…A DAUGHTER LIKE YOU
October 2003
Woodmere Cemetery
Detroit, Michigan
We stood at the foot of our grandfather’s grave. Tim held the bag that contained our mother’s ashes. Although it was mid-October, the day was unusually cold and blustery for a Michigan fall day. Dark, steel gray clouds moved swiftly across the sky, threatening rain. Temperatures hovered in the lower 40s. The wind picked up the newly fallen leaves and swirled them across the graves. It blew through the collars of our coats and swept our hair into our eyes.
Tim and his wife Beth, stood shivering in the cold, both having arrived from warm Arizona temperatures just the day before. They hadn’t expected the cold and bone-chilling dampness. My sister Sharon and I certainly hadn’t expected to be standing in Woodmere Cemetery, with our hands deep in our pockets, shivering next to them.
Missing from this gathering was our brother Donn, with whom Tim was estranged, and our sister Cathy, who was estranged from us all. They both resided in Arizona.
Tim’s unexpected phone call to Sharon, our oldest sibling, earlier that morning was brief and to the point. “Beth and I are here to scatter Mom’s ashes. If you want to be a part of the ceremony, we’ll be at Woodmere Cemetery today at 11:00 am, at Grandpa Toth’s gravesite. Check with the administration office if you need help finding his grave. Oh, and you can call Sandy to let her know too.” And with that he ended the phone call.
Marge. I didn’t think of her as my mother. Only my family and my closest friends understood why. Years ago, I had wished that at some point in my life, she and I could’ve managed to attain some sort of a relationship as adults but that book has now been closed forever, and that was okay with me. What little hope I’d had for a relationship to materialize, vanished when I learned of her betrayal. Her duplicity. Her perversion of facts. Having a relationship with her had been a pipedream, a childish fantasy. I’d learned that from years of therapy.
I was at work when Sharon called me with the news of Tim and Beth being in town and the reason they were here. I was as surprised as she was, but truth be told, there wasn’t a single second I considered not going. Two reasons:
1. Tim reached out to us.
2. Marge would not have wanted me there.
As soon as I got off the phone with Sharon, I quickly called my husband Tom, and asked him to meet me at the cemetery. Afterwards, I walked into my boss’s office and told him that I needed to take time off for personal business for the rest of the day. I’m glad he didn’t press for details. How could I possibly explain family dynamics such as mine in a few short sentences?
After we found Tim and Beth at Grandpa Toth’s gravesite, Tim told me and Sharon that one of Marge’s last dying wishes was that her ashes be buried with her father. She had instructed him to bury her ashes inside her father’s casket, but after talking to the folks in the Woodmere Administration Offices, he’d found it to be unaffordable so he opted to do the next best thing — sprinkle her ashes over her father’s gravesite. Her second wish was that Sharon, Donn and I not be told of her death nor be any part of her burial.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, Tim. We knew her just as well as you did and her never-ending need for revenge — to have the final F-you. It doesn’t really matter any longer though.” I looked up at him with a half-grin. “Besides, we’re here now. And she no longer has a say in anything we do.”
Sharon, Donn and I were not notified of Marge’s death in December 2002. We did, however, find out three months later from an unexpected source: my daughter. Who lived in California at the time. Her cousin Mia, who was Cathy’s daughter, let it slip during a phone conversation. And then Kelly called me. I in turn, called Sharon and Donn.
I supposed Tim had been the closest to Marge, being a boy and being the youngest of her five children. But I couldn’t imagine that his childhood had been any easier for him than it’d been for the rest of us. Her need for controlling our minds and freewill wouldn’t have stopped with her four older children. Neither would her cruelty.
Fourteen years separated me and Tim. I was twenty-four and already married when Marge packed up all of their belongings and moved to Arizona, taking Donn age seventeen, Cathy age sixteen, and Tim age ten with her. We hadn’t had many opportunities to get to know each other as adults.
I shivered as my thoughts returned to the present. As Tom and Tim worked to clear away the weeds and grass that nearly covered Grandpa Toth’s gravestone, I stood there studying Tim and thought how he must have struggled with the decision to include Sharon and me here today. Years of conditioning to obey without question isn’t easily dismissed nor abandoned.
I looked at Tim with fresh eyes and recognized a strength in him I was pleased to see. I remembered him as a fragile child – crying easily, and being very timid. He and I’d had very little contact throughout his childhood after Marge’s move to Arizona, mainly due to the distance that kept us apart and then, unfortunately, he got caught in the cross-wires of my estrangement from Marge. I saw him a few times during the years Cathy and I were close but family dynamics once again separated us. During the times he and I’d been together, he’d seemed so quiet and reserved. But I saw now, despite Marge’s once absolute control, he was his own person and the decisions he made were his alone.
Joining us at the gravesite was Marge’s long-time and loyal friend Goldie, and her husband Art. She nodded to Tim, but ignored the rest of us. At 78 she looked exactly like I remembered her; small in stature, still wearing the thick lensed, black framed glasses, except her gorgeous, thick wavy black hair, which reached just past her ears, had turned completely white. She held onto her husband’s arm and was crying softly into her hanky. I quickly looked away so she wouldn’t see me studying her.
After we arranged ourselves in a semi-circle around the gravesite, Tim opened the bag holding Marge’s ashes. As he let the wind catch the ashes to carry them across Grandpa’s grave, he said a prayer and then read a few scriptures. Dry-eyed, I stood watching Tim and only half listening. I glanced at Sharon and saw she had tears running down her cheeks. I felt neither sadness nor grief. I didn’t feel anything at all so I stared at the ground.
The emotional shutdown and numbness I’d always relied upon when in Marge’s presence I’d thought was safely in place. But despite my best efforts to remain detached, my mind began drifting back to memories of my childhood. In my mind’s eye, I saw Marge’s expression of rage – eyes narrowed and piercing right through me. Nostrils flared. Face red. Voice laced with venom. Her hateful words piercing my armor.
“You goddamned son-of-a-bitchin’ little bastard!”
“How goddammed stupid can you get?”
“Get out of my sight! I can’t bear to look at your disgusting face.”
“What in the world did I ever do that was so wrong to have…a daughter like you!”
I closed my eyes and waited for the weight of those hurtful words to bear down on me.
“Amen,” Tim’s deep voice rang loudly as he concluded his scripture readings. It broke through my thoughts and I opened my eyes. Tom’s hand grabbed mine and gave it a bit of a squeeze. I breathed in deeply and was grounded once again.
I smiled to myself. The mother who had terrified me my entire life, the mother with whom I had both loved and hated was really dead. The chance that I’d ever hear from her again ceased to exist. I was free of her – now and forever more. I glanced upwards and thanked God.
After the short ceremony, Tim turned to me and asked if there was a nearby restaurant where we could all meet for lunch. I was pleasantly surprised he wanted to continue a dialogue with Sharon and me. We’d spent most of our lives separated, both by age and by distance, but maybe now was the time to change all that.
I walked over to Sharon to let her know but before I could say a word, I saw Goldie approaching us. She held her scarf tight against her neck to ward off the cold wind. As she drew nearer, I saw tears rolling down her cheeks.
We both turned to her as she stopped to face us.
“You know, your mother loved you very much.” Shaking her head, she continued, “I’ll just never understand you though. Why didn’t you make more of an effort to keep in touch with her? The last time I talked to her…” Her voice broke and she stopped to wipe her tears. “The last time I talked to her, she was sobbing. She told me she just didn’t understand why her three oldest children would treat her so horribly and with such disrespect! She didn’t deserve that, you know. Especially after all she’d done for you.”
With piercing eyes, she looked directly at me, her voice hardened with hostility. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
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