She is marked across her body as a laborer. Several scars on her right hand, gleaned from picking cotton carelessly on her grandfather’s share. A raised black circular blemish over her left breast, the remainder of hot ash droppings from a cigarette in bed. Discolored calluses on her hands and feet, autographing her work as a laundress who walked everywhere she went and washed clothes by hand. And moles stamped around her extremities and face, a common signature for Black women her age. She is seventy. She is my mother. And she still works.
A strong work ethic is not uncommon in my family. (Although, when doled out, it seems to have skipped me.) My grandmother and great-grandparents were sharecroppers, where only Thanksgiving and Christmas were sacred. But even then, the women worked all day in the kitchen cooking and all night, the night before, cleaning the rest of the house. So, it really isn’t that surprising that my mother still works at seventy. Yet it isn’t my mother’s work history or markings that intrigue me. Rather, it is her pride—a marking in and of itself. Resplendent in its ability to motivate her friends. Voracious in its capacity to devour her enemies. As her only daughter, I often found myself in the latter category, floundering helplessly to become my mother’s friend.
It’s difficult to come to terms with the fact that I never bonded with my mother. My earliest memories of us together are steeped in battles. The dress that I liked that she didn’t want me to wear. The friends I loved that didn’t meet her expectations. The decisions I made that disappointed her. The fact that I was a constant physical reminder to her of my father. As far back as I can remember we were at war. Years and years of war.
I, too, am marked. Invisible but ever-present emotional scars are the property of my mother’s anger. I’ll never forget the first Christmas I bought my mother a gift. I was nine years old. One particularly cold winter afternoon, I stopped by the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a local African-inspired book, clothing and gift store in our hometown of Detroit, to look for the perfect gift. Besides being a hard worker, my mother was also an avid reader and a political activist, so I thought that a gift from the Shrine would be suitable. I scoured the bookshelves looking for something we didn’t have and she hadn’t read. Nothing struck my eye. I stopped by the jewelry case and the clothing rack, but everything was too expensive. Finally, my eyes settled on an exquisite wood sculpture of a Masai warrior. Surely she would be pleased, I thought. I think at the time it was less than ten dollars—just my price. I bought it, wrapped it in very pretty paper, attached a nametag, and put it under the tree.
That Christmas, I was more excited about my mother and brother opening their gifts that I had bought them than I was about opening my own. I was especially excited about mamma opening her gift because I wanted so much to please her, something that rarely happened. She opened mine first. She smiled and gave me a big hug and thanked me. I felt like a big girl, responsible. I had shopped on my own. I bought my mother a gift. I was close to becoming a woman. Buying gifts was something women did.
That night, after all the presents were opened and the dinner dishes were being put away, our next-door neighbor Mrs. Warren came to visit. I was never used to interfering in grown folks’ conversations, but I couldn’t help overhearing my mother tell Mrs. Warren that she didn’t get anything for Christmas. I think that was the first day the scar of insignificance wore wide across my own body. I felt like nothing I did mattered.
Later, there were other scars, too. Like the time she threatened to commit suicide, and I felt helpless in trying to help her. Like the time she embarrassed me in front of her friends by telling them I was a difficult child. Like time after time when she made me lie to someone on the telephone because she didn’t feel like talking. And I don’t want to sound like I was always the innocent party. I often did things I knew would rub momma the wrong way. Like sneak and wear her good clothes to school, have boys over when she wasn’t home, and drink all the black pekoe tea she loved so much. Like I said, we were at war.
Be that as it may, Christmas stands as a marker in our relationship. However, this past one was a very positive one. My mother, who now lives in Detroit, Michigan, after several years of living in both Wisconsin and New Jersey, came to visit me for Christmas. Putting all my reservations aside, I decided to try and shower her with unconditional love. This time, it wasn’t about pleasing her; it was about ending the war. I had decided not to fight.
Two days into our visit, her wrath resurfaced. We were spending a leisurely time at breakfast with two of my friends when my mother announced to them that I had always been “hard to please.” One of my friends, Janie, shot back: “That just isn’t true. Quinita is easy to get along with and easy to please.” My mother’s face stiffened and I had gained position without even taking one. I knew that my mother knew that her statement wasn’t true. I just think that she was so used to fighting with me that her comment was more of a reflex emotion. The war between us had become second nature.
The conversation then moved back to my mother. Her education. Her work. Her political views. As always, she was happy to talk about herself. But something new happened—I was willing to listen.
