Meet the Mother-in-Law

On, September 21, 2005, My husband’s mother’s body was discovered by his brothers. She died in bed at her rented house on Paragon Road in Palm Bay.

Yesterday was her ten year “deathiversary.” Days before, we talked about it while falling asleep. I knew her day was coming up, and I expressed my love and concern. Important days often sneak up on people, and I told him it was okay. He hasn’t ever really dealt with losing her, and I wanted to support him in his grief (or continued non-grief) in any way that I could. He casually shrugged it off, and I figured this day would pass by mostly unnoticed — as it has for numerous years. Sometimes, we’d take a deep breath, or I’d take him out to eat, but marking the day has amounted to nothing more than an annual sigh. Chris isn’t like a lot of people. He’s quiet about his personal struggles.

Greg, Chris’ Dad, sent an early-morning text message yesterday. In it he confessed to not having taken his wife’s death very well. He said he wanted to be a better father, a better man. He wants to get his “shit together.” Chris saw this as an extremely big step. One his Dad has needed to take for a long time.

He cried while reading his Dad’s message. He wanted to take me up on my offer. We would visit Regina’s grave.

Being me, I lathered us up in sunscreen. We joked that since his Mom was already burning, there was no use in us joining her. Dark humor is what initially sparked my attraction to Chris. While some people would be deeply offended- guys like us know pain. Sometimes we delight in it. Life is uncomfortable, so we make light of it.

“She’s been sober for ten years today.” We smirked, and quietly corrected ourselves. There’s no chance she didn’t drink the day she died, so technically, we should celebrate her sobriety tomorrow. I trailed off into a line of thoughts about whether or not embalming fluid counts as alcohol, and if all those poor souls in AA will receive one final insult- Alcohol in their blood. I didn’t look into it.

Chris’ Dad has always been a pragmatist. Regina was served by the geographically closest funeral home to their house on Paragon road. She’s buried in the attached cemetery. As we drove south down Babcock Street., we gently joked about how practical his Dad is — to the point of impracticability. This is a man who buys individually-wrapped baking potatoes for $1.00 each, rather than a whole bag for $2.30. “Yeah, but these are baking potatoes,” he said, convinced that having the word “baking” on the label imbued them with extra magic potato powers. Our little conversations passed the time as we made our way to the cemetery in our beaten-up black dodge truck with a mismatched forest green topper.

Just as practical as Chris’ Dad, We arrived in the summer heat of Florida’s early afternoon. Sweat dripped off of our faces as we Google Mapsed our way through the “Gardens of Eternity” section of Fountainhead Memorial Gardens. Although her burial plot is only a fifteen-minute drive, this was my first time visiting her grave in the eight years I’ve known my husband. I believe that grief is a very personal struggle. I would never presume my presence is desired in such a private space. We share everything, but our relationship is beautiful, sacred. We do our best to avoid presumption. There’s no reason to insist that I be everywhere. He would invite me in his time.

There’s also the very practical, cold truth. Regina is a mess of bones and embalming fluid sealed in a casket shielded by a vault. She is dead. She can’t talk back — only rot. She will never hear the wind chimes singing in the sea breeze from the nearby mossy oak. She will never answer for the years of cruelty she strangled her sons with. She is as disinterested today as she was when blood coursed through her veins.

She wasn’t a nice person when she drank.

She drank every day.

The Putrefaction of Regina Parlier

How should a nineteen year old boy and his brothers bury their abuser? Where do painful years rot? Where will her excuses, violence, and cruelty decompose? Did they fit in her casket? Are they buried, shielded by a vault, deep inside my husband’s heart? Do they lie undisturbed, unvisited, for years — just a fifteen-minute drive away? Did she seep into his soil? Does her memory poison grass, pollute groundwater, and strangle its surroundings? As her flesh broke open and toxic formaldehyde seeped out, where did their memories of drunken violence, spoiled Christmases, and her unquenched anger go?

How does someone memorialize a person they tried so hard to avoid? Her cigarette-smoke and abuse-laden rants punctuated her beer-stained cruelty. Holding their breath, my husband and his brothers steeled themselves against her insults and victim-playing. There was always a reason to pick up another drink. There was no hope for kids attempting to intervene.

Moms are supposed to cheer us on. They nurture us. They remind us to be socially aware and kind. They push us to become better people. How does one give such a lofty, sweet title, “Mom’ — to someone so desperately blaming the world for her problems? How does one forgive Dad’s acceptance — allowing his vicious wife’s tendrils to wrap themselves around their kids? How many Pokémon cards, books, and video games does it take erase drunken slaps to the face? I ask because my husband and his brothers still haven’t found enough.
 
 No one ever wanted to be like her when they grew up. Not even her. Although she flunked out of rehab, she HAD GONE to rehab. She hoped for a better tomorrow as she sucked down booze and smoked her heart into failure.

With three hurting sons, a broken husband, and a family that still needs a Mom, the matriarch of my husband’s family is ten years sober.