Peek-A-Boo

I never meant to write stories about my childhood but lately things have been creeping in and I have no ability to release them any other way.

I wrote a story a few weeks ago about a memory of my mother playing solitaire. It is an odd memory in that for some reason it haunts me. I think about it every single time I play a game of Spider. Apparently it also triggered a memory for my only sibling, my sister.

Shortly after my story went online my sister and I had a conversation that included this little gem.

“A memory came to me yesterday. When I was six, I came home after the street lights came on. I remember the door was locked and the lights were off. I knocked, no answer. I pounded no answer, I yelled, I cried, and then they started peeking out at me. It seemed like they wanted me to know they knew I was out there but they weren't going to let me in. Grandma was there too.”

A vicious game of peek-a-boo. A way to teach a six year old that if she did not follow the rules there were consequences. Just a little terror inducing moment to make sure you remember to come home on time.

My mother was actually not a bad person at all, despite what these two little gems of stories make her sound like. What she was however, was an adult who was never shown love while she was growing up. She was truly a product of her environment. My grandmother was a strange woman, with strange ideas and always made it clear what a disappointment my mother was to her. I suspect it was also made clear to my mother from birth on.

I remember my grandmother telling me a “funny” story about when my mother was a baby, young enough to still be in a crib, she had a broken arm. The arm was in a cast and my mother the baby would hit the cast on things so in order to keep her quiet at meal time my grandmother would tie the broken arm to her high chair. Of course nap and bed time was just another time for this ornery baby to cause havoc so my grandmother explained that she always tied the broken arm to the slats of the crib so my mother could not bang it on the rails.

I was young when my grandmother told me this story but I still remember being horrified at what grandma thought was just a hoot of a story. Looking at it now I wonder what I would do if I had a small child in an arm cast? Maybe if I were worried they could hurt themselves with swinging the cast around I might have to immobize the arm. Perhaps with a modified sling wrapped close to the body. I could never imagine tying my child to a crib rail, just the thought of it now brings up protective feelings and my kids are in their thirties.

I was not really allowed to show emotion as a child. When I was upset I was told there no reason for me to be upset, when I was angry I was punished. When I was happy I was teased. I learned to hold everything very tightly in. I hope that one of the few benefits of that was that I very rarely showed anger to my children but I don’t think I ever had trouble showing them love. I hope they felt it.