I learned that my mother, who was not raised by her own mother, was bitter about not having that mother/daughter closeness so many women share. I learned that her work made her feel “useful and progressive.” She felt that it would add years to her life if she continued to work. I learned that she felt more useful when she was helping others. And I learned that she wished she had become a doctor. My mother had divulged information to my friends that I’m sure I had heard before. The difference this time was that I listened.
After really hearing my mother speak, I began to understand her a little more. I had never really appreciated the fact that she hadn’t had her mother with her while she was growing up. Somehow, I’m not sure how this has impacted our relationship. I still haven’t figured it all out, but I have developed more compassion for her. I even admire her.
During our visit, I made it a point to constantly remind myself of what a wonderful person she was, albeit flawed like the rest of us. I now see her as a trailblazer. After all, as a Black woman from a sharecropper’s family, she graduated from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with a master’s degree in organic chemistry. She raised my brother and I with no husband. She has worked hard throughout her life and is deeply respected by many for it. And she is beautiful to look at. Her smooth dark chocolate skin is without wrinkle. He almond-shaped eyes are telling of the many obstacles she has overcome. And her markings, once I understood them, tell me that I come from a woman who is leaving a legacy.
Markings. We all have them. They are tied to our experiences and responses like DNA, informing what we are really made of. And the fact that we survive despite them, points to our indomitable spirits and strong resilience. Will my mother and I ever end the war between us and implement peace? I don’t know. But I do know that none of us is whole without our markings. And none of us are exempt from them either. This is the essence of resilience, the essence of spirit.
And what is war? It has various meanings, depending on to whom you speak. A warrior will most likely speak of hand-to-hand battles—yet he will tell his story from the point of view of “we.” A general may not see battle at all, but will give commands and be captivated by his own logic wherever it may lead. Through the many battles that my mother and I participated in, we sought to change one another into something we felt we could live with. But the mystery that every soldier sees, but seldom realizes, is that as we expend energy in battle, we are releasing the need to control. At first we think that someone must win. It is not a single person who wins, but it is the “we” that wins. We remain mother and daughter, women connected in ways that no one can destroy. Not even us.
***
Quinita Edmonia Good is the mother of one son. The recipient of two 2005 New Jersey Press Association awards, she is employed in the public relations industry and also offers writing and editorial services to businesses and individuals. She can be reached at quinita_good@hotmail.com.
Showing posts with label Essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essay. Show all posts
Sunday, August 19, 2007
ESSAY. Attack of the Pink Ribbons. PATIENCE MOORE.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is kicking my butt. It’s October 2nd and I’ve already had enough of it. I am totally in favor of it. For other people. I am in favor of it for the people for whom it will help. It will save lives. I want them to do it. Them. Whoever the men and women are that have launched and maintained this awesome promotional campaign that is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I, myself, am quite aware, thank-you.
There is so much press and PR about Breast Cancer these days that I am actually starting to feel hip because I had breast cancer. It’s the chic cancer. It’s the edgy, trendy way to face your mortality. I now have an opening line for when I am chatting up Melissa (Ethridge) and Sheryl (Crow), thank God. “Oh, yeah. Breast Cancer. Been there, done that. Where’s the buffet?” It’s good that Breast Cancer Awareness Month has joined Halloween in October. Breast cancer is spooky too.
I go for treatment at my hospital and there is a plastic pink ribbon tied around literally every tree surrounding the hospital. The same kind of plastic strips the cops use to cordon off a crime scene. But bright pink. A different kind of crime scene. I go to the mall with Van and the kids to get my computer fixed and there are the same pink ribbons tied around every tree surrounding the parking lots, which take up acres. Inside the mall, there are HUGE-at least 30 foot-pink ribbon sculptures hanging from the ceiling like the balloons in the Macy’s Day Parade, framed by lines of festive pink Christmas tree lights. A bizarre celebration of a deadly disease. There are special offers to buy from this store and that store and a certain amount of the purchase price will go to Breast Cancer research. I am astounded at the breadth of this campaign as I walk through the mall and am dizzy thinking of all the phone calls and deals of which this all is a result.
Maybe now a few more women will get their yearly mammograms. That would be very good. A mammogram saved my life. But for me, every time I see a pink ribbon, it says, “Did you die? Oh-not dead now, but maybe dead later? Maybe recurrence? Remember this past year? Remember how shitty chemo was?” This, when really all I am interested in is a new operating system for my Mac from the Apple Store and to scout out a new dining room table at Crate and Barrel that will go with the furniture I inherited from my father who died three years ago of skin cancer that had metastasized to his brain. Can I just shop? Must I think about the silicone pillow that has replaced my right breast? About dying?
