My Grandmother, Aunt, and Mother

Greetings All!

It's been a while since I wrote a piece about my life, but a few recent events have me thinking about this sort of thing some more. This topic is interesting as it's not something I would have really thought about until recently and I didn't really have the full picture of it until I heard stories from both my mother and my cousin. So first a little bit of context, the aunt I'm talking about is my mother's sister. The cousin I refer to is her daughter (she also had a brother who I reference to). I should also say that this cousin is one of the few family members I still talk to, which is a WHOLE different topic for another time. Though if you read my previous post about "Growing up Straight and Catholic" she's the same cousin I refer to in that one. Finally, the grandmother I'm talking about is the one on my mother's side.

In this day and age, I know that a lot of the younger generations have tried to really learn from the mistakes of our parents. Steven Universe actually is a really good show for talking about and dealing with that. Movies like Encanto, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, Turning Red, and even Strange Universe to a degree have dealt with this topic and really brought it to the forefront. I actually think it started all the way back in the '80s with Breakfast Club, which honestly you should see if you haven't it's a classic movie for a reason.

The thing is that when our parents were young and growing up mental health wasn't really talked about, at least not in a way that was healthy. Most conversations centering around mental health were something like, "You only need to see a psychiatrist if you're crazy," or "Just suck it up and take it," or "I went through it and I turned out fine." Well, it's been a long time since those days and I'd like to think that most younger people now know that those statements aren't true. And i think knowing what we know about mental health now, it's easy to see how things may have affected our parents.

I guess let's begin with my grandmother since that is where it all starts. She was first generation Mexican American as he mother moved to the U.S. during the Mexican Civil War. There's an interesting story that, my mother told us all the time. Apparently, her mother (my great-grandmother) lived on a farm in Mexico and one night Pancho Villa's soldiers came by the farm. The family hid her because apparently they were wandering around just looking for young girls to rape....because that's how things were I guess (I mean the stress of fighting a revolution does take its toll on you....). Luckily they managed to hide her and the soldiers went away, but after that, it was decided that it was too dangerous to remain in Mexico and her family made plans to send her to the U.S. which she eventually did and then eventually had my grandmother.

My grandmother was born in 1919 and for the most part, lived an uneventful life. She grew up poor during the Great Depression so I do feel some sympathy for her there as that generation went through so much hell. I can understand that when you grow up with those things hanging over you it can take a toll on your mind, body, and soul. I want to state this not as an excuse, but again more for understanding. For the sake of this story let's skip to when she got married and had my mother and her sister.

Now I only ever knew my grandmother as an old woman (side note: it's so weird sometimes to think of, but it's an experience all of us have had. We've all met people who were much older than us. Sometimes it's hard to imagine them as younger people. Especially because of the old saying that "wisdom comes with age" it's so weird to think of someone you knew as old, being young and acting in a different way.) So for a long time, I thought of my grandmother as nothing but a sweet old lady. She looked the part too, as she got older she was very frail, she spoke slowly, and she had white hair. In fact for the rest of her life (she died at 93) that's really the only way I knew her, and of course, no one in the family ever spoke ill of her.

It honestly wasn't until after she died and my mom and I were going through our own issues that I really started to learn what she had been like growing up. For a long time my mother and I were not close (you'll see why later in this entry) but as we started becoming closer and talking about things that we had never talked about before that's when I learned about what my grandmother had actually been like when raising my mom. According to my mom, she liked to play favorites with her kids and would routinely favor my mom's sister. So much so that she would frequently pit my mom and her sister against each other in any sort of competition. She would also show favoritism to this sister and side with her in arguments over my mom

It really was surreal to learn about my grandmother, but it did explain some things that I never understood before. For one my mom and her sister are not close, and according to my mom, they never were. Whenever we had family gatherings I had noticed this, but I was young at the time so I never really paid it much mind. While growing up my mom and her sister still talked and were at least friendly towards each other at these gatherings, but growing up they never had a close relationship, and that continued into adulthood. More things would happen over the years that would cause my mom and her sister to grow even more distant until they finally stopped talking to each other after my grandmother's death.

So with that let's move on to that sister (my aunt) and talk a bit about her. Again I didn't see her much outside of family gatherings, and to be honest most of what I know about her is relayed to me from my mom and cousin. I've never had any sort of close relationship or conversation with her so maybe there are things that happened to her that I don't know about.

What I do know, again didn't learn until much later in life, is that she would frequently beat her kids, oftentimes for no reason. In addition to that she loved to inflict emotional abuse on them too whenever they would do something wrong. None of us knew this growing up and whenever I would see my cousins they were always in a happy mood and never talked about it or showed signs of it. I actually lived with them for a while and even they never talked about it, at least not at first. As the three of us grew closer we would eventually talk about things our mothers did that we didn't like (seeing as our mothers were sisters) we would sometimes compare them to each other. And one night the topic came up and they just sorta told me. I remember how I felt, being just floored about how that had happened, and unsure of what I could really say in response....

