Dear Fellow Alanoner Friends,

    Please know that am grateful to all who responded about the recent untimely death of my mother.  

   I think most of you would have liked my Mom.  She never went into recovery but in many ways she was a natural alanoner.  She wanted my father to stop drinking, but he wouldn't.  Her bottom line was that he couldn't drink at our house.  I think we were spared much, more ugliness than occurred by this rule of hers.  I know that most of my siblings scattered everytime my father arrived home.  The signal was either seeing his car headlights reflected in the house at night, or hearing the car turn off or the car door slam.  My father was still fairly controlled in his drunkenness but his behavior and what he said was different than when he was sober and it was frightening to us as children and  even as teenagers. 

  I think I was different with respect to my siblings on this situation.  I was a "good girl" a hero child.   I got A's in school, was too afraid to get in any trouble, so by default was well behaved.  When I was in high school, the French club went to Canada.  I was dying to go with my friends--now I realize more than anything it was to fit in, not because I had a burning desire to see French culture up close.  To my surprise, my father gave me the money.  I was quite confused by this because the ongoing drama trauma in our house was that we had no money.  I didn't have a proper bed or clothes, or furniture and our family didnt have a car.  I didn't question it at the time, I was just glad  to be able to to with my 3 friends who were going also.  I didn't have much fun, I think I had a lot of guilt about this "gift" from my father.  I had to worry because I didn't have decent clothes or even underwear for the trip.  I never said anything about the trip to my mother and she never said anything to me.  On some levels, I thought maybe she too thought I deserved the trip, for being a good student or something.

  I never got the message from either of my parents that I was a good person or daughter.  I realize now that they both loved me but their upbringings and subsequent lives put them in the strict "spare the rod and spoil the child," mode of parenthood.  I think too they believed in correcting children but not praising them.  I think like many of their day they worried about any of us having too much self-esteem.  They didn't realize that we like them could have too little self regard.

    Since early in my life, many people had always told me how beautiful my mother was in her youth. .  She had 5 children in six years.  By the time my mother had her last child, my youngest brother, she looked more like the mother of the woman in her beautiful bridal picture.  When I think back now though,  I realize at age 40 when she had my last brother, she still regarded herself and beautiful and strong and conducted herself that way.   She kept quiet about her fears and sorrows. 

   I was around 8 when my youngest brother was born.  We were in a new home and a new town because of my father's job.  My father's drinking problem started or at least got much worse and between his job and his drinking he was hardly ever home.  That was mostly okay with us kids as when he was home, my parents were at war.  We were lucky enough to live in a town that gave free swimming and tennis lessons, and had playgrounds with tons of arts and crafts and other games and cooking lessons.  These playground instructors were all young teachers and they were very good to me and my siblings. 

At school, I was a favorite of many of my teachers-I was quiet and studious and never caused any problems.  I also had a bad foot and I think this probably generated sympathy.  I know we went to school dirty and unkempt many days.  To my knowledge neither I or any of my siblings were mistreated by teachers because of this.  My parents sent us to school and church on Sundays.  Our living conditions were bleak.  Even at 8, I knew enough not to bring friends home, as did my siblings.  We always went to our friend's homes.  Sometimes I stopped seeing friends completely if I felt like the issue of reciprocating was going to come up.

    I knew every day my mother was worried about what she was going to do about my father's drinking.  I know she probably worried he might lose  his job.  She didn't make any friends and almost never called her friends from her hometown.  Long-distance costs were prohibitive then.  Besides she also believed marriage was until death and I think most of her friends and family also subscribed to the "making one's bed and now having to lie in it." theory.

As the saying goes, nothing changes if nothing changes.  I think however the exception here of course is that in alcoholic families, things do just keep getting worse.  We moved back to our hometown, but my parents and us kids did not see extended family anyway.  It was never said but the rule was that no outsiders were allowed in our house.  Any relatives that did stop by got shuffled off quickly--and they got the message:  they didn't come back.  Us kids put tons of energy into keeping any of our friends away from the house.  We ran the gamut from my one brother who we never saw because he was out from dawn until well past bedtime to me who barely left the house and often cancelled plans to go out after I made them.   We did see relatives once a year or so at a funeral or a wedding, or if we ran into one in the real world.  Those times were very awkward. 

    I don't know what the extended family thought about us except a few cousins remarked to me at various times about how smart we all were since we all went to college.   I suppose maybe they thought we were just a bunch of  very private bookworm shut-ins.

As far as I know my parents never confided in each other or anyone else.  My father kept drinking and my mother developed severe depression and psychosis.  They were pretty much as distant from their children as everyone else.  My mother never gossiped and very rarely spoke ill of anyone.  She did not suffer fools gladly--and she considered almost everyone a fool.  She never tried to get sympathy or support from anyone for herself or her situation.    Nor did she offer sympathy or support to anyone else--including her children. I see that now as pretty "normal" based on her being orphaned during the Depression and having to fend for herself. Then, it didn't make sense and was hurtful to me and my siblings as children. 

 Quite sometime ago I came to that place of understanding that my father with his disease and my mother with her problems, did the best they could.  When my mother was diagnosed with cancer I was prepared to let her make whatever choices she needed to make.  Her choices were taken from her.  I was unable to stop it.  I will be a long time getting over it. 

At my mom's funeral, I gave a eulogy.  I won't bore you any more with all the details.  But the last thing I said was that like the boxer said, "somebody up there loves you," Mom; I then said "I hope you know somebody down here does too."

Thanks for bearing with me and caring.

Athena