The fiction of my childhood.
I just posted a blog today talking about the fiction that I don’t write fiction. Shortly after posting the blog I received a phone call from my oldest sister, Bonnie. She and a younger sister, Pat, have for many years assumed the care of our 96-year-old mother who has, bit by bit, lost the ability to take care of herself. Bonnie called to tell me that the doctor has said that mother has only days or a day to live. Mother has told Bonnie that she just wants to go to sleep. I am sure that she is tired.
As soon as I hung up from the phone call I began to make arrangements for a flight to Tulsa in hopes of visiting mother before she dies and, hopefully being of some support to my sisters. Goodness knows I am greatly indebted to them for assuming not only their share of the caretaking of our mother, but the share which belonged to myself and two other siblings who do not live in the same geographical location of our mother.
As I was taking care of the logistics of arranging for the flight, the car rental, and the rest of the details to which one must attend, especially if one lives alone, I began to consider the fact that my siblings and I all had a different mother. In fact, the story of my mother changes in my own memory from day to day. Perhaps it changes from moment to moment. So much of the fiction which is my story is determined by my expectations which changed as I grew up. The expectations might have been as simple and from an adult perspective to as mundane as wanting a meal which did not include that dreaded and hated hominy (to this day I have not been hungry enough to consider eating this distinctive and inexpensive vegetable). The expectation might have been to avoid being physically punished for some misdeed or perceived misdeed. Another expectation, or what is a hope, was that we would become as wealthy as our neighbors who not only had the magic of indoor electricity and indoor plumbing but a fuzzy-picture black and white television.
In my memory, poverty and the resultant shame of mother about that “fact,” the possibility, of my behaving in a way which brought further shame or embarrassment are intermixed with my fascination of the world which books brought into my daily life, an occasional evening when my father played the accordion, a used guitar which Santa somehow managed to find and deliver to our house despite the lack of a proper chimney (the only chimney we had was the six-inch stove pipe opening to carry the smoke from the wood stove that cooked our food, heated our house in summer and winter, and heated the flat irons which would make our patched clothes more presentable).
Mother was, of course, in my memory always old, although I have photographs of this young, very attractive, diminutive woman who is, it seems, frequently holding one of the five babies to which she gave birth. Mother was a mere 38 when I left for boot camp in the U. S. Navy. By that time we had moved to the city to a house which had electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, and a black and white television.
My memory creates the fiction which was my mother while the memory of my siblings creates the fiction which was their mother.
There are many stories which I may one day tell. My siblings may insist that their story is “the story.” We could argue over the relative merits of our stories.
My son has his own version of me just as everyone I know has their story which they might swear is a true representation of me. Even the artist who has used me as a subject for her paintings captured a particular me which only she could experience.
As I spend time with my siblings and whoever else is there to bid farewell to this larger than life, diminutive woman, we will share our story. The danger is, of course, that we will think our story is the story of Daisy Ethel Drake Pickett.
Perhaps there will come a time when I can share the fiction of my mother without offending anyone or seeming to challenge the fiction of the mother, wife, friends, daughter, sister, cousin, working woman (she returned to school after our father died), and revered community member.
Obviously none of these stories is the complete story or the accurate story of this woman. Yet, each carries some kernel of the truth of this woman who told her own story about herself.
Her story painted the picture of this fiercely independent, self-made, brave woman who endured many hardships and, yet, was able to keep reinventing herself as life handled her one challenge after another.
Written April 23, 2016
I just posted a blog today talking about the fiction that I don’t write fiction. Shortly after posting the blog I received a phone call from my oldest sister, Bonnie. She and a younger sister, Pat, have for many years assumed the care of our 96-year-old mother who has, bit by bit, lost the ability to take care of herself. Bonnie called to tell me that the doctor has said that mother has only days or a day to live. Mother has told Bonnie that she just wants to go to sleep. I am sure that she is tired.
As soon as I hung up from the phone call I began to make arrangements for a flight to Tulsa in hopes of visiting mother before she dies and, hopefully being of some support to my sisters. Goodness knows I am greatly indebted to them for assuming not only their share of the caretaking of our mother, but the share which belonged to myself and two other siblings who do not live in the same geographical location of our mother.
As I was taking care of the logistics of arranging for the flight, the car rental, and the rest of the details to which one must attend, especially if one lives alone, I began to consider the fact that my siblings and I all had a different mother. In fact, the story of my mother changes in my own memory from day to day. Perhaps it changes from moment to moment. So much of the fiction which is my story is determined by my expectations which changed as I grew up. The expectations might have been as simple and from an adult perspective to as mundane as wanting a meal which did not include that dreaded and hated hominy (to this day I have not been hungry enough to consider eating this distinctive and inexpensive vegetable). The expectation might have been to avoid being physically punished for some misdeed or perceived misdeed. Another expectation, or what is a hope, was that we would become as wealthy as our neighbors who not only had the magic of indoor electricity and indoor plumbing but a fuzzy-picture black and white television.
In my memory, poverty and the resultant shame of mother about that “fact,” the possibility, of my behaving in a way which brought further shame or embarrassment are intermixed with my fascination of the world which books brought into my daily life, an occasional evening when my father played the accordion, a used guitar which Santa somehow managed to find and deliver to our house despite the lack of a proper chimney (the only chimney we had was the six-inch stove pipe opening to carry the smoke from the wood stove that cooked our food, heated our house in summer and winter, and heated the flat irons which would make our patched clothes more presentable).
Mother was, of course, in my memory always old, although I have photographs of this young, very attractive, diminutive woman who is, it seems, frequently holding one of the five babies to which she gave birth. Mother was a mere 38 when I left for boot camp in the U. S. Navy. By that time we had moved to the city to a house which had electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, and a black and white television.
My memory creates the fiction which was my mother while the memory of my siblings creates the fiction which was their mother.
There are many stories which I may one day tell. My siblings may insist that their story is “the story.” We could argue over the relative merits of our stories.
My son has his own version of me just as everyone I know has their story which they might swear is a true representation of me. Even the artist who has used me as a subject for her paintings captured a particular me which only she could experience.
As I spend time with my siblings and whoever else is there to bid farewell to this larger than life, diminutive woman, we will share our story. The danger is, of course, that we will think our story is the story of Daisy Ethel Drake Pickett.
Perhaps there will come a time when I can share the fiction of my mother without offending anyone or seeming to challenge the fiction of the mother, wife, friends, daughter, sister, cousin, working woman (she returned to school after our father died), and revered community member.
Obviously none of these stories is the complete story or the accurate story of this woman. Yet, each carries some kernel of the truth of this woman who told her own story about herself.
Her story painted the picture of this fiercely independent, self-made, brave woman who endured many hardships and, yet, was able to keep reinventing herself as life handled her one challenge after another.
Written April 23, 2016
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