As time moved on, and after my grandmother died, my cousins would eventually stop talking to their mother. Or to be more accurate their mother would disown them (talked about this in another post, but she couldn't accept that her daughter was gay, and the brother in support of his sister also stopped talking with her). I think the last time they ever saw her was at my grandmother's funeral. This was around the same time that my mother stopped talking with her sister. They were going through their own drama, but my mom would eventually learn about what her sister did to her kids. This was basically the end of me, my brothers, my mom, and my cousins ever really seeing that side of the family. I think 2009 was the last Christmas I ever had where I would see all of them (My mom had 2 other siblings who have families of their own.) We all just decided it was too toxic an environment to be in and instead started having our own Christmas celebrations. At the time that I wrote this entry, we're all getting ready for one right now!

So I guess that brings me to my mother. Now that you've seen what I talked about with both my grandmother and my aunt, you might see the kind of environment my mother grew up in.... I think that contributed to some of the problems she had.

So if you're wondering why my mother and I used to not be close, well she took after her sister (a bit) and was all too fond of spankings as a punishment when I was a kid. To her credit, I never felt that she "beat" me but it still hurts getting hit with a wooden stick. Though it didn't hurt as much as getting called useless, pendejo, etc.

Yeah, growing up my mother was the kind of person who whenever I screwed up or made a mistake would use some variation of "You're useless." Sometimes in addition to that, I would get hit too. She was also fond of using the whole, "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about," phrase, which I'm sure some of you have heard from your parents as well. Sometimes that phrase would be employed right after a spanking with the threat of even more spanks if you didn't stop crying. She was also the kind of parent who wanted us to do things when she asked and not question her orders. She never apologized for anything she did, even when she may have been in the wrong.

Aside from that, my mother was one of those who pushed us a lot to succeed, though again often chastising us when we got bad grades. One thing I should mention is that she was one of the first in her family to go to college and even got her Master's Degree from USC! That is quite an accomplishment and I think that's a big reason why she wanted us to do well in school and go to college. Whatever else I end up saying about my mother I will say this, I can appreciate what she tried to do with us growing up and that she tried to give us a better life than the one she had. We would go on family vacations, she'd send us to summer camp, have us do other extracurricular activities, etc. I know I said some negative things about her, but there were good moments growing up to, and I as I got older I do look back on those and realize that my mother (whatever her other faults) did try to make a good home for me and my brothers. It's one of those things you might not think about as a kid, and it really isn't until you get older that you start to see just how much your parents (at least good ones) did for you as a child.

With that said I still carried a lot of anger towards her as I got older and never really looked forward to spending time with her. There was a long period during and after college where we rarely spoke to each other and I did everything in my power to avoid her. It also didn't help that I was going through a really bad spiral of depression and had gained a lot of weight (my mom would often make cruel comments to my face about that whenever I saw her).

But thankfully that period of time would end. A lot of it has to do with my dad, and what he did to my mom (which, unfortunately, is ANOTHER story to tell for another time) But the short version is my mom and dad got divorced, and after that, my mom started going to therapy. She went for a long time too, and it was during this period of time that she asked if I wanted to go too. I was honestly surprised but accepted the offer (I was still struggling with depression at the time) I started going to her therapist and it eventually led to both of us having sessions together, where I finally told her how I hated things she had done and said to me as a child. I told her how that made me feel and how I didn't like it. Imagine my surprise when she actually apologized and said she wanted to try and do better. Imagine my further surprise when over the years....she did.

She hasn't used any demeaning language towards me since and our relationship has improved. She told me she was concerned about my weight as she wanted me to be healthy and have a good life and has helped me to try and improve that in a more positive manner (instead of simply insulting me) it makes me want to try and do better in that regard (though I admit I don't always succeed.) And it's because of this improved relationship that now we talk about personal things. It's how I learned about all the drama that went on with her mother and sister. I think the other good thing about fixing this relationship is that I got to finally see a more compassionate side to my mother. She's retired now but spends a lot of her time serving on boards for various charities and non-profits. She volunteers a lot despite being older and devotes a lot of her time to try and help the less fortunate and has instilled in me and my brothers the idea that we need to give back. Despite having different personalities I'd like to think that I get my sense of compassion and empathy from her.

Now every year we have a small Christmas. It's me, my brothers, my mom, and those two cousins (they still don't speak to their mother, and consider my mom more of a mother than she is) It's a small gathering, but all of us enjoy being around each other. We all love each other and we have a good time! I guess at the end of the day it all did work out and whatever else is going wrong in my life I am glad to have this!

Despite being close, my mom doesn't know my name on the internet, it's part of the reason I was okay writing this, though she's not really online that much either. Even so, I don't know if I'll ever tell her, maybe....someday. I wonder what she'd think if she read this....

After reading this entry you might now understand why that song, "Every Part of You" affects me so much. It's really hard for me to listen to that song without crying....

"Where was I when you said you were drowning

In the ocean that I had thrown you in

How was I so certain of my piety?

To be blind to how you begged for it to end?"