Today I got up at 5am to be on my friend Nelsie’s radio show. We had been talking for months about how I was going to do a segment on breast cancer when October came around. It was incentive for me to stay witness to this journey. I collected ideas, stories, jokes to tell the radio public from the mouth of someone who is right in it. From someone who is aware, very aware, of breast cancer. I rose and shone. 5AM. Green tea, stoned wheat thins, a little yoga, a review of my notes, and bingo. I did a great job. Told all my good cancer jokes right on cue, like the one about looking like an aging poodle as my head, bald from chemo, sprouted gray curls. I closed with thoughts of how cancer enhanced how I see myself as a mother to my little boys. I was strong, a warrior, a survivor. Poignant yet funny. Deep yet snappy.
Like the muscle man in the circus, I hit the target and rang the bell. But only a couple hours later, the reverberations from the bell of success have mutated into the din of a bunch of nervous monkeys, chattering nonstop but saying nothing. My mental ‘to do’ list is ticking things off in my head, but the sound is garbled, warped. I am unmoored.
A bike ride helps. I push up extra hills, deliberately exerting myself to get grounded, to find a thread of sanity again to hold. But it’s not enough. Not enough. I’m still swirling down a drain, my mind obsessively reviewing the radio show looking for where I must have screwed up to cause this much anguish. Even a half hour of hill sprints isn’t enough to anchor me so I decide to attack our lawn. I bee-line for the mower and fire her up. I push it onto the long moist grass and cut, controlling the grass, putting it in its place. The obnoxious buzz drowns out the monkeys. I want to mow forever. Then the coin drops and my body relaxes. I stop pushing and stand still with the mower handle still vibrating in my hands. OH! That’s it!
This anxiety isn’t about whether I did a good job on the radio. The anxiety is from hearing, during this friggin’ Breast Cancer Awareness month radio show, that a woman dies of breast cancer every thirteen minutes in our country. Does that mean I have 12 left? It is from seeing a thousand pink ribbons and from talking about my cancer on the radio for God’s sake, being the featured guest contributor for the segment on breast cancer. “Next up, hear how a mother of two survives breast cancer…stay tuned” and it’s me. I’m the mother of two. The two are in the house right now waiting for me to finish mowing.
I sit heavily on the lawn chair by the garage. Though my heart is broken, at least I have returned to myself, to sit by my side, hold my hand and breathe my breath. I will take this pain over free-floating anxiety anytime.
I leave my grassy rain boots outside the back door and slip inside to the play room where a feverish 5 year old Theo is watching TV. Gus is crashed out on the sofa. Out like only two year olds can be. I climb up onto the dark green knock-off La-Z-Boy with Theo.
“Wanna watch SpongeBob together?” I surprise him with this rare offer.
“YAH!” he raises his high voice higher with joy.
“Do you know when I got this chair?” I ask him, with a smile.
He looks at me, dark brown eyes clear with fever, waiting for the story.
“I got it when you were born so I could nurse you in it.”
We both smile and keep our faces close. We hold hands. Theo strokes my hand. It’s perfect and special and I am lucky. Loved, cared for.
I take the remote and punch a few keys to get SpongeBob. And while Theo watches the antics of Bikini Bottom, I float in the aliveness of this fresh, hard-won serenity, of touching his insanely soft skin, smelling his salty hair; this pause in the scrambling dance that I have to do to shake down the acceptance of my breast cancer.
***
A few days later, shopping for a new car, we navigate through two dealerships and three test-drives and end up at the Panera Bread Company for lunch. I see on the front door a large photographic poster announcing that they are now serving BAGELS IN THE SHAPE OF RIBBONS FOR BREAST CANCER. Someone is in some kitchen somewhere deftly criss-crossing raisin bagel dough into the classic awareness-raising ribbon shape. So it’s no longer enough that I have to SEE the ribbons everywhere, I now am suppose to eat them. My awareness is reluctantly being shoved to new heights.
After lunch, we drive up the street to the animal emergency hospital where our red bone coon hound, Cyndi-Lou, the sweetest girl of our home (besides me ), is locked inside a Lucite oxygen cage fighting for her life after being whomped by a car that then drove off, leaving her to limp home and collapse in the kitchen, her mouth in a strange smile of pain and shock.
