The Bubble Has Burst

For my mother, that is.

~

Let me give some backstory on my Mom. Her mother, my Nana, was an alcoholic who was married five times. My Mom had one half brother, John, who was 10 years older and a full brother, Jim, who was a couple years younger than she. The half brother was from my grandmothers first marriage. My mom and her brother were from the second. The first husband died of natural causes, the second (my grandfather) killed himself. Third and Fourth husbands....one was a divorce and the other was another suicide. Her fifth and final husband died of natural causes. It's not a huge surprise to me that my grandmother drank with all that in her past.

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My mother was quite young when her father died. In fact, she didn't know that he killed himself until about 1990. My grandmother had moved into a nursing home at that time and when my Mom was cleaning out my grandmother's apartment, she found her father's death certificate that confirmed "self inflicted." After he passed away, my grandmothers drinking became out of control. My mom told me stories of her as a child dumping out bottles of vodka and refilling them with water; stories of her calling the town liquor stores and begging them to stop selling to her mother. By this time, John was away at boarding school then to be followed by college and military service. She really didn't know him. My grandmother, more interested in drinking and husbands, sent my Mom and Jim to live with other families.

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Knowing this much about my Mom's background, it's understandable why her sole desire for her own life was to have a stable family and keep it together at all costs. She swung the pendulum from one extreme to the other without ever seeing the harm she was doing by holding onto a family and a marriage that was not working. More than once, my mother walked in on my brother sexually abusing me. And, every time, she turned around, closed the door and walked away. She was unable to deal with it. While that evokes anger in me, that she didn't help me, I really can also "get" it. God knows how dissociation has served me in my life even when it was the wrong choice to make. It is, after all, just the mind shutting down from that which it cannot handle. She could not handle anything that pointed out the dysfunction of her longed-for family.

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When I broke my silence about the abuse, my mother really did nothing in either direction. I imagine she was entirely numb. My father was the one who went on a tirade. At me, of course. Made me admit I was lying and apologize to my brother. My mother, who had seen it with her own eyes, stood there and said nothing. For many, many years my mother has "stood there and said nothing" about any number of situations my brother has gotten into trouble with. She always gave him the benefit of the doubt. Marital problems, issues with my father, business problems, even when my brother was accused of, and fired for, sexual harassment. She always believed he was just haunted by bad luck. All this time, I've rolled my eyes at her naivity, knowing that it was simply karma surrounding my brother. His "bad luck" was really just the edification of "what goes around comes around." But I had accepted that she could not see it. She divorced my father about 16 years ago which was incredibly difficult for her considering her one desire for her life. At that point, she became even more vested in maintaining relationships with her kids. She and I have had a rocky relationship at best due to the choice she made. Only in the past year have I really come to process some of this stuff and find my love for her again.

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Yesterday my mother called me and told me that she has finally come to realize that my brother is nothing more than a manipulative pathological liar. She said she was sure it's something I've known all along and that she was so sorry it took her this long to realize it. Some things have happened of late, things she was not supposed to find out about but did, that I guess were too much for her to continue living in denial of. She said she is disgusted and sick. She's had his name taken off everything financial and she called her attorney to write him out of her will. She says she believes this will be the end of all contact with him. While I don't believe that is the case, I do believe that she has seen the unfortunate truth and I don't think she can turn that off now. She said she feels duped and that everything out of his mouth is bullshit. For as long as I can remember, my brother has had an unbelievable gift for twisting the truth in innumerable directions to gain favor of the person he's telling the story to. He's played my parents against each other more times that I can count.

~

I suppose I should be happy that she's finally seen the truth. I suppose I should feel some sort of vindication that she realizes how her choice to not see him for who and what he is damaged me. More than anything, right now, I find myself relating to her not as MY Mom but rather just as A Mom.....a fellow Mom..... And I cannot fathom the pain of realizing the worst about your own child. I've not yet allowed this to sink in on an emotional level for myself. I'm not sure what to think about it yet.