I Am The Black Sheep …

… coo coo ca choo.

I was such a disappointment to my parents: just a whirlwind of energy and stubbornness and opinions and questions. They never expected that kind of daughter… I actually think I shocked them with my behavior, my way of thinking, my outlook on things. As if girls like me don’t really exist. Or if they do, they belong in other families. Families you whisper about in the neighborhood or schoolyard because one their kids are always in trouble. I had a mind of my own.

Years later, comparing notes with friends, I realized just how tame I was. I can’t imagine my parents dealing with some of the debauchery I’ve heard about my peers getting away with.

I had a dream about my mom the other night. We were just talking about normal stuff. I haven’t talked to my mom in a long time. And I don’t think we’ve ever had an actual woman to woman conversation. She hardly ever calls me. I wasn’t the daughter she intended to raise. I turned out all wrong. When I do talk to her, she expresses concern about Dylan and his Crohn’s disease, but she never calls him either. He’s sixteen. It’s not like he can’t talk.

The family had a big drama about ten years ago when Dylan got a nasty rug burn courtesy of my brother. He was visiting my parents, and of course, I got angry. My brother actually left town for the weekend (talk about acting guilty), leaving our mom to defend him. It was a mess. I told my mom that in future visits I would bring Dylan and stay until it was over. That pissed them off.

Through the summer of ‘99, I received several hateful letters from Mom and my brother’s wife. (I hate to call her my sister-in-law. She’s a piece of work. She’s never had any kids, and suffers from all kinds of invisible ailments that keep her from working or doing anything constructive. And having a child with a real illness, seeing someone fake it for attention makes me see RED!)

But I digress. Other than the hate mail campaign, no one made any effort to contact me. No one asked to see Dylan. Suddenly he wasn’t a person, he wasn’t part of the family, he was a point of contention. He was the black sheep’s son, and to get to him, well, you had to go through the black sheep.

My father, while not a genius, is still pretty evil. Instead of calling me like a normal person, he waited for Alabama’s Legislature to pass a Grandparents Visitation Law, which usually concerns only custody issues. For my dad, the ultimate control freak and not the brightest spoon in the drawer, this was the answer. He could just buy his way around me with a lawyer and sue me… for visitation with my 6-year old son.

I’ll never forget the day I pulled that letter out of the mailbox. I read it three times before I comprehended what it meant. I have never been as angry as I was at that moment.

To make a long story short, I consulted an attorney and settled it by letting my son make the decision. He started to have weekend visits, sometimes spending the night. I would be depressed the entire time he was gone. Everything he would tell me after the visits with my parents only reinforced my theories that they are completely nuts. When he was 7, he complained that they treated him like he was a baby. I guess they were trying to re-live a time they missed.

He got tired of them quickly and the more time passed, the less he wanted to visit. And because Dylan had the final say, not some judge, he didn’t have to see them if he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to.

This Christmas, a visit with my cousin gave me a new perspective on my parents. She made a comment on how much my father controls my mother, and how my aunts would comment on it. I started to wonder about my mother, who was always a quiet woman, without many opinions of her own. Unless she was afraid to express them.

To question my father was an invitation to argue.  Now, I am starting to see that she may be a victim of my father, only in a different way than my brother and I were. No wonder I get the feeling she is sneaking around if she does call me.

I have conflicting feelings now, with this realization: sympathy for my mother, anger that she sat quietly by and did nothing, and confusion… because there were times when she was verbally abusive herself. Was she just passing on the pain? Was she so young and unprepared that she didn’t know how to handle motherhood? Probably. She had me at age 20, after two years of marriage.

I am pretty sure I was a surprise, and not a welcome one. My mom was affectionate when I was little. I thought she loved me, and probably did. Until I turned into a teenager. I was such a smart-ass I guess it was easy to take out her stress on me.

My father worked two jobs at one point. He provided for us, but I felt some undercurrent of resentment and frustration. He was an angry person, a racist, a religious nut, and he tolerated nothing that differed from his narrow viewpoints. In retrospect, I can see that my mom feared him. But on the other hand, I cannot imagine a scenario where I wouldn’t protect my son from physical or verbal abuse, by anyone. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

It was actually ten years ago this year when my dad hired his lawyer. The Grandparents Visitation Law eventually died, like many other ill-conceived ideas. My parents have absolutely no contact with their grandson. If they have to talk to me, the black sheep, I guess they’d rather grow old alone. As strange as it is, that is their choice. And also their loss.

I sometimes wonder if my mom misses me… and all the years we didn’t even talk. I wonder if she looks at my dad and hates him. Or if she just came to accept it. And if I ever know the answer, would it make any difference?