When I was seven, my mom and I moved to Bakersfield, California to be with her best friend. I remember the weather, the ocean, and seemingly endless fruit trees. I enjoyed hanging out with my friends and the new adventures that California offered, but I missed my Grandmother, my Aunt Gina, and Uncle Toots. We had already moved to Ft. Worth and Brownsville, Texas as well as moving from house to house an back to Grandma's in Amarillo. California was very different from the other places we had lived as it offered such treasures such as a neighbors orange tree. But still, I missed the comfort of stability in Grandma's house.
This one of Mom and me is in California, I think.
Top left is Verna, then Gina in the right
Bottom left is Twigg
My wonderful cousin Tammy in on the right.
That’s my Uncle Toots on the left in this one with Aunt Verna beside him. Gina must have taken this picture. We were in South Fork, Colorado. Still love that area. Geez, maybe I couldn’t pay attention to anything.
(Lots of exposition in this one. Hope it is worthy of your time my beloved friends.)
I've shared about Grandma and the important role she played in my life before. My attachment to my Grandmother must have hurt my mom deeply. I know that I woke up many times crying for my Grandma when we were wherever we were. Sometimes I didn't remember where we were and was so lost. Fear would consume me until I would remember which apartment, hotel, or whatever we were currently sleeping in. To this day, I cannot stand to use a pillow without a pillowcase, laundry piled high, and I hate to eat in hotel rooms. These things remind me of homes that aren't home. I was coded as a Migrant student in elementary which was so weird to me; I had two homes: Grandma's and Gina's.
Aunt Gina and Uncle Toots, his name provided during WWII, also helped to shape who I am. Gina, Verna, and my maternal Grandfather were siblings. They were tall, strong pillars filled with stubborn grit and hard work. After my grandfather passed when I was not yet two, Toots and Gina stepped into my life with the assurance that they would always be there to help Mom and Grandma raised me. I never noticed whether or not Gina and Verna loved my Grandma, or even liked her. Grandma was after all their brother's widow. Years later I learned of some drama about how best to raise me, but I would have never known and don't want to know. To me, these people were a solid wall of love. They provided the equilibrity I needed.
Gina's sister, my Aunt Verna, was also a pinnacle in those early years. I spent alternating weekends with these church ladies throughout my early years. Went with them to their Sunday school class in my shined up shoes and "church dresses" Gina kept for me. This is where I was enrolled in the "pinch and twist" method of "sit up straight", "be quiet", and "Twig why can't you sit still" classes within the beautiful old ladies Sunday School class. Later, there were girdles involved, but that is another story. Aunt Gina saw yard sales as "why pay so much for new?" was a mantra. She was painting, canning, gardening, helping, organizing, and churching. She said she liked to stay busy, so do I. The only time I seemed to miss weekends and holidays was when we were living in another city or state.
There weren't many men in my young life on a constant basis. Toots was the most important man around for those early years. I matched his steps around the house, the Service Station they owned on 6th street, and when fishing and hunting. My favorite was watching him with "old guy" friends who come to the station to hang out. I loved the community he had and how much these men laughed together. These old guys would holler for me to come and sit with them while they told funny fishing and hunting stories. "Come over here Twig, listen to this one...". I still can't smell Old Spice without missing him. Toots let me test my boundaries and be myself. He didn't have all the requirements Gina did. I was allowed to wild, even though I was a girl. Little me was safe with this man. We would sit and talk in the back yard. Toots and I could be still together, which was rare for my little ADD body.
We had been in California, hanging out with the massive roaches, for over six months when we got the call that the Grandpa figure in my life had passed away suddenly. I was devastated. I remember not being able to be consoled. I remember actually crying, and I have never been good at crying. Part of the safety net that I was pining to return to was gone.
It's not like this was the first death in my little world; I had been reared in the funeral and grieving process every Sunday I was with them. In the summers, Gina would take me with her while she was "sitting in" with a friend from church or a neighbor who had lost a loved one. We would go, take food, straighten up what needed it, and as I got older I would help with the children younger than myself. I knew how to sit in grief with others. But this loss was too great. He had left us while I was away. I could not sit in anything. Grief was everything. I remember writing him letters and making everyone listen to me read them. I know I made Gina cry for months. Writing those sappy songs and letters to Toots was my way of sitting in my grief- of voicing my loss.
He had been getting slower and less active over the years, but he still did everything while I was with them. Apparently, Toots became sick, diabetic complications, I think after we moved so far away. In little Ileana brain that translated is death to the belief that he would not have gotten so sick if I had stayed in Amarillo with Grandma, Toots, and Gina. I would be staying with him every weekend and he would have been pushing himself to hang out with me. I wasn't there = it was my fault that he had died. I had left him to go off with my mom. I had abandoned him for our California adventure. This was simple math for me. My mom as also devastated as she had to give up her California dream to get me back home. You can't imagine how ugly that looong bus ride back to Texas was.
After that, I did not allow any other male role models in my heart.
