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Mother-Daughter Reflections On This Mothers Day

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Mom-babymeMother’s Day has been sneaking up on me little by little this year. I mean, I think about my mother just about everyday but lately thoughts of our relationship throughout my lifetime have been presenting themselves in different ways. Even though, and probably in spite of Alzheimer’s disease, I considered the last years of her life a coming to terms time for us. We were able to put aside the past and accept each other for who we each were without fault. That was monumental.

As far back as I can remember in childhood, my mother was not like other mothers. First of all she worked a lot and although I didn’t know it at the time, a career is what she had aspired for herself since she was a child. It wasn’t easy for her, because at some point during her early teenage years, she developed a disorder, which would go on to cripple her life for the rest of her days. OCD is a disorder that completely changes the way a person thinks and perceives things and in turn with how they are able to react to the world around them. It can show it’s ugly head in many ways, but for my mother, OCD manifested itself with a fear of germs. She spent her life alienating herself from people, not touching them and also keeping herself from touching most things around her, both inside the house and out. She spent a lot of times washing and re-washing her hands, over and over and over again until she was raw, day after day, year after year. I believe that Howard Hughes had the same disorder.

Eleanor_Sarter_Lynn_3With that being said, having me wasn’t exactly in her plan, nor did it make her life easier, but being a young, beautiful and vibrant woman, seemingly in love, she made the best of the situation. From everything I can see in our old family photos, she both welcomed and loved me after my birth. In the photographic trail that I have, early on it looked like a pretty normal family from the outside, although I’m sure that she was struggling with her problem with every minute. Of course, over time, her symptoms got worse and the marriage fell apart, leaving my mother to take me and leave home. I remember that I was about five years old. We went from apartment to apartment to Ozone Park where my grandparents lived to Jackson Heights through the years, and looking back, we very much lived separate lives under the same roof. It seemed normal to me because it was all that I knew.

Being younger, I really didn’t understand that we were different than most of the other families around. Once I got to about 5th grade, I was well aware of the differences because I started to make friends and visit their houses after school while my mother was at work. I spent a lot of time at my friend’s homes because it felt very good, very right. In a sense though, I really didn’t know or understand why we were different because back then there was no name for OCD, I had no understanding of what was going on. We were living one day at a time, never thinking of the next day.

Eleanor_lynnIn reflection, what I know for sure, I am today the person I am as a result of the environment I grew up in. Although I consider myself to have turned out pretty good considering, with her goodness rubbing off on me, I find that I too am different than other people around me, but in a very different way than my mother. I of course, don’t have OCD, but I do have walls built around me, which was a learned behavior. I can be secretive and very much a loner, being very reclusive. I rarely feel comfortable socializing in crowds and don’t go out of my way to socialize. Not that I am antisocial, but I feel more comfortable by myself. I guess I’d say I am social on the inside, but not so much on the outside, although there are always exceptions.

Yes, I’d say that my mother’s OCD affliction affected me to some degree, but I don’t blame her in any way…she absolutely couldn’t help it and did the best that she could. I admire her for loving me the way that she did through all of her problems and bumps in the road, right till the end. Now, I understand her and why she was compelled to act the way she did and more over, I am learning everyday what behaviors that I have walked away with as a result. It’s taken me most of my adult life to understand why I am such a loner with such high walls. Actually, in hindsight, it was Alzheimer’s disease that brought closeness and understanding to a lifetime in our relationship.

My mother Eleanor Van Meter was a very strong woman who was dealt a bad hand in life, who still managed to deal with her issues on her own, support me, even if only by phone and still remain the classy lady that she was.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

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Remembering Mom, Our Struggles, Our Blessings and Dementia on the First Mother’s Day After

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Eleanor_Sarter_Lynn_4  Mom-babyme

It’s been 8 months since Mom passed from her dreaded diseases and the first Mother’s Day since, is upon me. At this time, I can’t help but reflect on our relationship over the years, both with dementia and before dementia and Alzheimer’s worked it’s evil magic.

My mother, Eleanor Van Meter, had always wanted a career, going as far back as her childhood. Some kids dream of being married with kids and others yearn to be in the business world, in the big city, as in the case of my mother. As a matter of fact, we had that very discussion after she came to live with me. She admitted that motherhood and having children wasn’t on her list of things to do and that working and career had been her big dream in life. But, as fate would have it, “oppsey”…I came along, much to her surprise. I’m sure my arrival put quite a damper on her plans in the business world but she stepped up and made the best of it, dealing with it in the best way she was able at the time, with the help of her parents, my grandparents. I think that even with all the adversities and bumps in the road throughout the years, I turned out okay. That means to me, that she did good!

Photos: above: (1) Mom and Me, on vacation, (2) Mom and Me at a few months old. Below: (3) Mom and Me at Greenwood Lake, (4) Mom with her grandchild Shad

Eleanor_lynnI remember that conversation as if it were yesterday, although in reality it was about 4 years ago. She was already in the throws of dementia but it wasn’t at the crippling stage at that point, so thankfully, our conversations were both informative and memorable. Even though nobody would especially choose to hear that kind of news, I wasn’t surprised, nor was I resentful. I guess, I kind of sensed it as I was growing up. Looking back at childhood, there wasn’t a time that I can remember that Mom wasn’t working in NYC at some big company, leaving in the early morning and arriving back home at night. I was alone a lot, coming and going pretty much whenever the spirit moved me. Everybody, including my mother, was entitled to live out their dream and although life wasn’t easy back then for either of us, she adequately provided for me. We were far from well off financially and there were times that I walked around with holes in my white keds and looking like a ragamuffin compared to my friends, but hey, that was the style back then…bobby sox and keds with holes in the toes! It’s ok…I was never hungry and always had a roof over my head. Also, a lot of time was spent at my grandparent’s house and I loved being there too so it was all good. They didn’t work and I felt very comfortable with the dynamic and normalcy of that household, which I’m sure, is part of the reason that I am as normal as I am today.

