Oil and Water

I was born in Mississippi, on the cusp of the civil rights movement.  My first trip around the sun began the morning of December 31st.  I arrived to mixed reviews.  The paternal side of my family, convinced I was conceived prior to my parent’s wedding, were primarily thankful I was born 9 months and 7 days after the nuptials.  As their first and only grandchild, the maternal side of the family thought I was a gift from God who completed their world.  My parents viewed me more as a possession or an accessory, and to this day will tell anyone who asks, my greatest accomplishment in life was being a much-needed tax deduction the first year of their marriage.

My parents did not give much thought to being parents, which was clear by the fact I spent the first several months of my life sleeping in an opened dresser drawer and not a crib.  They believed the important things would come naturally, what did not come naturally they would wing and a nanny could be hired for everything else.

My mother stayed with me the first several weeks of my life.  But as time passed, my father gave her an ultimatum; go back to work or be a divorced, single mother at 22.

My parents discovered they had differing opinions on a multitude of things, many of which were important, basic tenants of their personal belief systems.  I imagine this happens with great frequency when two people do not know each other very well.

My father was the “rebound” person for my mother.  My mother had dated a man she deeply loved for 5 years.  When she heard he had supposedly been unfaithful to her with one of her best friends she immediately broke things off with him without discussion.  A few months later, she met the man who would become my father.  They dated for 3 months, became engaged and married three months later.  My maternal grandfather begged her not to marry my father, but my mother is a prideful woman and was convinced she knew best.

My knowledge of this story happened in a rather peculiar way.  I was about 13 or 14 years old and my mother asked me to get something out of her wallet.  I went to her purse, picked up her wallet and began looking for what she needed.  I came across a black and white wallet size professional photograph of a rather handsome young man in a suit and tie.  I asked my mother who the man was and she told me his name; but insisted I not mention him or the picture to my father.  I later asked my maternal grandmother about the man and she told me the story.  When telling the story, she seemed sad.  She said she never believed he was unfaithful, and if he was, he stood accused of only one kiss.  As she shook her head she said he was a good, kind man from an upstanding family.

My parents could not have come from more different backgrounds.  My father was raised as an obligatory Catholic. My paternal grandparents married when my grandmother was 13 and my grandfather was 18.  Until the shock and dismay of their elopement wore off, they rented a small attic space from a man in another town.  My grandmother was later diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and her husband was a philandering, evil man who taunted her.   Their home, often, was the staging area for shouting matches, derogatory remarks, emotional manipulation and exhaustive monologues about how unfair the world was to them.  They were ungrateful, stingy people with dead eyes who viewed humanity as a commodity.

There were three children born to this union and my father was the youngest and the only male.  My father was a momma’s boy and due to his gender and birth position he was the apple of her eye.  He was an average child by all accounts.  There was nothing in his life at which he excelled.  He did not play sports.  He was not musically interested or inclined.  In a good year, his grades were average and most years he would slide by from grade to grade.  He was tone-deaf, and as such, had a speech impediment which made it hard for most people to understand what he was saying.  I can imagine he was bullied in school for his odd way and peculiar speech.  At the age of 18 he had a full head of gray hair, which added to his unconventionality.  He did not date much, and as the story goes his longest relationship with a female, prior to my mother, was with a woman I later learned was a lesbian.

Due to his lack of interest in college and without any employment prospects, my father enlisted in the Marines.  He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan and to his credit was a member of the color guard.  For those unfamiliar with it, the Color Guard is responsible for rendering proper military honors in parades, ceremonies, funerals, etc. To be chosen for this was an honor and he represented the Marine Corps well.  He never saw combat and to his mother’s delight returned home no worse for the wear, in one piece, physically fit and much more disciplined.

After his discharge from the marines he went to a vocational school, where he met my mother.  He successfully completed this training and received certification.  However, he was toward the bottom of his class, and simply could not make the adjustment from the classroom to the work place.  Consequently, he went to work for the company where his father worked.  He was successful in this endeavor.  He found upward mobility achievable and the salary in the upper middle class range.  He remained in this employment until later in life when he was injured on the job and took early retirement.

