mums

What is Mum to you?
Thursday, 22. March 2007, 08:54:55
Dear Mother:It's Thursday. It's raining hard. It's dreary outside. I woke up this morning with a sense of dread. You've been gone for 18 years. I last wrote to you 17 years ago. After we seperated, I wrote to you every day for a year, then I stopped. Today will be the day I write again.The beauty I find in a graphic designer is something I like about myself. It's the deeper part of who I am, and maybe this has something to do with you. I wasn't always like this. There is written proof in my diary, my 14-year-old mind was soaked with thoughts of teenage boys:Wednesday, April 29, 1997. I had so much fun at school. Tonight, A called again, and so did this guy named B. We talked for over an hour. He's an A+ doll. A's been mean lately. I don't know what's wrong, but I like him muchly.Friday, May 8, 1997. Tonight I had a party. There were 16 kids. It was really blasty except for the fact that C kept bothering us. One of the guys, is named D, and now I have a crush on him--he's so darling. I like A, too, but after 16 months I can't help my crushes on other guys.Reading my diary entries written, I see a picture of a self-absorbed adolescent. I read page after page hoping for some modicum of self-examination. Of course, back then, my somewhat steady boyfriend A would try to read my diary, and I do remember writing only good things in case he got his hands on it. Because I was so self-conscious that someone might find my unhappy thoughts, I occasionally wrote them on separate pieces of paper then clipped them to the diary. They were my removable truths. If A ever said, "If you love me, you'll let me read the diary," I could easily unclip these private entries.So I wonder now how much of my diary is what novelist Tim O'Brien calls "happening truth" (the indisputable reality of what happened) and how much of it is "story truth" (the personal colorized version of what happened)? Memories, with or without diaries, that supposedly record the past, are generally colorized versions of the past. That's something I've learned in spades through my work. But there I go, digressing, trying to busy myself with work matters.It's hardest for me to reread the diary entries written before you left.Nothing much happened today. Just usual stuff. Tonight my dad called and we were very happy. My mother and I had a long talk until midnight about her childhood and other things. I was really happy because we'd never been too close before, and now we were talking like we really were.And then the worst happened.Today, July 11, 1988, was the most tragic day of my life. My dearly beloved mother, whom I had just gotten to be really close with, left. Only God knows what happened. I know that life must go on and that we all must be brave. I try to tell myself that she is gone only physically and that her soul and her love remain with us. Now that she is gone, I realize how very much I love her and how hard it will be to carry on. I feel so empty inside, like I lost a big part of me. If my mother could hear me I would want her to know that she has all my love and always will.The day after you left, I began to write to you. I wrote to you every day. "Dear Mother" or "Dear Mom." Signed "Love, EeLeen" or "Lovingly, EeLeen." And sometimes "Love forever." I wrote to tell you that "you were, and still are, the kindest, most wonderful person who has ever lived."But the diary reveals that my teenage self-absorption returned. I'm embarrassed to read how few days had passed before this happened. A month had hardly gone by, and I'm telling you which boys called me that day. I even wrote to you about a New Year's Eve party I attended:December 31, 1997. Dear Mom--I was with E all night. We went to a party.. Some girl got drunk, passed out and barfed all over her date. Poor guy. At twelve, E kissed me, we were watching TV, and everyone threw streamers. It's sort of sad to leave this year behind, it was such a wonderful year for me. Goodbye, 1997! Love, EeLeen.Wonderful year? Who was I kidding? It was an awful year.From the diary, there were only a few signs of pain, of depth, and these are mostly in the removable notes. In one of them, stained by a rusted paper clip, I wrote:MY GREATEST REGRET: Many nights, such as tonight, September 23, 1997, I lie awake and think about my mother. Always, I start to cry, and my thoughts trace back to the days when she was there. She would be watching TV and ask me to come sit by her. "I'm busy now," was my usual reply. Other times, she would be in my room, and we would get in fights because she wouldn't leave. Oh, how I hate myself for that! With a little bit of kindness from her only daughter she might have been so much happier. Why wasn't I nicer to my mother, whom I loved and love more than anyone else in the world? Why wasn't I?Today, I still regret that I wasn't nicer to you, but it is not my greatest regret. It's just one of many. I see now that you left wasn't my fault. Intellectually, I do know that's true, although the 6-year-old EeLeen perhaps did not. I thought then that eventually I would get over that you left. I know today that I won't. But I've decided to accept that truth. What does it matter if I don't get over you? Who says I have to? David and Robert still tease me: "Don't say the M word or EeLeen will cry." So what if the word motheraffects me this way? Who says I have to fix this? Besides, I'm too busy.I went on to become a college student and major in graphic design, devoting my life to the study of design. I've discovered some difficult truths: namely that memory can be changed, inextricably altered, and that what we think we know, what we believe with all our hearts, is not necessarily the truth.But I am a workaholic. Why? Does it do for me what the seemingly endless collection of teenage boys did 18 years ago? Does it help me escape my painful thoughts? Does it help me feel an importance that is and was otherwise missing from my life?There is one entry in the diary, not long after you left, where the 7-year-old EeLeen wrote to you about something other than boys:Dear Mother, Dad has gotten on some "strict kick." He says I can't go out as much, darn near a flat "no beach parties," and "do some things with girls for a change." For heaven's sake, I'm looking for a husband (naturally, not quite yet) not a lesbian! Maybe I'm saying this in a moment of anger, but I feel like the one thing missing in my life is a family love and closeness. Will explain later. Lovingly, EeLeen.I never did explain later. The letters to you ended. But as I reread the past, and as I write this now, I see a connection between me then and me now. I'm learning something from her. Me then: Busy with boys, and I didn't have to think about what was missing in life. Me now: Busy with work, and I don't have to think much about what is missing in life. A family love and closeness, that's what I miss. That's what I miss about you.