As a kid, I recall meeting Mom every night at a designated spot after she got off the train from work and we would go to eat dinner out together. We would go to Jahn’s, get Chinese take out, sit at the Hamburger Express and watch the train deliver our burgers or just get a pizza. We didn’t eat home much, which probably accounts for my lack of expertise in the kitchen and my disinterest of home entertaining! I could choose to look at this in one of two ways….one, we were so different than my friends who had home cooked meals every night, boo-hoo….or two, none of my friends got to eat out every night, so I’m pretty lucky! I chose the latter way to think of it! Actually today, I almost never get to eat out anymore, so it’s looking pretty appealing to me!

shad_momI have memories of Mom trying to wake me up in the morning to go to school…probably around the grade school days. She’d come in my room full of energy and determination, singing “You’ve got to get up, You’ve got to get up, You’ve got to get up in the morning”.  It sounded like an army style thing with a bugle, something that she might have picked up during her growing up years…but I can remember her singing like it were yesterday. After the song, she would bring in a cup of tea, sometimes different types of tea such as Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Oolong or English Breakfast tea. She is the one who introduced me to tea and the different varieties that I still love to this day.

I also remember the day I turned into a girl from a tomboy, as we stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom trying to figure out how to make my hair into the perfect Flip with a headband, just like Patty Duke’s hair. The headband style loomed large in my transformation as I recall. Even though we were not like most mothers and daughters, she tried to do good things for me as best she could as I was growing up. It wasn’t easy either since I was quite a handful being a hyperactive child with very rebellious tendencies.

As adults, our relationship was mainly by phone since she had moved to California back in the 70’s. In California, she married the love of her life Dwight Van Meter, and I was living life hippie style on Long Island…Age of Aquarius! We sure did go through a lot of stages through the years. But we had great conversations, mostly on Sunday nights just as her and her own mother once had in adulthood. We talked about everything, the happenings of the day and week, the dogs and their antics, about her job and books that she might have read. Later, we talked about writing and illustrating a children’s book together, which never came to fruition, although, I’ve considered following through with writing it in her memory. There were a lot of little things that were left unsaid due to her disease that I now wish I had said, but even though, I feel that we did come to terms together with our relationship…and she came to terms finally, with her OCD disorder that crippled most of her life.

No, life wasn’t perfect…she wasn’t a perfect or typical mother and I wasn’t a perfect or typical kid, we were just human. BUT…she was my mother and I was her kid and we both did the best we could in an imperfect world with the cards that we were dealt. I don’t have a lot of early memories, but I will remember her by the ones that I do have. Our time together this time around didn’t come with huge, monumental happenings and events, we were simple people coming from simple beginnings living a very simple life. Hopefully, through the years, little memories of the past will come back to me and I will consider them a visit from my mother.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom, wherever you are!

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Mother’s Day, Dementia and Life Lessons

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It was Mother’s Day a few weeks ago and I have found myself doing a lot of reminiscing and soul searching since then. Life with my mother wasn’t always an easy one and I wasn’t always an easy kid to live with either. Mom was burdened with her OCD disorder which in itself was a total life disruption for a kid. It made daily life a struggle for the both of us. There was nothing normal about our lifestyle and if you were the sort of person who craved a close family life similar to the all American Cleavers, it was a daily challenge.

I was a tomboy for as long as I could remember as a kid. As I got close to 12 years old, I also became quite rebellious having seen how my friend’s families were living and interacting at home. It created a lifelong yearning for the large and close knit family, which I am sure is why I love the Walton’s tv series so much. I’ve seen every episode about a million times and it doesn’t look like I will give it up any time soon. Makes me feel as if I am home when I watch shows like the Walton’s and Little House on the Prairie. Probably not realistic, but there you have it. It works for me to project myself into those families.

With all that said, I’ve been reflecting about the years of my life living with my mother, the years raising my children and how, even though I was acutely aware of my mother’s insufficiencies as a parent when I was growing up, I seemed to have acquired a complete lack of knowledge on how to relate to children. Under the circumstances, it was no big surprise. I swore I would never be like her, and I am very much my own person but having been brought up in that atmosphere, there’s no way you can come out without bringing some baggage along with you. I may not be carrying the heavy weight of the OCD affliction, thank goodness, but there’s something there, something that I can’t put my finger on, something that prevents me from moving forward in life.

I was clearly a product of my earlier environment. I can look back and see that now and although I wish that I could have a redo, I know that there are no “command z’s” in life. There are no redos…there are just the memories of yesterday, today and all the tomorrows ahead, carrying forward what you have learned from this life lesson…and it is a lesson. Everything that we go through in life, happy or sad is a lesson to be learned. Hopefully my mother and myself have worked through what we are here to learn from one another. Maybe dementia was part of that lesson and maybe me being her caretaker was all in the universal plan.

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