My mother's face floated to mind, a pale, reproachful moon, at her last and first visit to the asylum since my twentieth birthday. A daughter in an asylum! I had done that to her. Still, she had obviously decided to forgive me.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I praticed making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course.
When I was younger, I actually had a ghost face mask, and I stood in my sister's room in the corner for, like, half an hour until she saw in the reflection, me behind her, and she freaked out and started slapping me.
Growing up, I saw my mother cry exactly once. The morning of her brother's funeral. One long tear ran down her cheek through her make up until she caught it near her mouth and patted it dry with a tissue she pulled from inside her sleeve.
When I stopped seeing my mother through the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.
Just previous to the birth of my little son, my mind gave way and my child was born in the asylum for the insane at Stockton, Cal. My boy was buried there.
After that I couldn't show my face outside. I lost my identity and balance. I was still living with my parents, and they were my only friends. For so many people, this thing with the nurse was confirmation that I must be mad or mentally ill.
I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.
My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.
My mother, who was radiant, young, and beautiful even as she lay dying, heard voices and saw visions, but she always managed to make friends with them and was much too charming to hospitalize even at her craziest.
I've never felt like I was in my mother's shadow. If anything, I felt like I was in her embrace.