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11/08/2003 Entry: "How My Mother Died - Part 2: "I can never love you, until you love yourself.""
When we got home, my mother started to drink. My father had left for another business trip (these trips are where neighbors have all speculated he was seeing another woman, Nicole, whom he started dating several months after my mother's death, and married a year or so later), and so that Friday night we were all just wigging out. There was a lot of screaming going on, because suddenly the whole "I want to be an astronomer" dream was shattered, my mother was doing this, "what about MY feelings," and I couldn't take it. She lapsed into the "don't you love me?" guilt trip (a classic of hers when she didn't get her way with me), and like a lightning bolt through my head, fueled with anger, despair, and the quest for some witty saying reminiscent of an after school special, I said the following line: "I can never love you, until you love yourself." I can never love you, until you love yourself. I play that line over and over in my head, because it was literally the last thing I said to my mother. I stormed into my room and locked the door. I heard my mother crying, wailing, and carrying on, although she didn't actually speak words, and she didn't seem to be directing them at me. We had argued like this before, but I felt a bit smug that I trapped her in such a true statement. She had no self-respect, I thought, and so hopes others will love her when in fact, they pity her. I she didn't continue the argument, and I went to bed. I got up the next morning, and got ready to go to Kate's house for a D&D game. It was a cold January Saturday morning. Just before I left, I went to tell my mother, if she was still lucid, to tell her where I was going because I felt that if I did this, she wouldn't call Kate's house asking if I was there (which she'd do, because when she was at this level of drunk, she was totally loony, and could call random people to say she was not drunk). I saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, very still. This was not unusual. Sometimes she passed out sitting on the toilet, so I thought the least I could do was to push her back so she was lying on the bed. When I did so, her body felt oddly stiff and cold, and when she fell back, her face was a deep purple, and a death rattle came from her lungs. I called 911, and the circus began. Parts of this start to fragment as the shock spread through my system like a slow poison, so I am sorry if this seems distant and disjointed. I called 911, and the very nice operator asked me questions, and said yes, she's probably dead, I am sorry, sweetie. The ambulance came in like 5 minutes. They established she was dead within a few more minutes, but they seemed weird about the whole thing, like something was amiss. I called Kate. I was trying not to flip out. She said she'd be right over. The paramedics called the police, and then the neighbors all started to show up. Later, I found out some of them thought a murder took place, because my father was "that way." I swear, some neighbors just started walking in the doors like it was a museum, so the police started to cordon off the area like a crime scene. First, a policeman started to ask me questions. Then, the detectives started to ask me essentially the same questions, which was pissing me off. Then the Sergeant started asking me the same questions, and I recall he was very annoyed and called more police to keep people out of my house. There were several questions they asked over and over again: - Were you aware you mother had several prescriptions to tranquilizers from several different doctors? Found by her body were two empty bottles of tranqs, 60 count in total, that were filled just a few days ago, according to the label. A glass was next to her with strong alcohol residue. I didn't want to face the truth, so I kept saying she was fine the night before, when I knew this wasn't true. The police knew it too, because I am a very poor liar. In between interrogations, I felt I had to call relatives. The first was my maternal grandmother to tell her that she survived her only daughter. I recall her denial of "No no no this is a mean joke, this isn't true, you are lying!" She started to cry and hung up on me. I called her back, and she yelled at me for a while. First it was "you are making this up," and then a sort of acceptance that "she should have seen this coming," and then she fainted (or at least dropped the phone off the hook and wouldn't talk anymore - we spoke again later, so she was okay). Then I recall calling my Uncle Charles, whom I was officially "not allowed to know exists." I had to introduce myself, and he said, "Yeah, I know you you are! Wow, what are you, 18 now?" I had to tell him the bad news. I recall this exact phrase he said, "Oh wow. [off hook] Hey, Angie! [his wife] Guess who died! [back on hook] No kiddin'!" He said it like he was announcing some newfound discovery like I said I had won the Nobel Prize or something. Aunt Angela got on the phone, and was more appropriately subdued and sympathetic. Uncle Charles, if you are reading this, don't take this badly; everyone reacts to things their own way. I have never taken your comment as a personal snub on anyone, and I still smirk at remembering, "Hey Angie, guess who died?" That is so you :). What a weird way to be introduced to your aunt and uncle, though, at 18. After making some of the most difficult calls of my life, the Sergeant sat me down and said, "We have been asking neighbors about your situation, and we have pulled some county records on you, and given your family situation, we're going to ask that you NOT be home when your father shows up. For your safety, is there a relative's house you can stay at?" I wanted to stay home, but the Sergeant was so insistent, that if I didn't find a place to stay, I'd have to spend it in jail. So I stayed at Kate's house. The Sergeant left his card to me, and I left a note on one of the more prominent the kitchen cabinets so he could see it when he got home. I don't recall what I wrote, but it was something like, "Please call me at this number, and call the Sergeant at this card." I think later, at Kate's house, I finally started to cry for a while. Kate's Pekingese were very comforting, but I think Kate's family was totally wigged out about the whole thing. I didn't know what to do. I mourned less about my mother and more about my survival. Where would I go now? Would I get to finish high school? And part of me felt unfair that my mother committed suicide, when that was supposed to be me! That was MY method of control. Then I felt guilty that somehow my suicidal tendencies had "rubbed off" on her, and I was somehow responsible for her death. And I dreaded facing my father. Would he kill me? How would he kill me? I assumed he'd beat me to death, because he never used weapons or tools like a belt or anything. I was terrified, and going to to a free-falling fear spiral. Then, Sunday night, Kate's father came down to Kate's room (she lived in a finished room in the basement), where we were watching TV in silence. "Grig's dad's on the phone. Grig, you don't have to talk to him if you don't want to, he doesn't sound like he's in a good mood." But I said I would because how long could I delay it? He'd only get madder. And it was his wife, after all. I picked up the old black rotary phone in the laundry room, right on top of the washer and dryer, next to 500 canned goods that Kate's parents collected like for a bomb shelter of something. This was roughly how the conversation went: Grig: Hello? Deep inside of me, there was a complete systems failure overload about to happen. I roughly recall going back to Kate's room, and then when I came to, her parents were over me, rousing me to wake up. I had apparently fainted, but I don't know how I ended up in Kate's bed. I told them what had happened. They said my father had called and was a lot calmer. They weren't sure if he finally believed me or it was a ruse. Apparently Kate had told them my father was so loud, she could hear him over the phone from her room, so they thought it best not to allow him to speak to me.
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