Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Mothers and Daughters

August 15, 2015

Faculty Wife | Part 8

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Wide-awake Children, Sleepy Mom, New Yamaha Piano  – August 1971

It’s June 1970. Mother has arrived and wants to be helpful. She is, and I’m grateful. I also wish I could just say, ‘No, I’d rather not have you in our bedroom right now while I’m nursing Daughter. I need to be alone with her.’

But I can’t get the words out of my mouth. She comes in and sits there watching us, trying to get a conversation going. I’m caught between guilt and despair. This feels instrusive. A familiar feeling from my childhood and youth.

I feel self-conscious. My body tenses up just when I need to be relaxed and focused on nursing Daughter. When Mom leaves to go back to Savannah, I think things will be easier. They are not.

I have no idea how to be a mother of two children in diapers. Nothing prepared me for the avalanche of non-stop diaper-changing, non-stop feeding, cooking and washing dishes, non-stop laundry plus hanging every diaper out to dry and folding every piece of clean laundry and making sure it’s in the right place, in order, so that I don’t go crazy the next time I need to use whatever it is I just put away.

Exhaustion. Mental and physical exhaustion from planning ahead, making sure I have things ready to go in the morning before the first child in diapers wakes up hungry and on go, setting the alarm early to get a few quiet minutes with myself if I can just get my feet on the floor. And now our lovely daughter is stirring.

Then there are night feedings. I almost forgot them. Blissfully quiet time with Daughter. But why don’t I have as much milk as she wants? I don’t know. Am I drinking enough water? Eating enough food? Resting enough? No. No. and No.

I thought I knew how to do this. Even with D home for most of the summer, helping as he’s able, I’m overwhelmed, undernourished and sinking. For the first time since I became a mother I’m feeling depressed, teary, and resentful. Potty training seems ages away. So does any semblance of ‘normal.’

Daughter is hungry. I get comfortable on the sofa, grateful for time to be off my feet and focused on her. Son comes along, almost on schedule, and wants to watch. No problem. Just sit right here beside me while I nurse Sister.

It seems, however, that Son wants me to watch him. He shows me things he’s doing or looking at out the window. He demands my attention. Sitting beside me doesn’t last more than a few minutes. I’m still trying to nurse Sister.

Now he’s pushing boundaries. D isn’t around, and I’m frantic. Words don’t work. A snack doesn’t even seem to help, except when his mouth is full. Now my relaxed state of mind and body are gone, and Daughter is crying for more milk than I have to give her.

I’m juggling and all the balls are dropping to the floor, bouncing into another room or disappearing under the sofa.

Now look at that. My hair is disappearing! Falling out in huge hunks every time I wash it. I’m alarmed. Sores show up inside my mouth and won’t go away. They burn every time I eat—especially pineapple or citrus.

Even worse, my milk is drying up! Daughter nurses for a few minutes, seems happy, then she’s crying from hunger. There’s nothing left. I’m frantic. Can it get any worse?

It can. The diaper pail is overflowing with stinking diapers from two children, not one. When is Son going to catch on that being potty trained is wonderful for him—not just for me?

Getting up in the morning feels like punishment. And no matter how many things I try, the exhaustion and despair don’t go away. Not even when D pitches in do some of the housecleaning, cooking and care of our children.

To be continued. . . .

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 August 2015
Photo credit: DAFraser, August 1970

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August 11, 2015

The Hole in my Heart

There’s a hole in my heart called Mom
Three letters missing from
my childhood alphabet soup

Empty.
I run on empty
Search for something Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments
March 2, 2015

Dear Mom, I miss you.

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Forsythe Park Fountain, Savannah, Georgia

Dear Mom,
I miss you. I’d love to sit down with a cup of tea and continue the conversations we had before your stroke. Though you didn’t particularly like all my questions about your past, you did your best to answer them.

I’m grateful for every conversation we had back then. I’m also grateful that you wrote down memories of your early life. A bit of your personal history. Every now and then I find myself hungry for more, though most of the time it’s enough. Your written words give glimpses of your heart and your struggle with circumstances over which you had no control.

I’ve been thinking about your memorial service in 1999. I got to make remarks on behalf of the four of us, your daughters. I decided to show and tell how much you loved teaching children music. Not just to the four of us, but to the kindergarten children you taught after I’d married and moved away.

I still have your old spiral music notebook, filled with children’s songs. For your service I picked out several of my favorites and said a bit about each song before I played the music. I also read the words and demonstrated motions for at least one of the songs. The one about how elephants kalump along, their long noses swaying in time to the music!

