The Painting Maybe Should Go in the Closet

We had company again. This time it was company that I have been very close to, since I was about 14. Shirt-tail relatives if you will. Important people in my life.

They had somehow never seen the painting before. Or should I say the copy of the the painting to be accurate. Let’s not forget it was a copy that my mother refused to give me.

It makes me wince even now. The first thing I asked her for after what 15 years? A sentimental copy, “NO!” what if my other daughter wants it? She will still get it— Unbelievable to me really, I so cannot relate. I cried. I cried for like three days. My mother was completely unmoved. “I love you” she would say.

Hmmmmmmm.

Well she showed me who was boss. I hope that was very satisfying for her because I paid a rather high price.

So anyway, they were instantly drawn to the painting and wanted to know why I had a painting of me dressed up like a sailor-nun.

That is how much the painting looks like me, people assume it is me. People who know me well. It causes people to gasp and put their hands over their mouth when I tell them it is not me.

They ask if that is what my mom looks like too. “No” I say and pause, “she thinks it does, or she has said that anyway. Do you think it looks like her?” I turn to my sweetheart. “No, not at all” he answers.

So the question that follows is, “What does your mom look like?”

I am surprised that they have never seen her. Words fail me, “Well she has a really big head” I start. Which sounds retarded. I mean her head isn’t really that big, like you don’t look at her and say, “now there is a big-headed woman” it is just bigger than mine.

“She’s dark” I say, “she’s all brown” I mean you can tell she is my mom, we have the same feet, only hers are brown and a bit bigger. I have little feet. Not as little as some people, but small enough to get commented frequently on that I have the “feet of a baby” which is weird. Tomtom does too. Lol.

Maybe I have a picture, I suggest. I do not keep my pictures well. I have a few albums but most are just thrown in a boxes and ignored until one day I come over and spill a cup of coffee on them and walk away.

I find one of my grandparents wedding day. She looks a lot like her, I say pointing to my grandmother.

I keep looking, “here are my brother and sister at Christmas” I hand the woman a picture/card marked 1997. They are both holding teddy bears from a department store that seems odd to me. They are sitting on either side of my grandfather who is infirm at that point. It is taken in my mother’s house. I never visited that house. I have never visited most of my mother’s houses. I was never invited.

I can see pictures of people important to my mother in the shelves behind my relatives. A weird picture of my mother’s face looming incredibly large over what looks like my brother and sister in the lower left. I remember that style. I have one on my agrandparents like that. I used to think it was hysterical because my grandfather looked like a giant floating ghost.

Where is your family now?

Erm. I sigh. This is not going to go well at all I can already tell.

Around. I make a gesture around the room as if they could be in any one of these many directions. Which is actually kind of true.

They continue to look at me. “Well my sister lives here” They perk up at that imagining I have a relationship with my sister, imagining they could meet her.

“we don’t speak though”

Why not they want to know.

“Well my mother’s husband never accepted me because he didn’t want step-children. So I was never allowed to know them, they grew up in a house where I was a secret, a source of contention between their parents, and now it is just weird”

Both these people ARE step-parents. They make faces, disapproving ones.

“That’s not right” they declare.

I laugh, “the funny thing is he claims he teaches people how to be more loving” I laugh that black kind of unhappy laugh that I hate to hear people laugh.

It is not funny, it is not right, but it is not my choice. I had no power.

I look down at the photo/chirstmas card again. My mom used to always send me things like that. Or form letter Christmas cards.

I am sorry that I had to experience that. Regardless of her reasoning, however many mothers are going to read this and then worry me that I don’t understand what she went through.

They are right, I don’t understand. I don’t share those values. I don’t treat my children or other people’s children like that under any circumstance.

I have done a lot of things I am not proud of in my life, but I have never treated anyone like that. Especially not someone who was a child to me. Un hunh.

Stay tuned for part two when my company decides to lecture and learn me on adoption and how that works out for them.

Oh and P.S. the really funny thing is that my sister WILL get the copy of the painting, and it looks like ME. Maybe she won’t want it after all…lol