mother's day

i have not seen my mother in seven years. last year, it occurred to me that maybe i should visit her before she dies. so i told her i would come this past january. 
when it was time, with all my fear and trepidation neatly packed, she cancelled on me and said she wasn’t feeling well. 
i never rescheduled.

i was 27 years old when I went to my first al-anon meeting. when i was a child there were no child protective services, everything was a secret, people whispered and nodded but no one ever came out and spoke the truth. it took me a long time to find al-anon. i must have been in a lot of pain. this was where i was told, for the first time in my life, that it was not my fault my mother drank. i never went to another meeting. that was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. all the years I had been “responsible” for my mother, for her wellbeing, her very life, instantaneously vanished and I was finally able to let go.

she married a man who managed a very expensive detox center in, you won't believe it, the wine country. they had brought her in on a gurney, from one of her recent binge’s and every four hours she got a shot of whiskey to help her detox the poison from her system. so she could hopefully skip the delirium tremens part, the d.t.'s -


“hummers” they called those shots back then. 

this man, jack, who brought her the whiskey, ended up doing what every sane person will tell you to never do. get involved and fall in love with someone who is brand new sober. jack had twenty years clean. 

my mother would stand up at those meetings, meetings where I would see half the judges from the courthouse, a famous rock star or two, and introduce herself by saying “hello, I am mary and I am an alcoholic.” 

there is a saying in the big book of aa that “there are some of us who are incapable of being honest.” they wrote that part with my mom in mind. though she would pay lip service in the company she was in, her head had a mind of its own. she and jack moved in together, eventually marrying and then they both started drinking together. 


many disasters later, after setting places on fire, getting evicted, and basically losing all their life savings, jack finally succumbed to cancer. he never stopped loving my mother, though. it was crazy. 

it was the only kind of love I knew. crazy love.

i got a call from my brother. she is in the hospital with pneumonia. she is 85. we’re irish. in my family you only get a call if there is an impending funeral or a wake. that was about the only time I would see the relatives and the mounds of potato salad, ham, deviled eggs and scotch.