and I think it was a way for her to finally have her own identity away from her family--and away from my dad's, too (that's important, later).
I don't know what my mother dreamed or hoped for from her life. All I know is that she was a housewife and a mother. And I wish I knew more, but she rarely talked about her childhood and never about her aspirations. I suspect that she'd given up on herself and put all her hopes and dreams into her children; she certainly didn't seem to have any for herself.
Me and my sister were born two and a half years apart--just close enough for us to get all up in each other's faces but just far enough apart for me to take all of the blame. (Of course a 5 year old bears more responsibility than a 3 year old, but when you're 12 and 10 there should be more equal responsibility for the stupid fights, but there never was.) I don't know what Mum wanted for my sister, but I have a good idea of what she wanted for me. I was the smart one, the one who was going to do wonderful things. Or at least that's how it always felt to me. She didn't want me to mess up my life (the way she messed up hers?), so she did her best to protect me--from everything. There were Byzantine rules about makeup, telephone usage, and hanging out with friends. Once me and my sister decided we wanted to participate in an activity, we had to participate to the bitter end, even if we loathed it (I wold have quit Girl Scouts after my first year of Juniors; I was made to stay for all three years). It was frustrating.
On the other hand, the fact that she loved me and my sister with a fierce love was never in question. Even today when I talk to family members or friends, that's one of the first things they always say--that she loved us and would have done anything to protect us. I'm sad that Paul will never have a chance to know my mother and that my nieces will never know their Nana.
I wish my father hadn't been so cruel to her by telling her--in front of his family, who really never cared for my mother--that he was going to divorce her when my sister turned 18. I wish she'd lived to see me and my sister graduate from high school and me from college. I wish she'd been able to go to college herself. I wish she'd gone to the doctor when she started to not feel well, a week before she died of a broken heart.
Finally, I wish my father--and the rest of his family--hadn't acted as if she'd never existed, that me and my sister were better off without her. Because we weren't and we aren't.
Jean Elizabeth Francis Luhrs. You are not forgotten and as long as I live, you will not be. I remember. I bear witness.
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