Recently, I told my therapist what I intended to do with my family home once both of my parents are gone.
I'm going to knock it to the ground (maybe I'll torch it), I'll sell the land, and never travel down that street as long as I live.
It's a noticeably clear intent. It was my house of horrors, after all. Why wouldn't I want to raze that fucker?!
Lately, I've been working from that house. Of all the places I can take my laptop to work - the office, my home, a cafe, a park, a fiery pit in hell - I've chosen to take myself to the house that I've run from. I could go anywhere.
Yet, it can be so quiet here. Like early afternoons in Italy when everyone is hiding from the summer sun. Italian TV hums in the background - cooking shows, game shows, telenovelas. It's my second language so I can block it out. My mother, however, is impossible to block out.
What happened to the chicken scissors.
They broke, we threw them away.
Where is your father’s mobile phone?
Your mobile phone. You lost it.
I did not. Someone stole it.
Nobody has come into your house to steal an old Samsung phone. Maybe if it were a new model.
What’s this letter?
I don’t know, ask Jeff, he manages that stuff.
What day is it?
Go and look at the [dementia] clock I got you.
Oh I love that clock, everything is big and in Italian. It’s like a friend.
That’s great.
What month is it?
Look at the clock.
What happened to the chicken scissors?
Where’s the mobile phone.
I’m so tired I could sleep all day.
That [dementia] clock you got me is very nice. Very, very nice.
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
I don’t know if my mum has dementia. She refuses to get an MRI (they cause cancer), and she won’t see a specialist (You think I’m stupid? That I’m going crazy?).
Dad has only been gone five months; maybe she’s just grieving and this is what grief looks like for her. I forget things all the time, I reason with myself, but she has asked me about those fucking scissors countless times over the last two days. I get frustrated by the repetition, sometimes it shows. I remind myself that it’s not her fault. That she may have an illness. That she has dementia frightens me. Her sister has it too, is bedridden and doesn’t talk. Is it hereditary?
Remember when dementia was just something that happened to old people, other people’s grandmas who liked to play with dolls and talk gibberish. Even pop culture depictions of senile old people used to be playful - remember Raising Hope’s Mawmaw. We laughed at her, sure, but we loved her dearly too.
Mum loves to talk. She talks to the dogs, explains to them why she's closing the shutters when it's a hot day, asks them if they miss dad. She offers me coffee, fruit, nuts, toast, water, chocolate, biscuits, cheese, more fruit. I mostly decline, but that doesn’t stop her. She tells me why it's important to wash grapes three times, why you should never place a knife on the table that way, that it should be this way. Just the sound of her voice used to make me feel suicidal. Now, not so much.
It’s a small house. My old bedroom is just out of sight as I work, in my periphery. My single bed is gone, replaced by a queen size, for guests. I used to smoke in there and blow out the window, convinced my folks had no idea. Maybe they didn’t. We all tell ourselves stories.
I spent most of my life feeling like the trapped in this house, controlled by fear and anger, by my parents, and did whatever I could to escape. I spent years taking back that control. As an adult, I had the power and I wanted to make sure they knew it. I was cruel. I would keep the dogs from them for days, as punishment for whatever transgression hit me in the ovaries that day. Or I would ignore their calls, skip family lunch, tell them to deal with their pension woes themselves, seeing that they don’t need me. Cruelty runs both ways, then scatters in all directions.
Cruelty is my exit. Shutting down is another exit. I feel controlled and I lash out. That’s what I learned in therapy. Don’t back me into a corner because I turn rabid. Lately, though, I could give a shit about power. It shifts, anyway. In the end, we're equal. I'm middle aged, and mum is old. We're not so different anymore, the two of us hurtling towards the same destination, except we can’t agree on where that place is. Wherever we end up, we’re planning to bury our ashes together.
So the fight isn't important anymore. Not to me. It’s still important to mum.
Nobody controls me in this house.
Visiting is a crap shoot. Some days, I kiss mum goodbye and she walks me to the car, waves at me with both hands, and I beep beep. Other days, I storm out, telling her she’ll never see the dogs again. I don’t beep beep. I’m petty like that.
The house is not so horrifying anymore. But I still intend to burn the fucker to the ground, one day.
I so understand all those conflicting emotions — the irritation, the tenderness, the tricky history all rolled into one. Wishing you a fabulous bonfire when it comes
Jo! This essay is so good. I love the way you, circle around your relationship with the house with your mother. And as Fifi said, burn, baby burn indeed.
And oh my God, thank you for the gift of Maw Maw!!