Mommy Dearest

Juliana was born in Oxfordshire England on March 26, 1986.  It was a rainy day, (at least I am pretty sure it was since they all were in England), but as I have said many times, that day the light came into my life. What also came into my life just a few days later was my mom, Felicia Spencer.  OK, so she was always technically IN my life but she flew in from the states to "visit with me," although we all knew it was really to help me learn how to be a mom. Up to that point I didn’t have the typical mother-daughter relationship with my mom (whatever that is), but I was very excited for her visit and happy to have the help. I was a 20-year-old who had been living in another country for a year and half and I was way over my head with this whole new person. Thankfully right when I went to England I got a job working at the Air Force base childcare center because I didn’t know much about taking care of kids.  I have a younger brother and a younger niece so I knew the mechanics of it all. But really knowing what it would take to care for a child was as foreign to me as the country I was calling home: same language but very different culture. I did a little bit of babysitting here and there as a kid but I was much more comfortable doing homework than hopscotch.  Odd kid, I know. 

Anyway, my mom came to stay with us and during that month I got the chance to experience my mother in a whole new light. It was the first time I was allowed in as a peer because I actually brought something to the table we could relate to: a child. Although my mom spent a lot of my childhood appearing to be distant and harsh, this time was a gift to be able to see her as loving, fun and completely self-sacrificing. I would see this side of her many, many times in the years to follow as she flourished as a grandmother extraordinaire. But at that particular time, I was only just starting to open up to the idea that my parents actually cared about me. I eloped at 18 with all the spite and determination of a kid who "knew better" than her parents and yet, here was my mother, 4,000 miles from her home, showing me that she really did care. What I had been seeing all those years was really just her drawing the line between parents and kids. My parents made it very clear that they were not tasked with being our friends; we had people our own age to do that. They were there to be role models and disciplinarians. And although we all have examples of our parents and ourselves not always being the best role models, I know they did the best they could, even when they were strict—and boy were they strict. I didn’t get much of that strictness infused into my parenting style, although I can fake it pretty good when necessary. 

Take yesterday, for example. Our heroine Juliana has obviously made great strides in these last weeks as I have reported to you. She is healing from two significant life-altering surgeries and adjusting to an entire redefinition of medication coursing through her veins. She is physically stronger, mentally more accurate and emotionally happier (though we still have some distance to go on that one), which brings me to yesterday. One thing we know for certain is necessary to heal from a brain injury is rest. It is probably the only thing we do know for certain. It is the thing Juliana’s dad pushes for the most and it represents the time when all the work done during the awake hours ‘sets’ into your body and soul. That makes resting the best medicine in this whole recovery process. Not the only medicine of course but without rest, none of the rest of it can work. And Juliana’s need for rest has increased now that her body has taken such a step forward in healing, literally. Now that her day consists of walking to the bathroom instead of being wheeled there 15 times a day, she is working harder. And that has to come with a trade-off.  We saw it coming and had to shorten her day as a result. What was once a 9 p.m. bedtime is now more like a 7 p.m. ‘wind down’ with an 7:30 p.m. bedtime. But even at that, by 5 p.m. she is starting to get a little cranky. It has taken me a few days to figure out when her shutdown sets in but I can see it coming when she starts yelling at me for (what I consider) irrational things. 

I still haven’t gotten to last night yet, have I?  Sorry, OK so I was walking her to the bathroom at about 4:45 p.m. and she decided that was the time when she was going to get angry at me about something I said.  I am not sure what it was but it was likely, "straighten your leg" or "tighten your butt" or "shift your weight"— any one of the queue phrases that come with relearning how to walk. I really annoyed her. She took that moment, (as I am balancing her weight and mine) to show me how she could do the "angry hokey pokey." Picture this girl, already tremoring, waving her left arm in my direction and her right leg in the air mid-step shaking them all without a plan for execution. We both nearly went down.

I was mad.

At that moment, Felicia came out of my mouth. “If you do that again, you will NOT be going out with Sarah tonight!” (I am not sure if threats ever really work on kids who are adults with brain injuries but I am writing this "how to parent a brain-injured child" as I go so let’s just see…)

Not so much.

Yeah, she just got madder. Round two of hokey pokey and we really almost went down. Luckily I have gotten a lot better at weight shift prediction (not a real term I just made that up to describe what I have to do when walking her) and I was able to keep us both upright. At that point my husband Don saw that this was going nowhere good and came behind us with the wheelchair and helped neutralize at least one of the problems. I got Juliana into the bathroom where she sat and threw a major fit. She was yelling and hitting herself and demanding that she "better get to go out with Sarah." I listened outside the door, half-laughing and half really annoyed. That pretty much defines parenthood these days but it is better than scared and sad so I am not complaining, just explaining. What’s a mother to do?

Well, I will tell you what Felicia would have done. First of all the warning shot was delivered years before to my older siblings so there was never any need to give me a chance to "do it again." Once was enough and if the threat of not going out lingered in the air, that was the threat that was carried out, no question. 

So, I drew the sword that severed the plans for the evening and took my rightful place on the throne of "mean old mom": Juliana did not go out with Sarah. Felicia would have been proud but Juliana, she was mad, oh yes, she definitely was. She hated being treated like a child but I pointed out the obvious (that she was acting like one) and as you can imagine, that didn’t exactly please her either. 

Eventually she calmed down and we went about the evening as if it was forgotten.  I would love to be able to give you a sappy ending that included Juliana saying she was sorry and me saying I was as well, but I am pretty sure neither of us was at all. My mom is probably smirking in heaven saying, "Yep, that’s right, sometimes that’s the way it goes." Clearly she wasn’t the one with all the snappy lines. That would be Phil. Felicia was just right to the point, harsh or not. Phil would have said, “It’s nice to be liked, but it’s not necessary.”  It’s funny how my parents' voices fill my head so much that I wonder if any of my thoughts are even original anymore.  And to think I was the rebellious one.

Thanks for the lessons Felicia. I know you are resting in peace knowing you have done your job.  May 24, 1935–September 23, 2000.