Chapter 13: I don't want to be a daughter

It was a warm June morning. The moving van was loaded and it was time for the last hugs and kisses and final good byes. Mom was on her way to starting a new life across country. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help but think that one day we would be helping her to return and it wouldn’t be the first time for bailing her out.
My sisters, both in their early twenties and quite close to my mother, tenderly hugged mother as though they would never see her again. Their eyes were red and filled with tears.
With a bit of frustration in his voice my brother Chris stood next to me and said “Don’t you care? You don’t even care!”
Unlike my siblings I didn’t feel the deep rooted love a child has for a mother. I hugged her and wished her good luck but didn’t shed a tear; a lump didn’t fill my throat.
The van drove down the road.
Later that week my brother called and asked me “Why is that you cry at the drop of a hat but when it comes to mom leaving you didn’t even shed a tear.”
I told him that I just don’t have the same relationship to mom as they did. I don’t have the love and affection, and perhaps I’ve just grown cold over the years and by the way I had been treated.
He said “Yeah Ang, but you need to let it go.”
Am I resentful? Perhaps. What is it that bugs me so much? Could it be that during my teen years I was responsible for much of what my mother should have been? Did I realize her mistakes even in my youth?
I was 39 years old that day she left, and I can not understand why I am so angry with her.
My mother, in all her naivety, got knocked up (16), went to school for a short time, re-married (28) and divorced again at a young age (37). Her second husband, was abusive, morally bankrupt, and no more than a blemish for a father figure. She did what she could as a mother between 1966 through 1984.
She and Joe, her second husband, believed in purchasing an old home move in and remodel them. Although Joe had a good job with Mountain Bell, he would find every avenue to make money. Swap meets, flea markets, were his idea of a good time. At one point he had a bicycle shop where he and my mother would repair bikes to make a little money. As a family, on the weekend, we would often go into the mountains to cut truck loads of wood to sell. In the summer, my brother and I sold tomatoes on a corner of main street. All of these negative memories of Joe, the only positive thing is he taught us, by way of anger and abuse, was to work hard.
My mother worked most of the time I was growing up. At the bicycle shop and then a job a Zim’s craft store. Household duties and evening meals were my responsibility. The house had to be cleaned and dinner cooked by the time she and Joe came home from work.
Mom would leave meat on the counter to thaw , so that I could cook it for dinner. At age 10, I was given instructions how to cook over the phone. I learned how to cook meatloaf, grill pork chops, make homemade spaghetti sauce, Italian stew, stroganoff, and many other dinner meals. By the age of 11, I had learned not to over cooked pasta, not to scalded myself and not to burn garlic bread. Seems like a big responsibility for a 11 year old.
When I was 12, they had a new baby girl. By age 14, they had second baby girl, and I had even more responsibility. Joe began bar hopping. Intrigued by the go-go dancers, wet t-shirt contests, experimented with drugs, and became part of the smut of the scene at the time. Mom, the submissive wife would follow. I babysat the girls after school, late nights, on weekends and always during the summer months, sometimes from sun up til sun down.
I practically raised my two little sisters. I could wash, sterilize and fix bottles. I fed, bathed and diapered them. During the summer we would walk a half a mile to the park, to play. Jenny my youngest sister cried often. My friend Sara would complain “is that all she does is cry?” Jenny was always hungry and generally an unhappy baby.
Responsibility of “chores” is one thing for an adolescent, it is yet another to bear the responsibilities of raising siblings, running a household and being neglected emotionally.
Perhaps, I don’t want to be a daughter.