I have been reading through Mum's letters to her own mother and her father's mother (whom we called DiggyDee and Nana) and one of the recurring themes is her desire for freedom from me. Mum, with the rest of the family, leaves for six weeks and does not mention missing me, gets home and does not mention being happy to see me, wants me to go straight from nursery school in the morning to kindergarten in the afternoon to give her time to herself and then go to bed early so she can have time with my brothers.
Mum was an only child and after her father's death, she was her mother's whole life. Little wonder that in her rare visits, DiggyDee spent her whole time protecting my mother from my interruptions, telling me Mommy was doing "important things." I'd stand in the doorway watching her wistfully; I only got her attention if I was bleeding. No wonder I did not feel my grandmother was my ally. To her, just like to everyone else in my life, I was pretty much just a nuisance.
From one year of Mum's letters "home":
"J's nursery school will go until June 11th or so--thank goodness--and this year J is delighted to find she will be old enough for day camp--three mornings a week. That will help." (May 19)
"Jessica will be in day camp three mornings a week, so that will give me a bit of a rest and some free time for myself while (husband) and the boys are gone." (May 27)
"The only problem that stands in the way [of a family vacation] is Jessica. She is too young to fit in on such a long trip." (June 13) I was five and the trip would last six weeks. Wasn't I too young to be left that long?
While on the six-week vacation, which they worked out very nicely for me by letting one of my friends and her whole family house-sit, even buying a gym set for us girls before they left, she wrote arranging for Brother #1 to come visit the grandmothers so she could help Brother #2 with projects when they came home: "(It) would also lessen the strain after we get home, for Jessica will undoubtedly make many demands upon me to make up for the long separation. . ." (July 21)
". . . [H]ow hectic it has been getting things back into running order, reassuring Jessica that we are truly here and will stay, etc." (August 10)
"Jessica is back in nursery school, but the five-year olds don't stay for lunch, so she gets out at 1:30. In order to get a couple of free hours to get my breath, I have been letting her go down to the public kindergarten in the afternoons. . . [B]y getting her to bed soon after supper I have more time for the boys in the evening." (Sept. 13)
"The patch of peace and quiet that I was expecting when (husband) and (oldest brother) left did not materialize. Half an hour after they left. . . I was reading Jessica a story. . ." [I am grateful that that!] "She kept scratching at herself and when I looked at her closely, she was peppered with spots. . . [It] is only German measles and not a bad case at that. . . but my little holiday has had to be readjusted. Instead of having my mornings free I have been racking my brains to entertain. . ." (Feb. 9)
(Husband) is going to N.Y. and Boston the end of this month. . . Jessica would never forgive us if we all went off again and left her--and if we took her, I'd get nothing at all done in N.Y. as far as seeing about placing the children's books. . . There's nothing I'd like better than to hole up in a . . . study for a week--just to sleep and write! Surely, this summer, I'll be able to arrange to have just a week or ten days of the kind of vacation I long for--one where I'm completely free of children of all ages and sizes. . . [Jessica] comes home at 11:30 which makes the morning too short to accomplish much of anything. Also, in the afternoons, her friends usually come here and if she is invited anywhere it is not until after three. . . When spring and good weather come to stay, the problem will ease for then they'll be outdoors most of the time. . ." (Mar. 9)
A revealing comment about Ted (more revealing about my mother as a mother than about my brother): "Ted and J. are on vacation this week and poor Ted is bored to death. He doesn't go out and hunt up friends but keeps wanting me to 'do something with him' until I'm desperate. When I suggest some easy job he could do to help he does it half-heartedly and then retires back to his reading. . ."
Then, "Friday we did take the day off--borrowed (a friend's) car and left J. with her for the afternoon and the night. . ." (April 2)
To her credit, my mother knocked herself out for my 6th birthday party--made cheese, peanut butter, and egg salad sandwiches, potato salad, carrot and celery strips and two birthday cakes for my entire nursery school class of 16 kids for a three-car caravan to the Columbus Zoo, 30 miles away. Two days later she wrote the grandmothers all about it, adding with surprise, "Jessica was perfectly incredible. Even with being up so early and all the excitement of the day she didn't go to pieces once. . . and went up to bed like a lamb. . ." (April 14)
I don't remember a single thing about the magnificent picnic and party at the zoo which Mum went to so much trouble to organize for me--but I do remember the incident I have already shared about catching my ankle in the spokes of Peter's bike.
The same day Mum and I both wrote to the grandmothers mentioning my healing ankle, she wrote about plans to bring me to stay with them for awhile: "I'm afraid you'll find her a handful all by herself, for she is at a very aggressive and wilful stage and I find my patience taxed every hour of the day. How I long for my vacation to start. . ." (May 1)
This is not describing the eager-to-please clown Pucky. I wonder if this was after Mum may have caught Dad molesting me, confronted him about it, been reassured nothing was going on ("You have a dirty mind! Don't you trust me?") and "gone back downstairs, taking hope with her and leaving me in a dungeon," as I posted recently. Is this when I felt betrayed by her, began to "distrust turquoise" (her favorite color) and all women, not letting her into my life?
I did go spend a week with my widowed grandmother and great-grandmother. During that week, Nana died. I remember running out of the house so I wouldn't be in the way.
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