Kimberly Castro
11/1/09
The SameGuilt is a terrible, complicated ailment. I often wonder if, being highly indecisive and at times insecure, I am more susceptible to self imposed guilt; the nonsensical, unexplainable kind that hovers like a faceless demon. I thought about this after a phone call two years ago. My mother’s voice sounded tired and slightly chiding through the receiver, “You know, Colleen was crying the night you left. She thought she was never going to see you again.”
My heart sank and my nose stung with threatening tears. The inexplicable demon rose once again to choke me. The night my mom was referring to was the last night I could stand living in that house. The house I had slept and ate and laughed and loved in for twenty years- no more, I was gone. I could remember how Colleen looked, sitting in the brown suede rocker, her chin resting on folded knees with a look of sad bewilderment. She watched me take my bags, one by one, into the snow. When I held the last one, I bent down to hug her and said “See you later, love you.” I could imagine her sobbing into the armrest after I had driven away, asking Mom where I had gone. I gave her no explanation, and no indication of when “later” might be, I was too distraught.
I’ll admit that running away (although at my age I don’t think that term is applicable) may seem somewhat courageous or daring, but believe me it isn’t. I in fact ran to my boyfriend Adam’s apartment. If I had been single, having little money and even less inclination to live independently, I might still be at home. I am not at home though, but I feel like I should be, like I own it to my sister. My childhood is over, but hers is happening right now as I write- in that same house, and I wonder how our conflicting experiences have and will continue to shape us. Everyone has a different family story, even siblings under the same roof. Time however, can be both cruel and magnanimous in what it gives to each of us.
♦♦♦
In 1987 my parents were different. They were vibrant newlyweds who had purchased their first home just two years earlier. I used to love flipping their wedding album, looking at a time before I was even a thought. In one photograph my mom, thin and twenty three, is holding up her lace gown exposing on her thigh a blue garter belt, while the ring bearer closes his eyes in mock embarrassment. In another, my dad, so handsome with black hair and a full beard, is gazing lovingly into my mom’s eyes. Sometimes I can’t believe they are the same people, but I bet they are thinking the same thing. The biggest difference though is not physical, back then they were in love. They had all the time in the world and the energy to match it. Maybe Dad will quit his job as a truck driver soon, because he’s been there since he was seventeen and hates it with a passion. Maybe Mom will go back to school to get her dental hygienists license. Maybe they will travel to all the exotic places they dream about. They can do it all.
This is the way I came into the world; with a pair of young, attractive, so-in-love parents with big dreams and plenty of time in a just-bought house. I was greeted with all the excitement and celebration on would expect for the first born, even more so by my paternal grandparents because I was their first grandchild.
My parents told us they were having another baby when I was in eighth grade. To say my initial response was less than enthusiastic is a generous understatement. I wasn’t expecting another sibling and I wasn’t about to abdicate my position in the attic, a bedroom for which I had patiently waited eight years. I think my parents were just as shocked and unprepared as my brother and I were. They were far removed from their 1987 selves, not just in age but in their outlook on life. I was aware that my mother had been contemplating divorce from my father whose drinking and bad temper had both progressed over the years. He was still at the same dead end job he had worked at and loathed for twenty five years. My mom had battled depression during and after her own mother’s losing battle with cancer. Our family had somehow grown cold, distant, and dysfunctional. I can’t say how or when, it just seemed to sneak up on us, but Colleen gave us some relief.
As I look back I wish I had shown more excitement and support for my mom’s pregnancy. I was selfish though. I never spoke of the baby or asked questions- nobody did really. I didn’t want to touch her stomach to feel the baby kicking or talk about what she might look like. In fact, I averted my eyes from the bump whenever my mom walked into the room. I’m ashamed of that now. Once Colleen was born though, everything changed. The first time I held her, I was overcome with a profound desire to protect and nurture her. It felt like I had given birth in a way.
Growing up, I remember family being such a large presence. We were big and boisterous and so happy. Thanksgiving and Christmas was a colossal event for both sides of my family, with dinners accommodating as many as thirty people at a time. Before anyone had died or gotten a divorce or moved away, we were just a room full of clamoring plates and laughter around a turkey. I remember hiding under the dining room table with my cousins after dinner, watching as our Grandma scooped dollops of whipped cream onto warm chocolate pudding, our eyes wide and mouths watering. My father’s parents especially doted on me, and some of my happiest memories are of building things with my Grandpa in his tool shed and helping my Grandma knead pizza dough, somehow always managing to wear the flour before I was finished.
It was a muggy, summer afternoon about six years ago, when a few of my family members were crowded around my aunt’s porch. My Grandpa was standing with my mom watching Colleen toddle up and down the sidewalk. He turned to her and said, “This one’s gonna keep you young.” They both laughed and for a second my mom did look much younger to me, not as tired. I felt safe then, like things were as they had always been, if only for a minute. Will she remember this when she is my age? Probably not, but there will be other things to remember.
