Saved By Grace

I didn't know how to love my mother until she died. I’d gotten the call on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The home nurse said she’d found my number in my mother’s list of people to call when she passed. I thanked her for calling.

“You’re welcome, Miss Grace. I’m very sorry about your mother,” she said before I disconnected the call. Then I went back to watching Schitt’s Creek. Not heartless, just giving myself a few spare minutes before I was forced to examine any emotions. The last time I’d seen her was when I posted her bail for her fifth DUI.

My mother and I hadn’t spoken for nearly twelve years, estranged because of the vodka fueled tirades and incessant toxicity. See, it’s not easy to love someone who doesn’t love you, who doesn’t love themselves, who doesn’t even love life. Who fights you at every turn about everything in the world just to know she got to you. Everything about her was a sinking ship of destruction and lies and unhinged mania, and I couldn’t go sinking to the bottom with her anymore.

All the moments of joy in my childhood were measured against the absences of my mother – a timeline punctuated with bruises, slurred expletives, and vodka spittle. But her absence, whether intentional or involuntary, always brought a silent reprieve. In most cases, she was passed out in the bathtub or on the kitchen floor, smelling of urine and whatever douchebag she’d gone home with the night before.

I'd like to say I was sad when I got the call that she'd finally passed, but I'd been expecting it for years. There were times I’d even hoped for it. After all, her favorite thing to tell me is how much she never wanted me, how she wished she would’ve gotten the abortion. Sometimes, I wish she had.

Now I sit here in her living room, sorting through memories and keepsakes and all the things she accumulated over the years. Everything is in three piles: sell, donate, trash. I haven’t found anything I want to keep.

The truth is, I came here wanting to remove all traces of her from my life. I wanted to make sure my memories were as gone as she was. But I’m drowning now, because she’s scattered everywhere around me, even when she’s nowhere.

In the back of her bedroom closet, I come across a box. It’s wrapped in brown paper and tied with a thin, yellow ribbon that was white at some point. In slanted cursive are the words By Grace. It made no sense. It’s not by me, I didn’t write that. She must’ve meant For Grace, but she was probably drunk when she wrote it.

I climb onto her bed, the box in my lap. Pondering if I’m ready to open it, to be Pandora and unleash whatever radical truth and chaos that’s trapped inside. Whatever it is — this message, this memento of her past — it’s just a tornado waiting to spin me in circles and destroy me. And I don’t want it. I simply want her absence to be absolute. The alternative is too much.

My fingers hover over the ribbon, twitching. With a deep breath, I pull it open, the brown paper ripping right through the word Grace.

Inside are a ton of photos, small bunches wrapped in more twine. There are little notes on most of the bundles: Kindergarten, Art Museum, Dance Recital. These are pictures of me and things from my childhood. She’s in some of the photos, but most of them it seems she was the one holding the camera. I’m young, too young to probably realize the monster she would become. I pull the photos out and set them aside.

Deeper in the box are letters, notes, drawings I made, and pictures of people I don't recognize. Some of the letters are to me from her, some are from her to someone else, and others I don’t recognize either way. At the bottom of the box, I find a journal.

There are many things I don't know about my mother. I don't know what her favorite color was. I don't know if she loved or hated the smell of gasoline. I don't know what made her truly laugh. I don't know where she grew up, or where she met my father, or even who he was. What I do know is that she lied, to me, to other people, to herself. I know that she never stopped drinking, no matter how many times I begged her, no matter how many times she wrecked her car, hurt herself, or got arrested. I am sure there was a time when she didn’t drink so much, or when it didn’t cripple her logic and turn her into a raging monster, but I don’t remember those times.

And now I have a journal, a pathway into her past. Her own penmanship, sloppy and haunting, reaching its hand out to drag me down into the cesspool of her thoughts.

I start to read.

“Dear baby,

You don’t know me yet, but I’m your mother. I just found out I’m having you, and I’m scared to death. See, you weren’t conceived out of love or even like. You aren’t even a mistake. You’re a scar. A reminder of the most awful thing that’s ever happened to me. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive you. So if I don’t, please forgive me.”