“She has sustained serious trauma to her chest,” the vet told us. That makes two of us. “As much as she could stand without dying.” Yes, I know what that’s like. We stroke her short, rusty fur and coo at her through the boy-in-the-bubble hole of the cage.
Home again at the end this VERY stressful day of pain (my reconstructed breast hurts me), parenting stress ( dragging a four year old through a grown-up day), and doggie hospitals with four thousand dollar invoices, I am in our kitchen, making chamomile tea looking to let it all go, when I glance over to the English Muffin bag that Van has brought home from the A&P. “JOIN FORCES FOR THE CURE” is scrawled across the plastic bag, with the now unmistakable bright pink ribbon swirl on it. They have reached virtually every single company in the civilized world!
I turn on my heel and go upstairs. I’ll join forces with my bed and start over in the morning.
***
Patience Moore is a recent MEWS member and a singer/songwriter/producer who won five awards for her family music project Buckaroos Sleep Too! She is currently writing a memior about being diagnosed and treated for Breast Cancer in 2005 called Top Ten Reasons to Get Breast Cancer. She will be joining NJ LIFE and LEISURE with a new column called " That's Life" beginning in the November issue. Patience also teaches elementary school music and private voice lessons. She lives in Montclair with her husband Van Manakas and their sons Theo and Gus.
(PatienceMoore2@Gmail.com www.PatienceMoore.com)
There is so much press and PR about Breast Cancer these days that I am actually starting to feel hip because I had breast cancer. It’s the chic cancer. It’s the edgy, trendy way to face your mortality. I now have an opening line for when I am chatting up Melissa (Ethridge) and Sheryl (Crow), thank God. “Oh, yeah. Breast Cancer. Been there, done that. Where’s the buffet?” It’s good that Breast Cancer Awareness Month has joined Halloween in October. Breast cancer is spooky too.
I go for treatment at my hospital and there is a plastic pink ribbon tied around literally every tree surrounding the hospital. The same kind of plastic strips the cops use to cordon off a crime scene. But bright pink. A different kind of crime scene. I go to the mall with Van and the kids to get my computer fixed and there are the same pink ribbons tied around every tree surrounding the parking lots, which take up acres. Inside the mall, there are HUGE-at least 30 foot-pink ribbon sculptures hanging from the ceiling like the balloons in the Macy’s Day Parade, framed by lines of festive pink Christmas tree lights. A bizarre celebration of a deadly disease. There are special offers to buy from this store and that store and a certain amount of the purchase price will go to Breast Cancer research. I am astounded at the breadth of this campaign as I walk through the mall and am dizzy thinking of all the phone calls and deals of which this all is a result.
Maybe now a few more women will get their yearly mammograms. That would be very good. A mammogram saved my life. But for me, every time I see a pink ribbon, it says, “Did you die? Oh-not dead now, but maybe dead later? Maybe recurrence? Remember this past year? Remember how shitty chemo was?” This, when really all I am interested in is a new operating system for my Mac from the Apple Store and to scout out a new dining room table at Crate and Barrel that will go with the furniture I inherited from my father who died three years ago of skin cancer that had metastasized to his brain. Can I just shop? Must I think about the silicone pillow that has replaced my right breast? About dying?
Today I got up at 5am to be on my friend Nelsie’s radio show. We had been talking for months about how I was going to do a segment on breast cancer when October came around. It was incentive for me to stay witness to this journey. I collected ideas, stories, jokes to tell the radio public from the mouth of someone who is right in it. From someone who is aware, very aware, of breast cancer. I rose and shone. 5AM. Green tea, stoned wheat thins, a little yoga, a review of my notes, and bingo. I did a great job. Told all my good cancer jokes right on cue, like the one about looking like an aging poodle as my head, bald from chemo, sprouted gray curls. I closed with thoughts of how cancer enhanced how I see myself as a mother to my little boys. I was strong, a warrior, a survivor. Poignant yet funny. Deep yet snappy.
Like the muscle man in the circus, I hit the target and rang the bell. But only a couple hours later, the reverberations from the bell of success have mutated into the din of a bunch of nervous monkeys, chattering nonstop but saying nothing. My mental ‘to do’ list is ticking things off in my head, but the sound is garbled, warped. I am unmoored.