The last Christmas dinner before I moved out was awkward and mostly silent. No pictures, no dresses or ties, no laughter- we were happy just to get through in one piece. It was only the five of us around the table, having long abandoned our large family gatherings. Half of our extended family had moved away, the other half was dead or not speaking to one another. We ate slowly, ignoring my parents’ attempts at conversation. I glowered at my dinner plate; my brother glowered at my Dad. The two of them been fighting about something hours before, and my mom had to practically drag Joey downstairs to eat. Halfway through the meal Joey bolted from the table screaming obscenities at something my Dad said to him and ran back up to his room. Feeling a brawl coming on, I exclaimed I was no longer hungry, dumped my plate in the sink and drove to Adams’ house. My poor Mom sat behind her half eaten turkey, eyes glassy and mouth turned down; she was infuriated but too exhausted to respond. As this was unfolding, Colleen sat eating her dinner, more or less unfazed. This was not an uncommon episode. I always felt guilty after fighting in front of my sister. I told myself I was contributing to her tainted childhood. Her memories would be poisoned, one day relayed in a sobbing voice, to a psychiatrist on a leather couch. I don’t remember too many fights between my parents when I was younger. I wonder if they were infrequent or if they were simply hidden from me?
Colleen never met my mom’s mother, who died of cancer two years before she was born, and by the time my sister was five, both my dad’s parents had passed away. My mom’s father is still healthy and active, but lives in Maryland so we see him maybe once a year. I suppose I’m angry that Colleen will never know our grandparents the way my brother and I did. She doesn’t experience the raucous holiday dinners with suits and dresses and family portraits. She isn’t spoiled by them with presents and candy for no reason. She has never swam in the murky lagoon with Grandpa or been lulled to sleep by one of Grandma’s stories.
What will she carry with her into adulthood? Maybe the feeling of rejuvenation brought to us by her arrival, the reanimation of a stale and angry family dynamic. She was a reason for all four of us to be in the same room and talk and laugh. Her momentous occasions, first Christmas and birthday, Baptism and others, led us to reminisce with family movies and photographs of our own firsts. Maybe her greatest memory will be of this newfound sense of hope she brought, a tiny light in the dark that was our great loss.
Am I trying to protect her from my own pain, anger and resentment? It is mine though, and I can’t ask her to share it. Do I color my perception of Colleen’s relationship with my father based on my own experience now? I know he loves us the only way he knows how, and my problem with him is not her problem to worry about. It’s her turn to be “Daddy’s little girl” and if it turns out that she grows up and has a healthy relationship with him I should be relived, not self pitying. Why can’t I let her make her mistakes and cry about them if she has to? Why have I concocted this immense guilt and carried it with me all this time- it is irrational. I realize it is more irresponsible, more selfish to deprive her of a unique and singular childhood. I cannot give her my childhood but I can and should be there for hers.
Colleen has something different than what I had. She has family spread to four corners of the country and cousins she goes several years without seeing. She has small, quiet Christmas dinners with plenty of arguing and a hand- me -down attic bedroom. She has parents who, although not so in love with each other anymore, would sacrifice everything to make her happy. She has a brother who teases her in the affectionate way characteristic only of older brothers and a sister who is more like a second mom. But I’m not her mother and I can’t pretend to be. She doesn’t need another Mom; she already has a strong capable, loving mother. What she needs is an older sister, a friend and confidante when she is older, a role model to be proud of. I should work on improving her future rather than trying to capture my past. We may argue frequently and harbor a lot of unresolved anger, but I have to stop dwelling on our flaws and start highlighting our redeeming qualities, at least for Colleen’s sake.
♦♦♦
“Can I talk to her please?”
My sister takes the phone from my mom and I hear her excited, munchkin voice, “Hi Kimmy. I was wondering if you can come over and play?” I realize then that she is perfectly fine. My leaving did not cause irreparable damage and I am not the horrible abandoner I imagined. “Yea Colleenikins, I’ll come over later. I miss you.”
To an outsider Colleen and I are as different as can be. I am fourteen years older and often mistaken for her mother. She has blonde cropped hair, a little snub nose and porcelain skin, resembling our mom. I take after my dad with an olive complexion and dark hair. Colleen is rambunctious and silly, I am introverted and private. I was the first grandchild and she was the surprise baby.
My memories are different from hers, but is different indicative of something worse or inadequate? Why do I try to compensate for what I think she is missing-maybe it’s all in my head. What is lacking or in excess may not be the point. She will have the same opportunities I had. She will have the same support system I had. The love she feels and reciprocates is the same, possibly greater. What more can I ask?
