Half of a Happy Childhood

My mother's birthday is October 23--she would be 68 had she not died of lung cancer at 61. This week's posts are in honor of her.

Also, wow! I'm overwhelmed with the response to yesterday's post. I will continue the story in the next couple of weeks.

 

Carol remembered being happy when she was small--growing up among the avocado groves of Hayward, California. She started dancing as a little girl and it quickly became her life's passion.

Her family was her mom and her dad and her brother--all of them transplanted from Witchita, Kansas. Her dad was tall and commanding--he worked hard and he played hard. He went to work with a lunchbox and laid steel pipe. After work he always had his whiskey and his cigar and he loved his little girl.

Her mom was tiny and spirited and she could sew like nobody's business; she made dance costumes for the whole school.  She cooked the best hamburgers around--in a skillet so the buns could soak up the fatty steam from the burgers until they tasted better than any burger you could get in a diner.

Her brother was okay most of the time, but scary when he had his grand mal seizures. Five years older than her they didn't have a lot in common, but he teased his little sister like a big brother should.

She was 12 when her world turned upside down. Her brother had a seizure while sitting on the top row of the bleachers during a high school football game. It was a long way down and he sustained what we now call a traumatic brain injury. He was forever altered.

It like to have killed her mother to see her son like that. The doctors said she suffered a psychotic break which triggered paranoid schizophrenia. She certainly wasn't the mother she'd been before.

Her dad couldn't take the craziness of one of them, let alone two of them together. He divorced his wife.

Her mother had to go to work. Babysitting was an unaffordable luxury, so she worked the night shift and left Carol to watch out for her brother. It was a bad scene all around--the erratic and volatile behavior combined with the terrible seizures.

It was the dance studio that saved her. Three blocks down and two blocks over was a whole different world. A world where Adele was her second mother, her sane mother and never once made a comment about her real parents not paying for lessons after the divorce. Adele who made sure she had new tap shoes and ballet shoes and fabric for the costumes Carol learned to sew for herself. It was Adele who gave Carol a place to stay when she returned home from school one day during her senior year to find that all her clothes were on the front stoop and that even though she was 17 this was it, she was on her own.

Comments

[Kalynne Pudner]

Even if I did sleep, I wouldn't be. Please, please go on...

[Hay]

Wow, you have us all captivated. My mums name is carol.

[Mary Alice]

Bless Adele. What a wonderful perceptive kindhearted woman.

[Suz]

Your Mom's history is so rich. She overcame so much....

[Cheri @ Blog This Mom!]

Ack! Jenn, will you please stop stopping. More. We need more.

[phd in yogurtry]

I will forward this story to any who sneer at the mention of the village it takes to raise a child.

Now... back to the story. What provoked the clothes on the stoop?

[kcinnova]

You have now made us fall in love with your mother and Adele. Telling your mother's story is a beautiful way to honor her. I'm hoping to read the whole story soon!

[gary]

Oh wow!

[Janet]

Adele sounds like an angel from heaven for your mom...

[debbie]

What on earth had your mom done (or supposedly done) to have that happen? Thank God for Adele....I see her part in all this getting even bigger.....

[Fannie]

Man, I thought MY mother had a sad story. She had her some crazy, but it didn't kick her out of the house!

[Heidi]

What a lovely story. I am in suspense regarding the continuation of your previous post too.

[texasholly @ June Cleaver Nirvana]

Yeah! I love what you are doing this week!

[stefanie]

Wow!

My mom died almost 10 years ago, and her birthday was in early October. I have been trying since then to find a way to tell her story, but nothing works yet.

I love how you are telling your mom's story.

[Deb D]

How tragic :-(

[Angela]

You do have some great stories to write

[JCK]

Oh, I love this story, Jenn. You've got a novel here. I can tell.

[allmycke]

Maybe one day I can honor my mother in a similar manner. In the meantime I want to read more of your writing! Don't keep us in suspense!

[allmycke]

Maybe one day I can honor my mother in a similar manner. In the meantime I want to read more of your writing! Don't keep us in suspense!

[jessica bern]

It does take a village. I am a single parent and I don't know how I would have dealt with a small child on my own without the friends I made here. All my family is in NY so it's either them or no one. Your story is incredible? is that the word? No, but you must tell the whole story. It is captivating. I just wish you didn't need to go through that, no one should, ever.

[San Diego Momma]

Just awesome. Like I said before, I love seeing this storyteller side of you.

[Susan]

I am catching up on your blog, which I just discovered, and am really enjoying your writing.

My mother had a similar life when it came to terrible luck. Oh, the stories I could tell!

Coincidentally, my brother Mark is a paranoid schizophrenic, and my other brother Paul suffered a traumatic brain injury on October 23, 1996--which would've been your mother's birthday, six years before she passed away.

I find it interesting how some families seem to have way more than their share of traumatic events.