My mother, Grace
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My brother's wife, Merriam; my mother missing; Merriam's son, John Jr. - c. 1942.
The photo albums that I lost in the 1970s contained many like the one above. My mother, Grace, removed any picture of herself that she did not like, leaving just a hole where she had been.
Family snapshots & formal portraits tend to reveal only socially acceptable aspects of selves. This does not imply that therefore such images are lies. Everyone except the severely mentally disabled is necessarily from childhood onward engaged in acquiring & projecting a persona that is in large degree controlled & maintained so that some share of social rewards are made obtainable. This projected identity is usually as real as any other, & just as honest, but it is never one's whole story.
My mother did not acquire or manage to shape a socially successful image. In almost all encounters with strangers, she began by asking the full date of their birth, & then used the answer to render an unflattering horoscope, intermingled with self-important but wrongheaded statements such as, "We have all of the original copies of Shakespeare's works in our home," topped off with a confusing mixture of quickly changing facial expressions indicating shyness, arrogance & apprehension, & if the stranger was an attractive male more than a little come-hither-with-me seduction.
In the 1920s my mother, Grace, became anemic, which became pernicious anemia, a serious, nerve damaging & exhausting condition for which no effective treatment existed at the time, other than eating liver & other iron rich foods, which perhaps helped her a little. The condition's cause was unknown, but months & years of living on soda crackers & mere nibbles of other foods when with Patrick, her husband & my father, probably contributed. My father ate well enough in restaurants, while at home my mother divided a single egg between me & my brother, eating none of it herself.
At some point in the '20s Grace became addicted to paregoric, a camphorated tincture of opium then available over the counter in any drug store for use, among other things, as an analgesic. I assume she began taking it to obtain some relief from unbearable joint & muscle pain that anemics experience when moving about or performing everyday chores. Unfortunately, although paregoric is a mild narcotic which most people tolerate well, Grace did not. During the 20 or more years she used the drug heavily, she was constipated, dizzy & frequently got tremors between doses. To control constipation she drank at least one 10 oz. bottle of mineral oil every day.
When she missed a dose & developed tremors so severe that she could not pour it into a tablespoon, I administered it to her. Just when the addiction began is unknown to me, but probably in the 1920s. Around 1943 her father, DM, offered her $10,000 to stop (equal to over $124,000 today). Somehow, she did stop, but continued drinking mineral oil a bottle at a time for many years.
However, all of those things aside, my mother adored children & showered them with care & affection, much of which was playful because she was herself a child.
We are all most comfortable with those who do not judge us, & she seldom experienced such comfort with any adult. I'll say something about my father, Patrick, elsewhere, but at times Grace surely felt freed of judgment when with him. Her mother & father looked down on him, & after she married him came quickly to hate him. DM, her father, saw & spoke with Patrick only once. Patrick rang the bell at the door of the great house to announce intent to wed Grace. The butler informed DM who was at the door, & DM came downstairs, entered the vestibule where my father was waiting, & said, before turning away forever & going back upstairs, "You are an Irishman, a Catholic, & you do not own a dime."
I do not think DM was wrong. Bigoted against the Irish, no doubt (as then was almost every American not Irish), but correct in his assessment that the marriage would not be one made in heaven. Nor do I believe that all could have been made better had DM supported the marriage with his considerable wealth. Still, DM might have tried. The thing is, I do not know all that passed between DM, his wife, Mary, & Patrick. I do know that my father pawned all of Grace's jewelry without asking (& never retrieved it), accosted Mary in the street calling her vile names, that he & 3 of his companions broke into the house & did damage, & that he permanently affected Robert's eyesight (my mother's elder brother) by pouring a gallon of lead based paint over his head (something Robert may have deserved, I should add).
Grace & Patrick married & divorced three times.
My mother, Grace
View large
My brother's wife, Merriam; my mother missing; Merriam's son, John Jr. - c. 1942.
The photo albums that I lost in the 1970s contained many like the one above. My mother, Grace, removed any picture of herself that she did not like, leaving just a hole where she had been.
Family snapshots & formal portraits tend to reveal only socially acceptable aspects of selves. This does not imply that therefore such images are lies. Everyone except the severely mentally disabled is necessarily from childhood onward engaged in acquiring & projecting a persona that is in large degree controlled & maintained so that some share of social rewards are made obtainable. This projected identity is usually as real as any other, & just as honest, but it is never one's whole story.
My mother did not acquire or manage to shape a socially successful image. In almost all encounters with strangers, she began by asking the full date of their birth, & then used the answer to render an unflattering horoscope, intermingled with self-important but wrongheaded statements such as, "We have all of the original copies of Shakespeare's works in our home," topped off with a confusing mixture of quickly changing facial expressions indicating shyness, arrogance & apprehension, & if the stranger was an attractive male more than a little come-hither-with-me seduction.
In the 1920s my mother, Grace, became anemic, which became pernicious anemia, a serious, nerve damaging & exhausting condition for which no effective treatment existed at the time, other than eating liver & other iron rich foods, which perhaps helped her a little. The condition's cause was unknown, but months & years of living on soda crackers & mere nibbles of other foods when with Patrick, her husband & my father, probably contributed. My father ate well enough in restaurants, while at home my mother divided a single egg between me & my brother, eating none of it herself.
At some point in the '20s Grace became addicted to paregoric, a camphorated tincture of opium then available over the counter in any drug store for use, among other things, as an analgesic. I assume she began taking it to obtain some relief from unbearable joint & muscle pain that anemics experience when moving about or performing everyday chores. Unfortunately, although paregoric is a mild narcotic which most people tolerate well, Grace did not. During the 20 or more years she used the drug heavily, she was constipated, dizzy & frequently got tremors between doses. To control constipation she drank at least one 10 oz. bottle of mineral oil every day.
When she missed a dose & developed tremors so severe that she could not pour it into a tablespoon, I administered it to her. Just when the addiction began is unknown to me, but probably in the 1920s. Around 1943 her father, DM, offered her $10,000 to stop (equal to over $124,000 today). Somehow, she did stop, but continued drinking mineral oil a bottle at a time for many years.
However, all of those things aside, my mother adored children & showered them with care & affection, much of which was playful because she was herself a child.
We are all most comfortable with those who do not judge us, & she seldom experienced such comfort with any adult. I'll say something about my father, Patrick, elsewhere, but at times Grace surely felt freed of judgment when with him. Her mother & father looked down on him, & after she married him came quickly to hate him. DM, her father, saw & spoke with Patrick only once. Patrick rang the bell at the door of the great house to announce intent to wed Grace. The butler informed DM who was at the door, & DM came downstairs, entered the vestibule where my father was waiting, & said, before turning away forever & going back upstairs, "You are an Irishman, a Catholic, & you do not own a dime."
I do not think DM was wrong. Bigoted against the Irish, no doubt (as then was almost every American not Irish), but correct in his assessment that the marriage would not be one made in heaven. Nor do I believe that all could have been made better had DM supported the marriage with his considerable wealth. Still, DM might have tried. The thing is, I do not know all that passed between DM, his wife, Mary, & Patrick. I do know that my father pawned all of Grace's jewelry without asking (& never retrieved it), accosted Mary in the street calling her vile names, that he & 3 of his companions broke into the house & did damage, & that he permanently affected Robert's eyesight (my mother's elder brother) by pouring a gallon of lead based paint over his head (something Robert may have deserved, I should add).
Grace & Patrick married & divorced three times.