i wrote to him:
….anyway, fuck DAG, i wish you could have met my mom. met my dad. sat around with my brothers with a football game on tv. you would have fit in so beautifully. i wanted so badly to tell everyone about you. i never did. fuckfuckfuck…. i can fucking see you there.
and oh darlin’, i cut them (even my dad) off for so long—since my mom died. i don’t know how to get back. i miss everything. when i told my brother to turn off my mother’s oxygen, that was it. i was so bitter. they, my sister and brother and even my father looked at me to make the fucking decisions. all i wanted was for once not to have to be the “strong” one, the fucking “leader”. i watched her dying for two days. she would awaken every once in awhile and either tell me what i wasn’t doing right or indulge me in my last pain—three days before she died, Shane was going through my books and throwing most in a large trash can, i climbed into her bed because the losses—not only the books—were too much and though she was dying, she somehow wrapped her arms around me and told me she loved me and it would be okay. that was the last truly conscious moment i had with her. her rage during the dying wasn’t her. i sat with her for two days. watching her chest make it’s jagged rise. waiting for the moment the breath would no longer come.
Shane and my sister (in-law), both RN’s, were in charge of mom’s medications. they gave her liquid morphine every few hours. i asked Shane how much it would take to give a fatal dose. but he wouldn’t do it. so in the end, it was just us–me, my sister and brother. and they would have never done it. and i’m so fucking resentful. so fucking angry that they couldn’t for fucking once let me be the younger one.
when my (our) oldest sister, Karen, died, they were like fucking children. i was only 22 and everyone wanted me to take over–even my brother (in-law—Karen’s husband). i wasn’t ready. i couldn’t be Karen. i couldn’t keep it together. and i’m so so fucking angry at her for dying. she left me with THIS. she fucking left me alone with mom’s death. i didn’t want to be the leader. i wanted someone to step up and be bigger.
i never mention this—except in a few short stories. Karen died in October and that Thanksgiving the fucking switch was made. Karen was no cook but for whatever reason, she always did the mashed potatoes on holidays. the thanksgiving after her death i walked into my parent’s house and the fucking potatoes were cooked and the mixer set up but no-one would touch the job. i walked in and there was this collective outlet of breath and my mom asked me to mash the potatoes. i stood there, Darrel (Karen’s husband), my brother, and my sister staring at me. it was such a banal task but under the weight of expectation and need, the import was staggering. i looked at all those daggered eyes and took on the job.
the job, i didn’t quite realise, would be forever.
they regard me as their “strong one” and i’m so so tired.
Karen. we had just become friends—like sisters—when she died. despite our 21 or so years age difference, we were very close. she was truly my sister—unlike my other “sister”.
she would call me up to discuss her teenage daughter. we would get together over lunch to discuss men and sex and etc… with her i finally thought i belonged in this family. once, before we were “friends”, we actually got into a fist-fight—afterwards, she took me out, bought me drinks, and gave me smokes.
oh fuck! it’s been so long. but i miss her. i miss her so much. i could tell her anything. fucking Karen! fuck you fuck you fuck you.
i’m sure i told you, my brother and sisters are genetically related to my dad—they’re his biological nieces and nephew. this has always been a problem for me. although my mother is not genetically related, she had her genetic family. so though my mother and i are alike in our non-relationships to our immediate family, she had her husband to cement her to the family. i came in as a refugee—some half breed from the leaking bowels of poverty-driven desperation; i came in tainted through the ridiculous couplings of my bio father and mother. the adoption agency told my parents that the only reason that they—at 39 years old—could adopt me was because i was “mixed” and no-one else would want such a baby. yeah, my difference became a huge source of anguish. my dad is pretty much 100% English and my mom is pretty much 100% German and i’m a fucking wetback. great. and my fucking sisters and brother and all their kids look like my dad and i look like like some fat kid they picked up in Tijuana. and then there are the relatives that thought i was a pretty baby and kid and only accepted me because i’m not “dark”.
my family was subtlety racist. i heard many many jokes about “wetbacks” and other minorities. it never bothered me. i didn’t know. nor did my parents. they thought i was indian (american)—which is so much better than mexican. i grew up believing i was indian. being Mexican was pretty damn bad. our dog only bit Mexicans. i saw the Mexicans everyday in our country store (before our other business) and my parents didn’t really like them—despite their “okie” roots. my siblings would make racist jokes. but it was all okay because, although i was darker, i was Indian.
i didn’t find out until after [S] was born. and it was difficult. i remember the day i found out. mom had been doing some research for me and she told me that despite what they had been told, i was not indian but mexican. it took me weeks, months, maybe years…. to be okay with this. not only was there racism but almost 25 years of assumptions.
i’m no fucking saint and this was a blow. suddenly i was no longer the noble savage but a dirty wetback. it may seem stupid, but it was hard. strangely, by this time, my parents had mellowed and took this news easily and matter-of-factly. i, however, was mired in internalised shit and the destruction of my entire constructed history—and my parents didn’t think anything of it. fuck! i loved them more than ever. seriously. i can’t even tell you what it was like to find out your entire history was untrue. can’t tell you what it was like to be forced to confront your own prejudice and beliefs.
i loved being “Indian”.
i hated being Mexican.
since accepting the truth, i’ve been trying to find some middle ground. the problem being, there isn’t such a thing.
i have no family.
and perhaps this is the next Act. alienation. outsider. belonging yet never belonging. (maybe, this has been IT all along…. outsider. wanting something, yet not knowing exactly what).
a man in the supermarket yesterday spoke to me in Spanish. i said, sorry? he replied, oh, i thought you would speak Spanish.
anyway, sorry for all this. yikes!
