Thanksgiving 2004

The event was at the Sports Coronation when I was six. Mrs. Pickins chose me to represent our class. Surrounded by family members, I wore a sparkly light pink ball gown with a matching shawl. There have been very few times in my life when I have felt beautiful, and this event was one of them. I took this childhood memory and framed it.

When my mother came over last Wednesday, she noticed the picture. She picked it up and immediately said: Oh, this is when my son was a little boy! She held it closer, kissed him, expressed comments of her great love for him and then she hugged the picture and kissed him again. 

My brother is and will forever be the favorite, a fact that I have had to accept since childhood. In December, he will be 50 years old, but mother continues to center her whole life around him. My brother has never married and he never went to college. He does yardwork and trims trees for a living. Mother wants him to quit working so that she can support him and take care of him. I love my brother and I want to see my mother and my brother getting along, but I do hope that I never turn into my mother.

My mother is very focused on the events of my brother's life, no matter how great or how small, but for some reason, the things that have happened to me have not and will probably never register in her brain, another fact that I have learned to accept... My mother knows that I was raped when I was five years old. My mother saw the results of my car accident in 1980. Instead of taking a picture of the horrible affect on my face and my body, my mother took a picture of the half-car that was left as a result of my accident. My mother knows I fell last year and she is aware of the injuries that resulted from the fall. But in her brain, nothing bad has ever happened to me and I should be as healthy and as strong as she is. She is ever so eager to boast about herself, about how hard she works in her yard until she sweats, about how she can go for three days without food. My mother is ever so quick to criticize how fat I am, boasting that at her age, she is able to lose weight so easily and I should be able to do so as well. Today, I commented to her that I hope that she realizes how much God has blessed her, to keep her healthy, and to keep her from experiencing any kind of bodily injury, and that I hope that she will never have to experience that kind of pain. She was quiet for a minute, but then, she quickly changed the subject.

Being with my worst critic for five days bought back so many memories of the role my mother played in my life. Although my mother wasnt in my life very much, her criticism was. The great religious woman she wants the world to see and the mother that I have known are two completly different personalities. Sometimes, I wonder how I ever survived my childhood. I can still remember sitting on the roof as if it were yesterday... crying and asking God to take my life at the age of six. It brought back memories of my teenage years and of how anxious I was to finish school so I could leave home. She continues to see me as rebellious, because I do not play the martyr, because I enjoy having a pretty home, no matter how humble. She wants me to be forever single, and God forbid my ever giving my "virginity" to anyone, for a woman of "my age" is not supposed to have any kind of sexual desires. 

These past few days have made me realize how much criticism I have had to survive in my lifetime. It is no wonder that my mother's words continued to present themselves in my own self-criticism when she wasnt a part of my life. Sometimes, I want to block her out of my life completely. Sometimes, I wonder if she was like that when my father was alive. And yet, no matter how sharp the blades of her criticism cut into my soul, I accept that she is my mother and I continue to choose to forgive her. Sometimes, I rationalize that she tries to cut deeper and deeper, because she realizes that I have proved to her that I dont need her to survive. 

The good part of this vacation is that I was able to spend some time with my children and my grandchildren. My oldest grandaughter wasnt feeling well. She seemed quiet. The youngest was also congested, but she seems like a very happy baby. She was all smiles and was delightful to play with.

The greatest lesson that some people never learn is how nice it is to just enjoy being in each other's company without having to go anywhere or do anything special. I give thanks to God for the many blessings in my children's lives, and I pray the Lord will continue to bless them, always.

As for my diet, I dont plan to weigh myself until tomorrow. Saturday, I ate way too much and today I had liver and onions, rice palif, and squash veggies. I hope I didnt do too bad.