A Whipping Spoon

My mother was not a well woman.  Her photograph can be found under the word "vindictive" in the dictionary.  I remember specific examples of how she would attempt to get back at people who dared to breathe in her presence without her permission.  It was all about my mother.  Never about anyone else.  In my mother's household, the only hurt feelings that "counted" were hers.

My mother threw out any and all Christmas presents from my dad because they weren't from her.  It was an outrage to her that I would cherish something that she did not give me.  I would come home with new clothes, new toys, new books.  And within a few days, out in the garbage they went. 

She did that to a dog too.  I was in third grade when I found a white poodle puppy on the couch one Christmas morning.  I named her Fifi.  She had the typical poodle look with curly hair and bright eyes.  We played together a lot.  Fifi was a bright spot in an otherwise oppressive home atmosphere.  One summer Sunday morning, my mother insisted that I take Fifi with me when my dad came to pick me up.  The following Sunday, she wanted me to take Fifi along again.  I declined to do that.  When I came home that night, Fifi was gone.  I went hysterical.  I loved that dog and she had loved me too.  To shut me up, my mother told me she had given the dog away to my great grandmother.  I wanted to believe her.  But a few months later when we went to visit, there was no dog there.  I asked my mother about Fifi and she did what she always did when I was pestering her for answers.  After ignoring me didn't work, she told me to shut-up.

My mother's vindictiveness did not stop just because I became an adult.  She was angry because I refused to call her second husband, my step-father Tony.  When he died, she called my aunt up to tell her.  Then she told my aunt that I already knew.  I found out ten days after they put him in the ground.  "Pablo only wanted his real daughter with him at the end," she said, "Not you."  Even after I confronted her, she had no explanation for not letting me know about his death.  The obituary didn't even mention my existence.  That hurt.  

When my half-brother's wife died suddenly, once again my mother didn't tell me right away.  She told me the night before the funeral.  By then, it was too late to catch an airplane down to where my half-brother lived.  "I never thought you would be able to get on an airplane," she said with brittleness in her voice.  Okay, so I got brain damage from a car accident through no fault of my own some years before then.  But I was certainly capable of travel.  After all [with planning help by a wonderful and patient AAA agent], I had traveled cross-country alone on planes and trains for three glorious weeks.  Cripes.

I've been doing some research lately on Handrahan vs. Malenko for the radicalsapphoq blog.  [I hope to be able to publish it tomorrow.  Every time I think I am almost done, I find a bunch more stuff on the Internet.  It's been like this for at least a week now].  A quick summary, Lori Handrahan has accused her ex-husband of assaulting the little girl up in Maine.  The almost constant cries of abuse have come replete with hospital trips and rape kit exams and drug testing of urine, beginning at the age of two.  At age four, there was a yellowed healing bruise [and a reddish birthmark].  This reminded me of something that my vindictive mother did once.

Although mine didn't trot me off to the hospital, my mother certainly was observant and opportunistic.  One Sunday afternoon, Dad's girlfriend  had hit me once with her hand.  This was more of a swipe, deliberate but not drawing blood or leaving a mark.  My mother's response was to get out a wooden spoon [which she used to stir the homemade tomato sauce she used to make some Saturdays-- it was clean] and force me to hit myself with it hard on my rear end for several minutes at a time for several days.  I had to do what she said.  I didn't want to.  But if I wanted to survive my childhood, I had to obey.  That Wednesday, she took me to the family doctor.  She wanted him to witness the "abuse" by wife #2.  When the doctor didn't want to get involved-- [as was typical for him: There was no mandated reporting back then and he was a bit of a drunk like most of the folks that my mother surrounded herself with.]-- Mother stuck me in the car and drove to the police station in the town where my Dad lived.  "Show them what she did," I remember her snarling in front of the desk sarge.  But someone had called my dad who showed up yelling, "What are you doing to my daughter?"

So yeah, I know that mothers can hurt their children out of harsh and vindictive feelings towards an ex.  And yeah, a mother can inflict abuse on a child and then claim that someone else did it.  I know this because it was done to me.

sapphoq on life