I Am Home

“What should each of us say to every trial we face? This is what I’ve trained for, for this is my discipline.” -Epictetus

She was eighteen, maybe just slightly beyond, when she had her second baby. Within a short time, she would find out this baby had a disability. That was when the doctors, her mother, and her husband all wanted to take the baby to an institution and leave her there to be raised by workers in white coats. To be locked up, away from society, because she would be a burden to raise. This was the attitude and beliefs of many in the 1950’s, especially 1950’s Alabama.

My mom’s strength and love for her children was instilled at an early age. She was a fearless protector of them. Can you imagine being that young and having the world around you try to suffocate the love from your very soul and attempt to take your child? Think about how much courage and determination it takes to withstand that.

The baby was my sister, Charlotte, the love of all of our lives.

Charlotte’s greatest teacher, like it should be in life, became my mom. She taught her to read and write, do basic math, and most importantly, to learn to take care of herself and live with good character. This was all happening while living with a man that never really wanted the child. I often think about this. How difficult it must have been to be in her early twenties, trying to raise a child with a disability, and another child just a year older than Charlotte, and living with hateful, watchful eyes all around you. What kind of determination did that take? It’s a different breed for sure. That is my mom, a different breed of grit.

Through the years, Charlotte completed elementary and junior high, and then went to Lafollette High School, where in the 1970’s the special education department kept students with disabilities separate from their peers. It’s interesting through my educator's eyes now, how I have been in places where I have seen this practice continue to take place. Charlotte was often bullied in high school, and one day she was walking past what is referred to as “The Pit” at Lafollette and some boys stopped her. They kissed and fondled her breast. After that, Charlotte refused to go back to school and dropped out.

My mom was working by this point in her life and also raising two young boys, four and six years old, and a pre-teen daughter. Her oldest was getting ready to graduate high school, and then there was Charlotte, who she now needed to figure out a different life for. Many of us often sit around and think about how difficult our lives have become, we even dwell on it, and yes, life can be difficult, but too many make excuses and give up and give in to life’s obstacles. My mom has always faced hardship head on, ready to fight until there were no more punches to throw. She never gave up. She did what we all should do, which is adapt and make adjustments to the hell that life throws at us.

During all of this, my mom was also being abused, verbally, physically, and emotionally by a man who could be both charming and a monster within the same hour, the same breath. She stayed for survival. She stayed because leaving the monster that you are married to was not always the best option back then. There wasn’t any monthly child support offered, no taking half of the assets, so you just endured because it was the way of life.

When Charlotte died in 2010, it left us all devastated. I sometimes wonder how my dad would have reacted to her death if he were alive at the time? I witnessed it take the wind out of my mom. I stayed with her on the night of Charlotte’s death and I saw her soul twirling above her body, the life leaving her eyes. That is life, it can change in an instant and leave you screaming at the heavens, “Why?” I believe this is when my mom’s health started to take a turn for the worse. The pain of losing a child is something I will never know, but I have witnessed it through my mother’s heavy shoulders.

Over the years, I have had many conversations with my mom about her life, and about death. It often seems in life like we all start off so young and strong, and then the events start to unravel. Our lives are about navigating relationships, toxic people and work environments. We find ourselves in jobs that wear us down to the ground, leaving little energy for what truly matters. Often, those people closest to us are the ones doing the harm and we feel trapped. Yes, this makes life sound pessimistic and unbearable. However, the conversations I have with my mom often turn to the good in life. The things that make it worth living. Sometimes you have to sort through all the dirty muck to find truth and a smile.

I have always been fascinated by people who can endure anything. The ones who can face hardships and find the courage and will to keep moving forward. I have read about such people over the years and I have witnessed it firsthand. I have also been raised to keep moving forward no matter what. From an early age it has been instilled in me, modeled by a woman who has been tested for the majority of her life and always makes it through the other side. She does not walk out clean or unbruised, but she stands there strong, knowing she survived another round. She has faced abuse, losing a child, even losing children that are still walking this planet because of their foolishness and pride, a plethora of health issues, and now cancer. Yet, she has also had love. It is love that has kept her going.

I remember from an early age that I felt like I was here to protect my mom. It’s why I shot my dad with a BB gun when I was seven, which obviously did nothing. It is why I quietly took the shotgun from the rack when I was twelve and loaded it, ready to free her of him. One time, an older neighbor boy thought it was a good idea to throw a snowball at my mom, and I tried as hard as I could with my eight year old hands to punish him, bashing his head in the snow. It is why at the age of twenty two I sat across from my dad and told him to leave her alone or I would kill him. However, I could not protect her from cancer. I have no control, no power, and it is the nemesis I could not fight for her. I know my brother feels the same. It is her fight, one that she will eventually lose. Yet, we have made sure it’s a fight she doesn’t have to do alone. We can stand with her, warriors at her side, marching to the end, to the last battle, the dying breaths, and will be there to help her pass to the other side.

She grows tired. I see it. I am a witness to her slow walk to death. What I see most though, what I will carry with me until it is my time to depart this world, is a lesson from the curriculum that she had written, which is called life. My mother, one of my greatest teachers, is in the process of delivering her final lesson. She is modeling two of the greatest virtues: courage and wisdom. Her teaching is how to die with dignity, to not go down easy but to fight, to show what it means to have grit and resilience. To tell her son she loves him on a daily basis, knowing that the time will come when her voice will not be on the other end of the phone. She is showing us what matters in this life and what are those things to let go.

My mom was my reason for surviving an often tortuous childhood, one that I did not reveal until only a few years ago. I sit and reflect often, wondering what life will be like without her? What will happen when she is no longer here to talk to and to know that one of the people that has unconditionally loved me for my entire life, is gone?

I do know that all I will need to do is take a long walk in the woods and sit next to a tree and I will feel her there. I can read her poetry and absorb her words and hear her voice through the verse. I also know that I have saved her voice. I have recorded her words in conversations that will stay with me.

What I do hope. What I have tried to do for my lifetime is be a good son. I hope my mom has felt my love for her and that it has brought her joy. I believe that I am not always easy to love. Like being a husband that is often hard to love, I know that there have been times as a mother that I have tried her patience. I know that she has been worried when I have climbed mountains and crashed on my bike, or have searched for bears and lions on wooded trails. She has worried about my depression and the times when it has almost taken my light for good. It is often hard to not feel like a burden with such things, however, she knows I am strong and resilient. She raised me to withstand the storms when they arrived. I will survive her death too. It will be my greatest test but I will survive it because I know we all owe a death. We are impermanent.

Still, my mom's body may be impermanent but she will be here in memory. She will be here in her art, her words, and her teachings will live on through everyone that she has connected with and every student that I have taught. For they did not know it at the time, but every student that I have ever come into contact with has been taught by my mom through me. It is her lessons that have helped them over the years. I have simply been the portal in which they were delivered.

I asked my mom recently, “Do you think you will see Charlotte when you die?”

She replied, “Yes.”

“What will you say to her?” I asked.

“I am home.”