My mother on the other hand was raised in a household where her parents were deeply in love, held hands daily until my grandfather died and never let anger rule the day.  Each were more concerned with the happiness of the other than their own.  They married on an Easter Sunday morning, when my grandfather was 18 and my grandmother was 19.

My grandfather was shy and reserved, but an incredibly intelligent man. He did not bear fools or foolishness well.  He worked in the oil and gas business and did well.  My grandmother was the post-mistress (as they called them back in the day) of their small Appalachian town.  I suppose now-a-days they might be called hillbillies.  But they were high school educated, honorable people who knew what loyalty and faithfulness meant.  Their integrity was above reproach.  Family was central to their lives, second only to their Methodist faith.

They tried for over 10 years to start a family.  When my grandmother finally became pregnant they were ecstatic.  Back in the early 1940’s when my mother was born, the father was not allowed in the delivery room and was not immediately allowed in the hospital room after delivery.  To catch a glimpse of my grandmother, my grandfather climbed the fire escape outside the hospital so he could look in the window.  He remained on the fire escape gazing from afar until they let him in the room to see my grandmother in person.

My grandmother had a difficult pregnancy, and it was soon decided she would have a hysterectomy, making my mother an only child.

After my mother’s birth, my grandmother became a full-time mother.  My grandmother was also the caregiver of ailing family members who lived in the family home.  Because the house was full, a couple of days a week my grandfather would ask that my mother be dressed and ready for him to take out on adventures when he came home from work. This soon became a routine my mother anticipated with great eagerness.

My mother did well in school and had a small, close-knit group of friends.  Throughout her school age years my mother battled her weight and was at times picked on because of it.  However, in high school she gained control of her weight and blossomed into a what people often referred to as a beautiful woman.

After high school, she attended junior college and received an Associate Degree.  She then attended the vocation training program my father attended.  She graduated at the top of her class.  She was very successful in her career and by the time she retired, after 35 years, she held the highest position possible in her given field.

My maternal grandparents idolized my mother and thus never made her do anything hard or uncomfortable.  She was raised as a southern debutante and as she matured she refused to relinquish that mentality.  She loved being seen by others as important, treated as extraordinarily special and praised for every infinitely small action taken.  I remember one time when I was about 7 years old we went to visit my maternal grandparents unexpectedly, on the spur of the moment.  They were so happy to see us.  I will never forget they were preparing two steaks for the grill, they had an extra potato to bake and said we would share it all and there would be plenty for everyone.  My mother became infuriated because no one offered to go to the grocery to buy a steak for her.  We got back in the car and drove 100 miles home after visiting 30 minutes.  This type of perceived slight happened often and would send her into a victim tailspin.

My maternal grandparents were incredibly generous people.  Throughout their lives, anytime they felt my mother needed something that was not being provided, they provided it.  One example would be when my grandfather retired, to celebrate his retirement, he bought my mother a dishwasher, so she would not have to hand wash dishes any longer.  They had a way of making everything in their lives revolved around my mother, even when it didn’t.

My parents were married in a large Catholic wedding in a beautiful cathedral.  The wedding party was 24 strong.  I heard it was breathtaking and one of the social events of the spring in the southern town where it was held.  They went to the beach on their honeymoon, accompanied by one of my father’s friends, which always struck me as a bizarre novelty.

After their honeymoon, they returned to their home and quickly began experiencing a flurry of fights, screaming, yelling, innuendos, hurled objects, broken dishes and doors.  My father would manipulate my mother by degrading her and emotionally abusing her.  My mother would manipulate my father by withholding sex.

Inexplicably, the oil and water partnership that is my parent’s marriage has survived, though it has never thrived.  They remain married, for better or worse. There has been suspicion of my father’s infidelity, but it was swept under the rug.  I once asked my mother if she ever considered divorce.  She responded “divorce no … murder maybe”.  To this day, I am still uncertain how to interpret the slight smirk which crossed her face when she said it.