Dodging the Abyss

Do girls pay more attention to faces? Are they more in tune to facial characteristics? More likely to recognize a face?

This is a something that has occurred to me recently after observing my children. I have 4 children - a 13 yr old boy, 6 yr old boy, 4 yr old girl and 15 mo old girl. The other day, my 4 yr old and I were watching Nickelodeon together. There was a classroom scene in the show we were watching and my daughter turned to me and said - “Look, it’s Megan Parker!” This is a character from the show Drake and Josh. I waited until the girl was shown again and yes, it was the same actress who is on Drake and Josh. When my daughter made that observation, the girl had only been on the screen for moments, but she recognized her quickly. This surprised me that at her age, she recognized someone, out of context, that fast. Then again, she seems to notice people more quickly than my boys do.

Then, I got to thinking. I regularly say to my boys, while watching tv - hey isn’t that so and so? Both boys invariably reply “Hm. I’m not sure. Maybe.” It definitely takes them much longer to recognize a familiar face when seen out of normal circumstances.

So, is there a gender difference in facial recognition? Who knows, there’s probably already a study out there somewhere, either proving or disproving my little theory here.

It’s just one of those things that I ponder occasionally.

My day was one of those especially fun days only a mother can truly understand.
Bridget got up this morning complaining about a “tummy ache”. Within the hour she was puking. Then diarrhea followed. She spent the first half of the day alternating between the two.
We have what the kids fondly refer to as the “barf bowl”. It’s a plastic bowl just for these special occasions that the kids can keep with them so they can puke without having to do the mad dash to the bathroom.
I decide to take what seems like a quiet moment to scrub down the bathroom. Bree is set up in the living room, watching TV, handy dandy barf bowl alongside her. Keegan and Claire are playing and Seamus is doing his schoolwork upstairs. While I’m in the bathroom cleaning, Keegan comes by to check on me. I ask him where Claire is. He said she’s in the living room. I tell him to go inside right away and check on the girls, make sure Bree is ok and Claire isn’t by her. Keegan comes running back and says “Oh Bree is puking again!” I yell, “Where’s Claire?” He says, “Sitting on the floor by Bree.” I run inside to find Claire sitting opposite Bree, happily playing in the barf bowl.

I snatch Claire up and run to the sink to wash her up, while screaming madly for Seamus to come down to help so I can hand him Claire and go to Bree.

Later, when Bree finally falls asleep for a while, I sit down with Claire at my desk to nurse. I take advantage of the calm moment and call my mom to update her on how Bree is since she had called earlier and I couldn’t talk. While talking, I’m oblivious to the fact that Claire has picked up a pen from my desk and is playing with it. I finally notice, but not until she has drawn across her face.
Fast forward to later in the day and once again, I’m sitting down to nurse Claire. Only this time, when I lift my shirt, I happen to notice the pen marks scribbled all over my boob.   DH asked how could I possibly not realize when she was doing it. Yes, I was that oblivious. It was really one of those days.

Off in the distance, the first familiar sign of the approaching wall of darkness appears. In the beginning, it is more of a perception, a sort of intuition that comes from repeating the experience many times. I can just about sense its stealthy approach.

I’m on hightened awareness now, knowing that the time from that first feeling to the complete darkness could be days or it could be hours. Once the darkness takes over, then it begins. Having to continue, finding my way through the veil of darkness, pretending all is well and normal. All the while trying desperately to avoid the abyss that is poised, ready to swallow me up at the first misstep.

Of course, I am alone in this dark world. All around me, life goes on in sunshine and normalcy. The abyss has no interest in them. It is only me that it awaits. It’s trap is lain for me alone.

In the early days, when my life was filled with innocence and naivete, it wasn’t a trap waiting unseen, but rather a seduction. A promise of an existence without pain or struggle. An end to unhappiness and a quieting of the demons. The promised escape was nearly irresistible, but in the end I held back. Now it knows that it cannot use such simple trickery. Now it must enlist the darkness.

It will be here soon.

My mother is Mexican, she was born there and came to this country when she married my father in 1954. My father is an American of Irish and German descent. My parents settled in my dad’s hometown of Brooklyn, NY. Mom was only 17 yrs old, far from home and living with my father’s family. She came here not speaking English, a scared young girl in a foreign land. She was thrust into this new experience under the ever critical, at times over bearing presence of my grandmother. She learned to speak, read and write English, all on her own. It was immersion language training before it became the “in” thing.

I loved my grandmother dearly, but she was a very imposing woman, not so much in size, but in personality. She had very distinct opinions on things and did not hesitate to share them with anyone. She believed that my siblings and I should be raised as true Americans, completely anglicized. We were to be spoken to in English only. We were basically to know little to nothing of our other heritage. Considering the fact that my father’s heritage is mixed and my mother’s is not, we are actually more Mexican than anything else, but were not raised this way.

