The basement flooded very badly this past spring and Dave wants to have it water proofed. Understandable. But this meant renting a storage unit so that all of the stuff I just moved in from my condo could be moved out again, then back to Ayer once the work is completed. I have begun the process of unpacking stuff I can put away somewhere and setting the “keepsake” bins aside for the storage unit. When I was going through one of the bins this morning, I found the “Mommie Dearest” letter again.
In November 1991, my father was diagnosed with melanoma. I had driven from Massachusetts to South Philly for the Thanksgiving holiday, arrived there around 10:00PM, and the melanoma diagnosis was the first thing I heard upon opening the door. I knew he had just gone in for surgery to have a lump removed from under his arm, but last I’d heard, they’d gotten it all out. I was totally unprepared to hear that the cancer had spread. My dad and I both understood this was a death sentence.
After Thanksgiving, I flew or drove to Philadelphia every other weekend. In April of 1992, he was hospitalized. His oncologist tried to tell my mother that it was terminal and he would not be coming home, but she refused to believe it. He asked me to have a talk with her about it, which I did, and she shrieked at me for saying I wanted him to die. That’s not what I said…
The weekend he passed away was during one of my visiting weekends and I had driven down, so I had my car. We received the dreaded call at 1:00AM and we got in the car to go to the hospital. It was one of the very worst nights of my life. When we entered the hospital room, he was lying on the bed, eyes open and rolled back into his head. His mouth was open very wide, as if desperately trying to draw in a last breath. My mother screamed and yelled and went tearing out of the room. The nurses gave her a shot of something and moments later, she was like a zombie.
I stayed with my dad while the nurses took care of my mother and I told him how much I love him, that though our time was short, I appreciated every minute of it, and was proud that he was my dad. Whether or not he could hear me from wherever he was, I of course don’t know, but it made me feel a little better.
I drove my mother and myself back to the house. I couldn’t sleep and sobbed off and on throughout the night. The following morning, I took his “to do” list out of the drawer and began to plan his funeral, along with a million other things. I went to his place of work where they gave me a cardboard box full of his belongings. One of his coworkers was sobbing so hard that for a moment, I felt sorrier for her than I did for myself. I called my father’s HR department and set my mother up to receive his pension monthly instead of a lump sum, which was her preference. I stayed in Philadelphia until the following weekend. Everything was done by the time I left for my home in Massachusetts.
I had no plans to stay in touch with my mother and I told her so. I said she could contact me if she needed any help with her finances and I would come down to sort through whatever she needed. But that was it. Throughout my life, she had been verbally abusive to both my father and me, and I could write an entire book on the things she did and said to us. I wanted a clean break and to move on with my life in Massachusetts.
A few weeks after my father’s death, she called me and said she wanted us to reconcile. I was dubious, but I drove down. When I walked into the house, she was all dressed up and ready for a date. To this day, I have no idea how she met him, and I know nothing about him. But I do know I freaked out, told her a reconciliation was not possible, and drove all the way back to Massachusetts. I understand that people need to move on and everyone has their own timetable, but I found it reprehensible.
Years went by and I moved on with my life. I assumed she had moved on with hers. Then one day in early 1995, I got a call from a dear friend of mine in Philly. My mother had called her parents and left voicemails on their phone lambasting me. She also sent a 10 page letter to them, which my friend forwarded to me.
Here’s paragraphs two and three of page one:
“When her father was very ill, I had to beg her to at least call him or send him a get well card. I just couldn’t relate to it. I turned to her father and said, I just don’t understand your daughter. He just looked and me and said, “Your daughter is the most spoiled, selfish, ungrateful and heartless person I ever knew & if I die, depend don’t on her for anything.”
All we ever did was work like dogs to give her all the things we never had & the nicer we treated her, the more she treated us like dirt. We never understood it.”
My dad's father was the controller for 76 Oil Company and they lived in a house on the Fox River in McHenry, Illinois. My dad met my mother when he joined the Navy and was stationed in Philadelphia. He married my mother and eventually became the manager of the Loan Department at PNC Bank in Center City Philadelphia. He paid off his house in South Philly shortly after he turned 40. I'm not sure what "all the things we never had" were and I honestly don't mean that facetiously.
The letter doesn’t get any better. Page after page after page of similar statements. I sent a copy of it to my friend LG and she said she couldn’t get past the first couple of pages. I have known LG since 1985 and I asked her if there are any similarities at all between me and the girl in the letter. She assured me there are none. I know that myself, but it was nice to have a sanity check.
My mother wrote similar letters to other people, including a former employer. My former coworker forwarded the letter to me so I have that one as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother sent letters to my former in-laws, but I’ll never know. Doesn’t matter.
So I did what any daughter with a crazy mother would do; I called a lawyer, who, incidentally, was not incredulous when I told him my story. Perhaps he knows the Turpins. He told me I could sue her for libel, slander and defamation of character. I wrote a letter to her and explained in a matter of fact tone that I had been to see a lawyer. I am sure the letter is matter of fact because I have a copy of it and it’s in the same envelope with her letter. I told her if she continued writing and sending verbal missives of this nature to friends and employers, I would sue her. I told her I meant it. I never heard from her again.
In 1999, she passed away in the house and that is a whole other story. I am indebted to a woman at Philadelphia City Hall who told me to sit down and shut up when I told her I didn’t want to fight for my inheritance. My mother had not left a will, so the assets went to probate. I’d have to fight to get it and I had told the woman at City Hall I wanted nothing to do with it. She called an estate lawyer right there and then and I made an appointment with him. I now own valuable rental property down the road in Boxborough, MA thanks to this woman. After I saw her that day, I did send her a thank you card. I can’t remember her name anymore, but I’ll never forget her.
Many people have asked me, and I have asked myself, why I am holding onto my mother’s letter. I don’t know. I do know that many people don’t believe my story and my mother’s letter, in her own hand, is proof. One of my maternal cousins thinks I am lying. She said my mother loved me more than anything in the world and that my memories of her of incorrect. I don’t want to argue with her and I will never bring the subject up again, but my mother really was a nasty person. She wasn’t Casey Anthony, but she was definitely not a good mother.
My friend MAB is a reverend and has offered to pray over the letter while burning it in her fireplace. I just might take her up on that someday. It would be a good thing to do.
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