On the deaths of family members

As I mentioned in a recent post, my birth mother recently passed from cancer back in May. We didn't have a close relationship at all and I spent very little time with her. I was raised by my grandmother (my birth mom's mom). Up until the time I was around 8 or 9 I was told my birth mom was my sister and then I eventually discovered the truth. 

I won't go into too much detail here - sorry this isn't therapy ;-) - but i definitely think there are lots of aspects of my childhood that come out in my writings. I dealt with a great deal of instability as a child where my home life would swing wildly from periods of time where I was personally, physically and emotionally neglected to periods of time where I was verbally, emotionally and mentally abused. 

Very early on, I discovered books and would throw myself into science fiction, Nancy Drew, Sweet Pickles, dictionaries, encyclopedia basically anything I could get my hands and eyes on. By the time I reached 5th grade, I already knew that I preferred the moments of neglect to the abuse. The neglect moments were basically times when days or even weeks would go by when my grandmother wouldn't even utter a word to me. We lived together in a 2 story house. Her bedroom (and the bathroom) was on the first floor and mine was on the 2nd. Since my grade school was only a 5-10 minute walk home, I'd usually get home before her. 

Being a latch key kid, I would make my lunch for the next day, make an after school snack, do my home work. I'd watch MTV (back when they played videos) in her room because that's the TV that had cable. The tv in my room was a tiny black and white one that got regular TV but I still appreciated it when I was in my room alone. I could tell when her car was pulling into the driveway. Then I'd run to take all my stuff to my room just in case and would come back down to greet her at the steps coming from the basement mainly to see what mood she was in. If she were in a bad mood then I would just slink by up to room. If she were in a somewhat good mood then I would hang out for awhile.

But really there is a lot of cruelty in my grandmother so she wasn't the best person I liked to hang around. By the time I was 8/9, my birth mom had moved from Cincinnati to San Diego. I remember the summer between 3rd and 4th grade, she promised to send me a plane ticket to come stay with her a few weeks in San Diego. This was around the time when things were getting really bad with my grandmother. For instance, she would do things like come to my room (on a school night) at like 2/3 in the morning and start accusing me of stealing her clothes and her shoes. Then she would start going through my closet and dresser, throwing things in the middle of the floor, looking for her things. Once she realized they weren't there I would then have to put everything back while she sat watching me do this and lecturing me on why I shouldn't steal her clothes. This little drama would play out until 4-5 in the morning as many as 3 times a week. 

When my birth mom, promised me an out from this for at least a few weeks, I was really looking forward to this. She even gave me a date to look out for the tickets to come. I really wanted to believe this so as the time got closer I started to pack. Meanwhile my grandmother would make fun of me for believing my birth mom. Long story short, there I was packed on the day the tickets were supposed to come (i knew nothing about travel at this point) waiting for the tickets or a call or something from my birth mom all while being laughed at and called stupid by my grandmother. Those tickets never came and that was the first day I realized I couldn't count on either my birth mom or my grandmother to be anything more than mean, cruel liars. That was also when I started counting the days until I could leave and never have to deal with either of them again.

Obviously I was 8 then, so I had many more years to deal with and navigate my 2 toxic mothers. It took me a long while to admit it, but I can now: I  am broken person because of this. Of course it could be worse, but honestly deep down i never really learned to trust people, I'm very quick to throw away relationships if someone fails, I have abandonment issues which have led me to be the opposite of clingy to the point where I'm super self-sufficient. Of course all of this gets in the way of developing close personal relationships , but I am working on that. 

This also comes through in my writing as well. Many of my characters are orphaned at young age and raised in foster care, some grew up with toxic parents. So far I have 1 main character who comes from a loving home (Rodney from Secret Society of the Glass Hand) but even he is a little bit neglected as the "ordinary" middle child in a family filled with prodigies. 

I think I'll leave this topic for now but I'm sure it'll be revisited at some point.