“Dear baby,

I went to a clinic to get the viability sonogram today. The nurses said it’s required before I make a final decision. They gave me a little picture. You look a lima bean. I don’t know if I can love a lima bean. I don’t know if I can even love myself anymore. He stole me. He stole my identity and my truth and my faith. He swallowed it whole and I can’t tell a single soul.”

I take a long, shuddering breath, trying to grasp what I’m reading. A memory plays at the edge of my mind. We’d been at a water park for my fifth birthday, one of the rare occasions where she remembered I existed and decided to be a parent for a bit. I was still young and naïve enough to think she’d change at some point. We’d just gotten off a water ride, and she was pulling my arm, rushing me to the next ride. Someone called out to her.

“Donna Jean? Is that you?” some strange woman called. My mother stopped for two seconds, then started tugging my hand harder. We ducked into a souvenir shop, but it didn’t matter. The woman had followed us.

“Donna Jean, oh my goodness. It is you. Honey, where have you been? I can’t believe you just left and never said a word. It’s so cruel what you’ve done. Everyone’s been worried about you all these years. Especially Lionel. You know how much your uncle loves you. You owe him an apology. He’s been heartbroken.” The woman stood in front of us, blocking our way. Her face was leathery and she smelled like cigarettes.

“And my goodness, DJ. Who is this sweetpea? Is she yours, honey? Oh, she’s darling!” The woman crouched down in front of me and tugged on my ponytail. Mama was usually aggressive, but I stood there bewildered while she was shrinking in place in the corner of that shop.

“I’m your great Aunt Delilah, but you can call me Auntie DeeDee.” She pulled me to her, forcing my mother to let go of my hand. I didn’t like it and started screaming. She let me go immediately.

My mother never said a word. Her eyes were wide, like when she watched a scary movie. Eventually the woman gave up and called Mama a few mean names before leaving us in the store.

For years, I’d craved a mother whose touch didn’t inflict injury and whose words didn’t instill sorrow or fear. It became easier over time to accept that the magic that funds the love between mother and child never blossomed between us. But now I don’t know. Because maybe I wasn’t the victim. She was. I was just a byproduct of her trauma.

I open the journal back up and read more.

“Dear baby,

Tomorrow is the day I’m supposed to have the procedure. I can’t bring myself to call it what it really is, not even here. I feel so guilty, like you’re judging me. But I can’t give you anything because it was all taken from me. I’m hollow. Even with you growing inside, I’m so fucking empty.”

“Dear Grace,

That’s your name. I wasn’t going to give you one. I really was going to go through with it. But I sat in that Pepto Bismol colored waiting room and I couldn’t breathe. The nurses found me sobbing on the floor. The air was so thick with my sorrow and my sins that it choked me. But the nurse said that it is by grace that we are saved through faith. So that’s what I’m naming you. Grace. By Grace, I will be saved through faith. I don’t much believe in that, but I really want to. I hope you save me.”

I skip over some of the entries, looking for the last one she wrote. It’s dated five weeks ago.

“Dear Grace,

I’m probably gone now, and maybe you’re reading this. If you are, I need you to know that I did love you. With all my heart. I didn’t want to. I wanted to hate you. You were a painful gift I never wanted. But in trying to hate you, I just hated myself more. And I made you hate me. I’m sorry I couldn’t find my way out of the bottle before. But it was the only place where the noise stopped and the grief and repulsion was drowned out by the numbness. But I did get sober. I have been for the last three years. I even went to therapy. I talked about my childhood and my past. And I wish I could have told you some of it, but if you read this, maybe you already know. What happened to me was done by someone I trusted. Someone I loved. I won’t say a name, because he doesn’t deserve that power. Instead, I want to give power to you. My girl, you are grace. My grace. You did save me. It might have taken a long time, and maybe it was too late, especially for us. But by Grace, I was saved through faith. If you ever remember anything good about me, remember that. Remember that you saved me.”

That’s why she’d written that on the box. This was her way of telling me all the ways I'd saved her. And all the ways I never could.

By the time I look up, it’s dark outside. I’m exhausted and hungry. Tears and snot have dried on my face. And something heavy sits in my stomach. An emotion I can’t name. I don’t know what to do with what I’ve read. I don’t know how to process any of it. And there’s still more. But I don’t need to read it all tonight.

Instead, I curl up in her bed and lay my head on her pillow, breathing her in. And love her in the silent aftermath.