Ice Cream Helps
My beautiful mother
My mother and I had a complicated relationship. I loved her, and she loved me, but there are degrees of love, aren’t there? I think that when she was young, she thought that she wanted to be a mother, but the reality was a bit more than she was equipped to handle.
I had colic as an infant, which meant that I cried a lot. I’ve had a colicky baby myself, and there’s precious little you can do to ease whatever discomfort your little one is suffering. It rips your heart out, and for my mother, I think it just made her rip-roaring crazy.
Her solution was a baby nurse. This experienced, uniformed woman moved into my parents’ house for the sole purpose of taking care of me, so my mother didn’t have to. She stayed with us for my first six months or so, then mom hired a nanny. A live-in nanny. God forbid my parents should miss a tea dance, or dinner party, or be deprived of sleep. Well, that went only for my mom; my father was an ob-gyn who had been sleep-deprived since internship and truly didn’t seem to mind.
My nanny’s name was Dottie, and I grew to love her deeply. She was sweet, and quiet, and doted on me. She lived with us for my first three years (or so). I have photos of us together, and I was always smiling or laughing, and so was she. One photo was of me trying to crawl out of a tiny kiddie pool and not managing very well. Dottie’s head was thrown back, she was holding her sides and howling with laughter. She had the ease, comfort, and instinctive confidence with little ones that my mother just couldn’t find. Between having Dottie as a live-in and me spending huge amounts of time with both sets of grandparents, my mother clawed her way through my babyhood and managed to survive. I kept up a friendship with Dottie well into adulthood, until she died at the ripe old age of ninety-two. I adored her.
During my first six years, my mom had three pregnancies. One baby was stillborn, another miscarried, and the third, my brother Bill, was born with a hole between the chambers of his heart and only lived for three months. Clearly, my parents wanted another child, and when my second brother was born, healthy and full-term, my parents were elated. Oddly, they named this baby the same as the brother who had died, another Bill, named after my father. I have found this not just a little creepy for my whole life. There are so many times when I’ve been talking with my now sixty-plus-year-old brother that I’ve thought of the first Bill and had to shake my head to clear thoughts of a sick three-month-old. My parents, particularly my mother, had a really weird way of dealing with death.
The second Bill was clearly the boy they’d been waiting for. They spoiled him rotten and sort of forgot about me. He, too, had a baby nurse for his first three months, a Mrs. Tinsley who used to sing the same dumb line from the same dumb song over and over again to my infant brother. I can still hear it: “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.” Sets my teeth on edge even after all these years. I’m sure she meant well.
After Mrs. Tinsley’s tenure, my mother took over - her maternal instinct kicking in at the advent of a long-awaited child with a penis. I was eight when he was born, so I was in school during the day for nine months a year, thankfully out of the house. During the summers they hired - you guessed it - an au pair for me.
My brother, I’ll admit, was an adorable baby - fat, blond, happy - but I had vivid visions of doing away with him or packing a bag and leaving home forever. I was sent to camp for whole summers starting when I was nine. My mother must have been vastly relieved to have me in Vermont or Wyoming for three whole months - out of sight, out of mind. I’m sure I was a trial. I was angry; I was hurt; I was clearly an annoyance. I was not a quiet, compliant child - at least at home. My temper would explode at perceived wrongs, and I don’t think they knew what to do with me. I believe that they thought I would be as pleased as they were at Bill’s birth. Nope. Not even close.
My maternal grandparents and a tiny ancient paternal great-grandmother were my saviors. They doted on me. My paternal grandparents played with me and were loving and kind, but my maternal Nana Chickie and grandfather, Chuck, were MY PEOPLE. I have no memory of ever misbehaving when I was with them, and when I think of those times in my life, I visibly relax - shoulders drop, my breathing is even and steady, my face loses its tension.
I’ve written about them before, and I’m not going to repeat myself, but they taught me more about how to live a meaningful life than my parents ever did. Chuck was, without a doubt, the most honorable person I’ve ever known. Quietly, steadfastly, unfailingly honorable. His example is damned hard to live up to, but I do try. Nana Chickie read to me, and read, and read. Thanks to her, I am never without a book (or two) by my side. I can still recite poetry she read to me when I was a child. I recited the same poems to my own children when they were little. And we read and read.
One of my favorite memories of Nana Chickie is running through the path in the woods and across the lawn between our two houses early in the morning. I’d run straight to the French doors in her bedroom, let myself in, and climb up into her big four-poster, wet, grassy feet and all. That bed is now mine. She’d share her breakfast with me - always a soft-boiled egg and toast that Chuck would cook and bring to her on a tray. My grandfather would sit in the rocking chair next to her bed and read the “funnies” to me - Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Little Ab’ner. It was warm, and happy, and just where I wanted to be. Loved.
My favorite memories of Chuck are actually two, both involving their big front porch. This porch overlooked a lawn of easily an acre or so, a field that ran down a hill to woods and beyond, our pond, Gravel Pond. The view faced west, so when storms came, we could watch them move across the pond, and field, and lawn with a ferocity that was daunting to a little girl. I’d sit on his lap on the porch and watch the angry clouds gather and rage across the sky. With wind blowing, rain pelting, and thunder roaring, he’d put his big, warm arms around me and tell me that the giants were bowling. What a wonderful image for a child! It’s still the first thing I think of when storms come through.
The second porch memory is of Chuck sitting stock-still in his old dark-green wicker chair, with a peanut on his knee. He wouldn’t move a muscle, almost didn’t breathe. In time, one of two chipmunks - one with a full tail, the other with just a stub - would make his (her?) way up the porch steps, run over to my grandfather, and climb up his chino-clad leg to retrieve the prize. With the peanut stuffed into a fat, furry cheek, off they’d go to store it somewhere dark and secret. Chuck loved animals. With both people and furry, four-footed friends, he was one of the most gentle, patient people I’ve ever encountered.
He was a machine gunner during World War 1.
Those times with my beloved grandparents saved me, I think. They got me away, by myself, from a house that felt disapproving and unhappy to me. I felt special, loved, and cared for when I was with them, or sitting with my sweet great-grandmother looking down a hill at the nighttime lights in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I felt lost at home, unseated by a little boy who was the center of my parents’ universe. They loved me, I know that, but they also just put up with me. To be fair, when he was around, my father was a good parent, but I really don’t think my mother liked me very much.
As a child and an adolescent, I was annoying to her. As an adult, I think she may have been jealous of me. I did things that she never dreamed of doing. I was an accomplished horsewoman; I finished college; I had a career; I was independent. Instead of being proud of me, I think she just resented me.
What she never knew, though, was that I envied her. She and my father had a marriage that people dream of, but few achieve. They were a love story; they adored each other. I, on the other hand, have had three truly miserable marriages. I just can’t seem to get it right, to choose a man who isn’t a schmuck.
So, Mom, here I sit, alone like you were for twenty-seven long years after Daddy died.
She softened a bit toward me as she got older, probably because she adored my children, but my brother always was her shining star. That’s okay - finally. He’s a good person, truly deserving of all the love she showered on him. And, far from wishing him over the edge at Niagara Falls, I dearly love him. Sadly, his wife has driven a hurtful wedge between us. I miss him terribly.
And, on rare occasions, I surprise myself and miss my mom. Just today I caught myself talking to her in my thoughts. It had been a busy, people-filled day and I was venting - to her. I can hear her in heaven saying, “Get over it, kiddo!” I did, Mom. Ice cream helped.