|
My friend Elaine is 36 years
old but she has not yet learned to sit. She can stand, occasionally,
but generally, she's in motion. She is chasing her two-year-old,
wiping chocolate off her four-year-old daughter's lovely face,
or teaching her seven-year-old to ride a bike or her nine-year-old
to jump rope. She is outside with them all afternoon, or inside,
baking or doing projects.
When the kids go to sleep, Elaine
cleans or paints something. Thursday nights, she cooks two
full meals (feasts, really) for her frequent weekend guests.
She is an excellent cook. Friday, she is busy gardening. She
does not hire a gardener and has a cleaner come in only twice
a month. Her house is spotless, her garden, professional.
Elaine is active in the community
and goes to every school meeting. She finds time for friends
and takes a photography course. She plays basketball and bridge.
She and her husband throw a party every few weeks, just to
get everyone together and she often bakes pies for these occasions.
Elaine works full time, from
9:00 - 4:00, every day.
Some people are jealous. They
cannot understand how she does it all. Where does she get
the energy, or the skills, or the time? But I know. Elaine
has a fire inside. She lost her mother when she was 10.
DENY YOUR FEELINGS -- PAY
A PRICE
Her mission? To never have anyone's
pity. Best to keep achieving, she thinks. That way, no one
will ever be able to say, "Shame she's a terrible cook...but
she didn't have a mother -- let's cut her some slack. Where
should she have learned from?" To Elaine, that would
be worse than anything. Anything at all.
Elaine tells me that she remembers
very little about her mother's breast cancer and subsequent
death at the shockingly young age of 31. She did not realize
that she was saying good-bye when she last saw her mother,
but she cannot say what she would have changed had she known.
She was too young to absorb what was happening, too young
to have forged a coherent emotional memory to carry into adulthood.
But even little girls have sophisticated
coping strategies and very different styles. What this little
girl did was become self-sufficient. She made her own decisions,
worried about herself. She acted responsibly, so nobody questioned
her. She had her freedom and took pride in the fact that she was
independent. As a teenager, she relished this liberty.
She tried to ignore the fact
that her father was so grief-stricken that he was distant
and under-nurturing; tried to quell her own fears about navigating
the milestones of adolescence without a compass. After all,
she could not rely on anyone. She had relied on her mother
and look where it got her.
She was pragmatic. She was rational.
She didn't like favors. Didn't like pity or that the kids
were too nice to her. She couldn't stand incompetence. The
worst were the whiners, the complainers, the ones who could
do nothing on their own. They gave her the actual creeps.
AFTER MANY YEARS, THE ANGER
EMERGES
Most of all, young Elaine hated
being different. She was the only one in her class, more or
less, without two parents at home. She hated this and became
involved in nearly every extracurricular activity and every
sport. She would be uber-popular, super-achieving, ultra-cool
and maybe they would forget. Maybe she would forget.
Today, I recognize a lot of this
girl in my friend. Elaine is still terrified of asking anyone
to help her, ever. And she still hates under-achievers.
But now that she has had some
distance, she is able to tell the truth: She is sometimes
angry at her mother. She was angry when her mother wasn't
there for her wedding. Angry when she missed the birth of
her first child. Angry when she has questions: Would you have
been a supportive mother? Would you have liked my kids? What
would you think of me, the woman?
Elaine says that she does not
think about her mother every day anymore. But her drive to
be a good mother, and to keep herself healthy for her kids,
is always hovering close. She rides herself hard about always
being there for her children and she does not answer the phone
between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. That's their time.
Last month Elaine got tested
for the BRCA1 gene that can predict whether she has inherited
her mother's tendency to breast cancer. If she is found positive,
she will undergo a radical mastectomy. She wants to see her
kids grow up and she doesn't care if it means losing her breasts.
In the meantime, she is not nervous
about the results. She does not worry; it's not practical.
She just keeps busy.
|