A bike ride helps. I push up extra hills, deliberately exerting myself to get grounded, to find a thread of sanity again to hold. But it’s not enough. Not enough. I’m still swirling down a drain, my mind obsessively reviewing the radio show looking for where I must have screwed up to cause this much anguish. Even a half hour of hill sprints isn’t enough to anchor me so I decide to attack our lawn. I bee-line for the mower and fire her up. I push it onto the long moist grass and cut, controlling the grass, putting it in its place. The obnoxious buzz drowns out the monkeys. I want to mow forever. Then the coin drops and my body relaxes. I stop pushing and stand still with the mower handle still vibrating in my hands. OH! That’s it!
This anxiety isn’t about whether I did a good job on the radio. The anxiety is from hearing, during this friggin’ Breast Cancer Awareness month radio show, that a woman dies of breast cancer every thirteen minutes in our country. Does that mean I have 12 left? It is from seeing a thousand pink ribbons and from talking about my cancer on the radio for God’s sake, being the featured guest contributor for the segment on breast cancer. “Next up, hear how a mother of two survives breast cancer…stay tuned” and it’s me. I’m the mother of two. The two are in the house right now waiting for me to finish mowing.
I sit heavily on the lawn chair by the garage. Though my heart is broken, at least I have returned to myself, to sit by my side, hold my hand and breathe my breath. I will take this pain over free-floating anxiety anytime.
I leave my grassy rain boots outside the back door and slip inside to the play room where a feverish 5 year old Theo is watching TV. Gus is crashed out on the sofa. Out like only two year olds can be. I climb up onto the dark green knock-off La-Z-Boy with Theo.
“Wanna watch SpongeBob together?” I surprise him with this rare offer.
“YAH!” he raises his high voice higher with joy.
“Do you know when I got this chair?” I ask him, with a smile.
He looks at me, dark brown eyes clear with fever, waiting for the story.
“I got it when you were born so I could nurse you in it.”
We both smile and keep our faces close. We hold hands. Theo strokes my hand. It’s perfect and special and I am lucky. Loved, cared for.
I take the remote and punch a few keys to get SpongeBob. And while Theo watches the antics of Bikini Bottom, I float in the aliveness of this fresh, hard-won serenity, of touching his insanely soft skin, smelling his salty hair; this pause in the scrambling dance that I have to do to shake down the acceptance of my breast cancer.
***
A few days later, shopping for a new car, we navigate through two dealerships and three test-drives and end up at the Panera Bread Company for lunch. I see on the front door a large photographic poster announcing that they are now serving BAGELS IN THE SHAPE OF RIBBONS FOR BREAST CANCER. Someone is in some kitchen somewhere deftly criss-crossing raisin bagel dough into the classic awareness-raising ribbon shape. So it’s no longer enough that I have to SEE the ribbons everywhere, I now am suppose to eat them. My awareness is reluctantly being shoved to new heights.
After lunch, we drive up the street to the animal emergency hospital where our red bone coon hound, Cyndi-Lou, the sweetest girl of our home (besides me ), is locked inside a Lucite oxygen cage fighting for her life after being whomped by a car that then drove off, leaving her to limp home and collapse in the kitchen, her mouth in a strange smile of pain and shock.
“She has sustained serious trauma to her chest,” the vet told us. That makes two of us. “As much as she could stand without dying.” Yes, I know what that’s like. We stroke her short, rusty fur and coo at her through the boy-in-the-bubble hole of the cage.
Home again at the end this VERY stressful day of pain (my reconstructed breast hurts me), parenting stress ( dragging a four year old through a grown-up day), and doggie hospitals with four thousand dollar invoices, I am in our kitchen, making chamomile tea looking to let it all go, when I glance over to the English Muffin bag that Van has brought home from the A&P. “JOIN FORCES FOR THE CURE” is scrawled across the plastic bag, with the now unmistakable bright pink ribbon swirl on it. They have reached virtually every single company in the civilized world!
I turn on my heel and go upstairs. I’ll join forces with my bed and start over in the morning.
***
Patience Moore is a recent MEWS member and a singer/songwriter/producer who won five awards for her family music project Buckaroos Sleep Too! She is currently writing a memior about being diagnosed and treated for Breast Cancer in 2005 called Top Ten Reasons to Get Breast Cancer. She will be joining NJ LIFE and LEISURE with a new column called " That's Life" beginning in the November issue. Patience also teaches elementary school music and private voice lessons. She lives in Montclair with her husband Van Manakas and their sons Theo and Gus.
(PatienceMoore2@Gmail.com www.PatienceMoore.com)
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