The Christmas of my childhood
reckoning with happy memories
I have very few happy memories of my mother. (My mom is alive, we have been completely estranged for four or five years.) As an adult, I’ve consciously developed more empathy for her. She and I are very different people. We were, at least, when we knew one another. We fought constantly. I see the world in shades of gray, a society with very few moral absolutes. She sees everything with stunning clarity. Wrong is evil, right is just. She always, immediately, knows which way to sort any action. I remember, with fondness, many conversations where my mom complained about a perceived injustice. How could a person do that? I always understood how and I always understood that she was uninterested in hearing my guess at a person's reasoning. I never understood how people could categorize everything so quickly, without sorting through the motivations of all parties.
My mom did many things wrong. My mom did not do everything wrong. All five of her children function reasonably well. She prioritized our education, even if she didn’t always understand how to help us succeed in school. She was very funny, a biting social critic. She was clever, a phenomenal baker. She had great taste, she always knew just how things should look.
I grew up in a flea infested hoarder house, the water and electricity were turned off frequently. The furniture was beautiful, meticulously collected from estate sales. The walls were painted unexpected, sophisticated colors. I also find value in taste. I’m thankful I’ve inherited that from her.