Fast forward a bit and between lots of traveling with my mom during the summers, when I was ten I saw 13 states. Shortly after one of our summer traveling, my mom was bedridden. We learned later that she had Diabetes and Lupus. She wanted to travel and work and I just wanted to be in Amarillo in school and with Grandma and Gina. In my little girl's brain, I caused her to be sick, as she seemed to be fine when we were on the road. She was happy on the road. She had to come home to be with me which took her away from traveling, but that made her sicker. In my mind, if I hadn't wanted to go to school, she would be okay. even though traveling was fun it was a community unto itself, but I missed my people. Traveling with her taught me an encyclopedia of knowledge just about people. Mom continued to struggle with her health and yet managed to do some great things. I continued to blame myself for being so hard to raise and such a "handful".
After that, I did not want to want to be mothered or be a burden to my mom any more than I already had. I know that my mom, like so many others, did the very best she could.
Skip forward several years of my leaving every summer to travel, work, and live in tents and trailers for the summer. Following my final summer traveling, I worried that if I left again, Grandma would get sick. I went through middle and high school with normal tortures and triumphs. Several years later, Aunt Gina passed away, in her sleep. I was trying to go through college as a single mom to Mariah. I had not done a good job going to see her as often as I should have. Life was hectic and I was trying desperately to be the statistic I was: a single mom at 20. I could blame it on many things, but I was caught up in trying to become who these beautiful people who poured so much love into me believed I was. I was trying, so I didn't see Gina or Verna as often as I should have. My wanna be grownup brain blamed myself. Gina's sister, Verna, followed a few years later. These losses added weight to the blame I had become so good at carrying. Now it was my banner. A medal of honor of how to fail people who loved me. I could continue to list the beautiful people who I have loved that have passed away too soon, but that is common for many of us.
Fast forward to having Libby and finally finishing school. Diving into the marathon of teaching was everything I could have dreamed of. We rocked and rolled through many great years, then in 2008 Libby's body began rebelling. Continuing to love Liberty through the battle her body wages awakened the same fears with the addition of blame. Libby got sick on my watch. My little girl brain explained it all so perfectly; people get sick around me. This thinking was almost debilitating in the early years of her disease. There were days when I did not think Libby was going to make it or if I could survive her illness. Doctors have told us that we may never know exactly when Liberty became infected with encephalitis (although we do know a tick was involved). There are still so many what if's leaving gaping holes for my self-blame and guilt to filter in to.
Because of her illness, I have allowed myself to wallow in the blame and guilt.
Quarantine hit and we learned to all be at home together. We adjusted and rolled through the end of the school year. Then Rachael got sick. At first, we thought, and the clinic conquered, that she had a UTI. Two weeks and two rounds of antibiotics later, she was driving to the hospital with diverticulitis. She was in hospital for ten days and had two surgeries. In the second surgery, the doctor took out a large amount of her colon due to infection. This became a very dark time for me. I knew that once again something I had done, or not done had been the catalyst to her illness. Or maybe this was some penance I needed to pay for a past misdeed. I knew it was my fault.
Because of this, I began to spiral into ugly habits.
She was all alone in the hospital and Libby and I were all alone at home. That was the worst Mother's Day ever. I prayed and cleaned. I meditated and reorganized. I shouted at everyone's God. I have begged and bargained with God to heal and save Libby. How in the hell could I be as healthy while so many people I loved got sick? Please take my health and my abilities and save/protect _____________ .Why couldn't God make me the one with the illness instead of the people I love? It was five days into her hospital stay during her six-hour surgery when I finally got some clarity.
I was just off the phone with the surgeon trying to attend to this very important update. I kept thinking "just get to the point!" and tell me whether or not she is okay. In what felt like 12.3 years later, he finally stated that "She was going to be okay, but it was going to be a long, slow recovery." After I got off the phone, grateful for all of the info the doc shared with me, I sobbed.
Again I began bargaining to take this struggle from Rachael and give it to me while begging forgiveness for whatever it was I had done to cause this, After what felt like forever, this feeling of peace washed over me and the words came to me, "My Dear, you are not that powerful. This is all out of your control." Then the knowing came that these things are going to happen around me but not necessarily because of me. That maybe I was given my blessed health to be the one who caretakes. I began to understand that bargaining with God doesn't work.
That doesn't seem to be how most faith-based systems work. We learn through our mistakes and are blessed with continued love and support. As we learn to do better, we become better. Life isn't an ongoing version of the Scarlett Letter where we wear our sins in an act of deprecating self-flagellation. Bargaining doesn't work. Where I could then see my world, where I stop punishing myself and my body for being healthy. I would be able to finally put the blame and guilt behind me and do what needed to be done for the loves in my world.
After this, I allowed myself to lighten the guilt load.
This new understanding that self-blame is like wearing a straight jacket every day while trying to play Twister was revolutionary. Little Ileana didn't think she was powerful at all, she just knew that she was the common denominator, so it must be her fault. rooted in ego, help. I had to let it go and focus on what I had control over.
I had to rejoice in my strength, instead of sabotaging myself with binging and drink, I could continue to help the loves around me. So, I stopped. When the weight of what you're carrying seems overwhelming, remember you just aren't that powerful because we aren't meant to carry these things alone. That's why our physical and spiritual community is vital. Let's learn to be less powerful together.
Libby is a rock star and has rolled pretty well into the school schedule. I am ever so awed by her resilience. Be safe and know that you are loved.
ileana
This has been my perspective and my own growth; none was meant to hurt.