I first learned Spanish, by taking it in public school in junior high. My first trip to Mexico was at the age of 9. That was when I first met my other grandparents. I couldn’t even speak the language to actually talk with them, but we shared the language of love. I adored my abuelo at first sight. Unfortunately, he died the following year after that initial trip. I will always treasure that time I got to spend with him, as well as mourn all that we missed out on in my not getting to know him well.

When I go to Mexico or California or New Mexico to visit my relatives, I long to feel a true part of their world. I feel like an outsider - watching, admiring, longing to join, to be accepted. Although, I took 8 yrs worth of Spanish in school and can understand most of what is spoken to me, I lack the confidence of a native speaker. But, it is so much more than the language. It is the lack of shared experiences, the cultural identity that I feel was my birthright, but was kept from me.

I do not blame my mother. She did was she felt was best for us. I don’t even blame my grandmother. I don’t blame anyone. I just have a huge emptiness where a feeling of belonging should be. At 40 yrs old, I feel as if half my life has been spent searching for something. I only wish I could figure out how to find it, embrace it and own it without feeling like an outsider pretending to be something I’m not.

Facing the inescapable mortality of my mother has reduced me from a normal, functioning adult to a scared child afraid to lose her mama.

When I was 7 yrs old, my mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Because of my age, I wasn’t told of the diagnosis. I only knew that my mother was very ill and she had to go into the hospital and have an operation. Even though I didn’t know what exactly was wrong, I could tell by the hushed voices and forced smiles that something was dreadfully wrong. My entire world as I knew it, fell apart.

Mom and I had always been very close. I am the youngest of 4 children and my closest in age sibling is 6 yrs older than me. This enabled Mom and I to have loads of one on one time while the others were off at school. We did everything together and were literally best friends.

Suddenly, my mom was in the hospital and my grandma was staying at our house to care for us. I didn’t understand what was going on. I only knew that my beloved mother was sick and away from me and I had no idea when she would return. I was confused and depressed.

Eventually, my mom returned home and after a period of convalescence she recovered fully. Life as I knew it, returned to normal and all was well in my world. I grew up, married and had children of my own. Mom and I have remained close. Thirty-three years have passed since that dark period. Mom is a healthy, vibrant 70 yr old woman and I am a somewhat well adjusted 40 yr old adult.

Then came the day, not long ago, when my parents called to tell me that Mom was having issues with her liver enzymes. Several weeks of testing culminated in an eventual diagnosis of NASH. There is no cure, nor treatment for this disease. In most cases, the progression of the disease is very slow, usually taking many years to cause liver failure. In a small percentage of cases, the progression of the disease is much more rapid. For the time being, things look positive, as she is in the early stages of the disease.

When I first found out that there was a serious issue with Mom’s health, I suddenly became that terrified little girl again - scared to death of losing her mama. All those feelings of helplessness, fear and despair came rushing back. How can that be? I’m 40 yrs old! I have a family of my own to care for, children to raise. How can I still be so dependent upon my mother at my age? She’s 70 yrs old. I have to face the fact that she’s not going to live forever and more than likely, there *will* come a time that I will have to face life without her.

The truth is, simply, I am not ready yet. I am not ready to let go of my mom. I still need her. She has been there at the births of each of my children. She has supported me emotionally, as no one but a mother can. She has held my hand and wiped my brow and lent me her shoulder to lean on. She shared the utter joy at the dawning of a new life as I brought forth each of my children, sharing the feeling as only my own mother can. We felt that bond - that of mother and daughter, that of two mothers.

I have 2 daughters of my own and I can only hope that when they are grown that they will still respect my experience and advice as I do my own mother’s. I hope that we can share the same depth of a bond as my mother and I do.

I am done having children, but I still have a long way to go to continue raising mine. Although, I now have 13 yrs of parenting under my belt and I have birthed 4 children, I still turn to my mother for guidance, advice and sometimes just reassurance that I am doing the right thing. I know that when I feel unsure about a parenting issue, Mom is no more than a phone call away. More often than not, she’ll just tell me that I’m doing fine. She’ll agree with what I’ve done so far and encourage me to continue, not offering any differing advice. But, yet - I still need that reassurance from her. I still need to know she’s there.

I just hope that God doesn’t see fit to take her anytime soon because I’m not ready to let her go yet. I still need her.

Why does the press insist on spending so much time covering the war? Think global warming is important? Think again. How bout the national debt? The healthcare crisis? None of those things are what really matters in today’s world.

Anyone with an internet connection and an email address surely knows that *the* important issues facing our society today are penis size, sexual performance, colon cleansing and helping out all those tragic women from other countries whose dear departed husbands died leaving behind millions of dollars that the poor widow is eager to share with some faceless American stranger.

Judging by my inbox, we must be a country filled with under endowed men who need to boost their performance as well as their size, while ridding their bodies of colon-clogging, health-depleting, obesity-inducing toxins, so that they may live long and happy lives and share in the fortunes of wealthy, altruistic foreign widows.