Mom, Part 1

In light of the last post I am prompted to begin discussing my mother. We have never really had a normal relationship, to say the least. I have no idea how many posts will be about her nor how regularly they will occur, but lets just say it is a fertile area for exploration. With that, we begin with the first time I realized how seriously ill my mother was.

Until I was 15 I believed what my father had said years ago, before he left, that my mom's disease was more in her mind than her body. I really wish I remembered the exact words he used. He had a way of making cruel seem interesting. But this is more than 20 years ago now. Nonetheless, I never saw her as sick, after all she did not die when the doctor told me she would. And I resented her for this.

But I started to take drivers ed the summer of my 15th year. This must have been early June, as I had been out driving all of three or four times when I woke up one day and my mother informed me that she needed me to drive her down to the medical center for tests. This would be all freeway driving, about 20 miles away, and I was a bit befuddled why she needed me to do this. In fact, I told her I would not do it. It was more out of fear than not wanting to, but I of course never let her know this.

See, the trip consisted of traversing the 610 loop, which at the time was undergoing major construction, going from 12 lanes to 20+. It was nothing an insecure, novice driver should ever have been forced to deal with. For a small chunk of it, where highway 290 met and became 610, the lanes were not even properly marked and even as a passenger I would hold my breath and urge the car to safety with my non existent mental powers.

So I fought her, likely told her off and said that I would be doing nothing of the sort. Then she told me what was happening to her, why she had not been to work in days. It was gruesome. Her joints throbbed, she was incontinent, and she was afraid her liver might be failing. And those are the parts I can remember. Again I wish I remembered what she said exactly, I just know it was hard to hear through the tears.

That was the day I became her chauffeur. Not just in the driving her around way, but also in sharing the burden of her illness. It was the first time in 7 years that I felt she was actually ill.

So I drove her boat of a gray 1982 Buick Park Avenue -- the car that I joked comprised multiple area codes -- to the medical center, feeling like I was about 12 sitting on phone books in the drivers seat. I felt as if I was gaming the system. I knew I did not belong. But I remember asking her to turn the radio off, saying "I need complete silence" as we got near 610, somewhere around noon, with my hands bound to the ten and two spots on the steering wheel. And all I could think about was if she died they would give me to my father and I wanted nothing to do with that. Nothing at all.

I more willed the car across those highway miles than drove. And when we got to her doctor's office, I remember sitting in the car just trying to relearn to breathe. She was there for hours and I was in the waiting area reading. But my mind more wondered if this disease that was ravaging my mother would ever come for me. It became the enemy. My enemy.

The ride home was likely worse than the ride to the medical center, as it was during rush hour, but I was already more comfortable with driving. And in fact when ever anyone compliments my driving, I retell this exact story, saying it forced me to be fearless behind the wheel and developed my keen sense of spacial road logic, whatever that might mean. But really, I think that is me compensating for the trauma of that day still. It was a harrowing experience.

My mother later told me her doctor wanted to put her in the hospital that day, but she fought against it, as I needed to get home and she could not figure out any way for me to do so without her sitting in the passenger seat. But I learned how to drive that day and learned the fear of Lupus. She shared that with me, and now she has shared the disease with me as well. And now my resentment of her is different, less superficial, but ever preset still.