The most fun was coming to the end of “The Polliwog’s Story,” and (like you, without warning) suddenly turning around on the piano bench to give everyone a big scare with the last line! They loved it! For a moment we felt your joy and exuberance, and celebrated your lively spirit and your love for children and music.

I also played some of your favorite adult hymns. Not too many, but just enough, with comments about why I chose each. The most difficult to get through was “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” That was the hymn you tried to sing so often when you first got polio, even though your vocal chords were paralyzed.

I’m tearing up as I write this part. I owe you so much. I’ve been reading a book by Henry Nouwen. He talks about the way absence can cause our love for someone to grow. I’m beginning to understand what he’s talking about.

Part of it is my freedom to write you these letters and say things I couldn’t say while you were with us. It’s also because I understand our family dynamics more than before, and how costly they were for you, not just for me.

A few days ago I was thinking about my grandparents and how little I knew any of them except for your father, my California Grandpa. That got me thinking about the way you and he related to each other, especially since your Mom wasn’t around for most of your life.

When we lived on the West Coast, we spent lots of time visiting Grandpa and going with him to fun places like the Wilson Observatory and the Griffith Park Zoo. Even his apartment was fun! There were long sidewalks outside. I remember learning to ride my first bike on them. The bike he gave me, with training wheels.

After we moved to the East Coast, things changed. But you still kept in regular touch through letters. I know you wrote to him about us and what we were up to, because his letters to you sometimes included comments back to each of us.

He seemed to dote on us. It meant a lot to me back then to know he thought we were the best and the brightest little girls in the whole wide world. I’m guessing it meant a lot to you, too. You must have missed him terribly. I think you inherited your love of fun and of children from him.

How do you like the photo of the Forsythe Park Fountain? I love the water droplets flying through the air! If you enlarge it, you’ll see pink azaleas blooming in the background.

Love and hugs,
Elouise

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 March 2015

5 Comments
February 20, 2015

Is that You at the door? | Dear God

Dear God,
I ended my last letter with a question: “When I go to the door to open it to You (the stranger), how will I know it’s You?” I’ve been puzzling over my question all week. Read the rest of this entry »

14 Comments
February 15, 2015

Dear Mom, An old photo and a poem…

Elouise at 9 months 1

Dear Mom,
An old photo and a poem–just for you. I think Dad took the photo. It’s one of my favorites. It’s August 23, 1944. I’m 9 months old, and you’re 23. You look beautiful and happy. Probably because Dad was home for a one-day visit before going back to the TB sanatorium. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 5, 2014

baptismal waters

baptismal waters
rise gently enfolding her
world-weary body

* * * * *

I’m standing in a windowless, high-ceiling concrete room
with a concrete floor, drainage holes and air vents.
A deep whirlpool tub stands in the middle
filled with warm steamy water.
The room faintly resembles a large sauna minus the wood.
Functional, not beautiful.

Mother is in hospice care after suffering a stroke weeks ago
and then developing pneumonia in the hospital.
Her ability to communicate with words is almost nonexistent.
Today she’s going to be given a bath.
I’m told she loves this, and that
Sister #4 and I are welcome to witness the event.

For the past hour caregivers have been preparing her–
removing her bedclothes, easing her onto huge soft towels,
rolling and shifting her inch by inch onto a padded bath trolley,
doing all they can to minimize pain and honor her body.
Finally, they slowly roll the trolley down the hall.

The hospice sauna room echoes with the sound of
feet, soft voices, and running water.
It takes a team to carry out this comforting
though strange and even unnerving ritual.
Mother is safely secured to the padded bath table and
then lowered slowly into the water.
Her eyes are wide open.

For a few moments she fixes her eyes on mine.
The table  descends bit by bit.
How does she feel?
What is she thinking?
At  first her eyes seem anxious.
Is she afraid?
The warm waters rise around her and the table stops descending.
Her face relaxes and she closes her eyes.

The team works gently, thoroughly, not in haste.
They focus on her, talk to her and handle her body with reverence.
My eyes brim with tears.
This woman who bathed me, my three sisters
and most of her grandbabies is being given a bath
by what appears to be a team of angels in celestial garments.

They finish their work and roll Mother back to her room.
Her bed has clean sheets.
Fresh bedclothes have been laid out.
Caregivers anoint her body with oil and lotion, turn her gently,
and comment on how clear and beautiful her skin is.
They finish clothing her, adjust the pillows to cradle her body,
pull up light covers and leave her to fall asleep.

* * *

Last Sunday I witnessed the immersion baptism of seven young people at my home church.  I couldn’t help recalling this tender, even sacramental immersion just days before Mother’s death, and decided to share it with you.

Haiku written 3 June 2014
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 June 2014

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