Chapter 2: Have you ever been the parent to your parent?

My mom. Such a hard person to describe. How can you love and hate someone so much all at the same time? It’s very duplicitous and a daily struggle for me.

My mom was adopted when she was 22 months. She was rescued from an awful situation. I was told that she and her brother had been locked in a room as infants/toddlers and were severely neglected for extended periods. I will not go into all of the harrowing details, but the abuse is far beyond anything one should survive. My mother had the odds stacked against her from the beginning.

My earliest memories of my mom were from when we lived with my grandma. I was probably 3 or 4 years old. My mom had a record player, and we used to sit and listen to the Eagles, Barry Manilow, Led Zeppelin, and other greats.

My mom had a great singing voice, and I remember looking up at her when she would sing thinking she was so beautiful. She had red hair that she preferred we call strawberry blonde, greenish eyes, and was very petite standing at 5'3". When she was happy, she was so much fun. But this was rare and as time went on, almost never.

On the other side of that coin, I never called my mother “mom.” Ever since I can remember, I called her Marcia. I viewed my grandmother as my mom and my mom as a peer. There were many reasons for this, but mostly because my mom lived in an alternate reality, one that which she really only occupied.

I don’t remember exactly when I figured out my mother was not what some would refer to as typical, but I think I had an idea pretty early on.

When I was in early elementary, she showed up at the school to pick me up but had brought along with her a fake badge. She was telling all of my classmates that she was a police officer. She had handcuffs as well and was carrying them and telling almost everyone that she passed. She believed this whole-heartedly, and this went on for some time until I told her to stop, that she was not a cop.

Later, we had various celebrities that all of a sudden were family members. My favorite that lived on for a long time (and probably still to this day) is Billy Ray Cyrus. My mother maintained with everything she had in her that he is her brother. She would, of course, tell everyone that’d listen to her about her trips to Nashville and how she would stay with Billy Ray in his mansion.

Then there were beliefs that people were trying to kill her or her random threats that she was going to commit suicide. My brother and I were little when I remember these threats starting. She would tell us that she was just going to kill herself then run out the door and hide in the cornfields. My brother and I would wander around in the fields looking for her crying as we were worried that our mom was going to die.

This is just a small snapshot of what my 14 years with my mother was like. All I ever want, and still want today, is a normal mother.

Every night for years, I used to say the same prayer to a God that never came through for me.

“Dear Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for another day. My grandma always tells me that you have a special plan for me. But all I really want is a normal mom, in a warm and clean home, and to not be afraid every day. Please God, give me a normal family”.