"Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home."- Comedian Bill Cosby
"Mom" to one and "Grammie" to another fit well with me - I did not expect to become "Mommy" to both. However, looking back, I should have known better. Like a whirling tornado, anger and destruction seemed to follow my daughter everywhere.
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When my daughter broke up with her boyfriend she moved out of the apartment she shared with him and immediately moved in with her father who had only recently moved to town after a lifetime absence from his daughther's life. Unknowingly, she moved from the fryingpan into a more destructive flame.
In the middle of the night, she phoned me. Her voice quaking and barely audible, I asked her to speak louder.
"He’s my father! He’s my father!” she quaked as she told me that he had just made sexual advances towards her.
I immediately instructed her to call a taxi.
“But I don’t have any money,” she blurted.
I remember being stunned, that this would even be an issue - perhaps she didn't think I had the cash on hand.
“That doesn’t matter! I’ll pay for it! Just get that taxi and get here right now!” I implored.
Needless to say I was devastated by this event and I was glad to have her safe at home with me again. But this sense of relief was short-lived because, unbelievably, within days of finding shelter in my home, she insisted on returning to her father’s.
This was beyond my comprehension! We were getting along fine, so why would she want to return to this lion’s den? I felt totally helpless. What was I to do? She was legally an adult with freewill, I had no power to save her, and unlike the biblical Daniel, there would be no angelic presence within the lair - just the opposite!
If I went to the police she would deny everything she had revealed to me. Under the circumstances, I thought the best I could do was to confront her father. If he knew that I was aware, maybe that would stop him from sexually approaching her again.
And confront him I did. I arranged to meet him at a local coffee shop - such an innocuous location to speak of such guilty sins. When I faced him with the accusations, I expected at least some attempt at denial, but as I looked him in the eye, there was none and, to me, this was verification enough of his guilt.
Because of my daughter’s insistence on returning to her father’s, this conversation was bizarre beyond belief, and the best that I could do was negotiate the placement of a lock on the inside of my daughter's bedroom door before she returned to her father. I was to find out later that this was never done.
At the time, I believed my daughter's return to her father's house was an insanity driven by her love - hate connection with her father: in desperation, she wanted her father to prove himself to be a good and caring father; and, in anger, she insisted that he “owed” her and she wanted the opportunity to extract some form of material compensation from him for his years of neglect. This was a dangerous game, but one I had no power to stop.
When my daughter returned to her father's, I was beside myself with worry for her, but the nightmare was about to deepen even more. Shortly after my daughter's return to her father's house, he announced that he would be moving to the States followed after another computer programming job. I was to find out later that he had a history of being fired and moving from job to job.
“At last,” I thought “my daughter will be free of this Spangoli!”
But imagine my surprise, when my daughter informed me that she was going with him! I was stunned. However, she assured me that she only intended to go for the trip, "the adventure" she said - she had never been to the States before. She assured me she would only stay a couple of weeks and then she would return home to Nova Scotia.
I couldn’t even begin to understand my daughter's logic or judgment, but she would take no counsel from me. I did not want my daughter going on this trip with her father, but once again I found myself completely powerless. My daughter was determined to do what she wanted to do, despite the danger. She was an adult now and I had no say.
By this time, my daughter had informed me of her pregnancy by her ex-boyfriend, though she had not divulged the news to her father. In fact, she had decided that there would be no need to tell him since she expected to return before her pregnancy became apparent. With fear and confusion I saw my daughter go off to the States, but soon, I thought, this insanity will be over.
You can only imagine my horror when, two weeks later, my daughter phoned to inform me that she would be staying with her father after all. Again! It seemed never to stop! Once again, I was helpless to make a difference.
Her father had enticed her to stay with him by promising to pay for a cosmetic course she so desperately wanted to take. But he had one lethal condition: she had to take the course in the States and remain with him. Considering the seriousness of the dysfunction that had transpired between my daughter and her father in Canada, how could I think she was anything but crazy to remain with him in the States. It continued to make no sense to me that she would chose to remained in this lion's den.
It is difficult being the parent of a grown child who is on the pathway of self-destruction. The recourses that are open to you as the parent of a minor, limited though they might be, are totally absent as the parent of an adult. You are completely helpless and there is nothing you can do except wait to pick up the pieces - if indeed you are afforded that.
In the States, my daughter found herself in the heart of the American Bible Belt, Charlotte, North Carolina. Many things were strange in this city: the lack of sidewalks, the heat, the heavy southern accent, and the racial segregation that she found still apparent in many of the commercial establishments. Yet surprisingly, despite her progressing pregnancy, she found the people supportive and kind, and a number of her new found southern friends held a baby shower for her. I am grateful to these people for their thoughtfulness, because I, her mother, neglected to give my own daughter a baby shower. The realization of this strikes me only now and I have no excuse. Two decades earlier, as a single mom, I had been given a baby shower and, at the time, I remember how much it had meant to me. I certainly regret that I failed to express my love for my daughter in this way.
When my daughter was away, as usual when we were separated, we spoke with each other regularly on the phone. As she made friends, she was happier but the relationship with her father steadily worsened until she was crying, begging to come home. The cosmetic course which had been so important to her only months earlier now seemed to her, in her unhappiness, to be of no value at all.
She sobbed and cried and her being pregnant and unemployed necessitated her coming back to live with me. I was her mother and I loved my daughter, but I had serious reservations of such a living arrangement. Only a few years earlier, I had removed her from my home for good reason. She had become, lazy, disrespectful, and even physically violent. My mind was torn. She was in need and I was her mother.
We talked over several weeks and it was finally arranged that she would come and live with me, but we both agreed that the antagonistic relationship we had previously shared needed to change. With this in mind, it was finally concluded that she would come into my home as a house guest with the hope that this arrangement might encourage a more amiable mindset and more respectful behavior. As her mother, I wanted to believe a positive living arrangement was possible, and so the accord was struck - once more, my daughter would live under my roof.
Shortly thereafter, my daughter arrived on my doorstep, driven back to Canada by her father. But no sooner did she cross the threshold, then the bristling began. As she stomped up and down the hallway, she announced her displeasure for being assigned the smaller bedroom. She expected the larger room, the room she had previously used when she had lived with me. When I attempted to explain to her that the larger room was, in fact, no bigger because I had moved in the wide computer desk, as well as two large bookcases, to allowed more space in the common living room, her bristling did not subside.
The "Queen of Sheba" had arrived, and she made it known that she was not pleased . . . and the feeling of dread once again entered my home.
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