I CANNOT CARE

My fourth birthday party, Los Angeles, California

When the phone rang I automatically glanced at the corner of my computer monitor and noted that it was exactly 8:55 a.m. I resolutely reached for the receiver. Even without Caller ID, I knew who was calling. When she calls it is always five minutes before the hour; any hour. Her voice was weak and strained, yet strangely composed.

"Kathleen Dear... I...I...I am not doing well, Darling. I need...I need you to come be with me." My mother's voice was turning throaty. I knew she was struggling to swallow her sobs and talk at the same time. "I am feeling so over-whelmed. So...so depressed. I just feel like I am alone. I feel like I am floating alone." There was just the slightest pause. "My body has broken out into something and she told me there is very little that can be done about it."

I cannot care. The words came into my mind without prompting. I first heard them a week ago when my friend Bess and I were discussing strategies to break the bonds of co-dependency in our lives. "A good friend of mine who grew up in a rather dysfunctional family used to say that," she shared.

I accepted the phrase like a gift, not sure whether to keep it or return it. "I have to think about this," I said honestly. "It's not quite empowering enough, is it? Shouldn't it be, I choose not to care?" I didn't want to come across as ungrateful, but practicality is very important to me.

"I don't know," Bess responded without taking offense. "That's what she used to say, I cannot care."

"Well, I like how it sounds," I admitted. But I still wasn't ready to take it out of the box and use it.

I cannot care. The phrase was now muffling my mother's guttural gesticulations. I cannot care. I liked the alliteration. It was even 4/4 time like How Firm a Foundation, one of my favorite hymns. Suddenly Mom's voice picked up both volume and velocity. "I am trying to move ahead, but it has been difficult. I wanted to call you last night, but I felt that you would not be interested."

I cannot care that you read my mind, I told myself as I automatically opened up a new Word Document. It has become my habit to sit at the computer and type what my mother is saying during our phone conversations. I am a genealogist after all, and that's what we do: record family history. There's nothing like mixing business with pleasure.

At Big Bear Lake, the summer I turned three.

"The man who will fix the heater and air conditioner left me a message that his truck is supposed to be ready sometime today," she droned on. "I got the phone number of a realty Lee and David know, and I thought I can find out from him, how to get a lock box, and then I will have to get it. I don't want to spend my life taking taxis. I know that I need a lock box and I haven't talked to anybody from Life Line. She hooked me up, but I know that until it is connected, it is no good. I am feeling that I better be connected."

I cannot care that you are not making sense, I told myself as I forced my fingers to keep up with her rapid verbiage. Sometimes during these dictation exercises my curiosity comes out and I want to ask questions like, Who is she? Why do you need a lock box? And What does this all have to do with taxis? But I cling to the security of my keyboard like a life preserver. Stopping to ask my mother for clarification is like getting dragged underwater by a drowning person.

In our backyard in Palos Verdes, the spring before my thirteenth birthday.

"Yesterday when I woke up and found two more places that had broken out, I was going to call Doctor, but I read my book and read about having more faith. I felt that I would go through my videos again, that it is probably time to let go of them again. I found the Salvation Army number..."

As she spoke I twisted my head and pulled the phone out from under my bent neck. I hit the speaker option and set the receiver upright on the desk. I readjusted my position in my ergonomically-correct chair. I realized that I would need a doctor, or at the very least a chiropractor, if I didn't prepare for these phone conversations like I was preparing for strenuous physical activity.

"I told Coco that I need an extra hour from them. I found the earthquake things and I want them to take them out and put them back again. I know that there are some battery-operated radios. I talked to Bobby and I want to get a new paper cutter."

This is where the real insanity starts to kick in: Mom trying to use my brother, who lives in the mid-West, like a delivery boy. "But I just still feel like I am floating alone and I need someone to be here with me." She finally stopped talking and I knew it was my cue. Despite her desperate plea in the Opening Act, it was obvious that she didn't want me there to hold her hand; she wanted me there to run her errands.

I pushed myself away from the computer and the comfort of my cushioned chair. If I was going to be part of the dialog I needed to be doing something more active than just tapping my fingers on a keyboard. Moving my body is one way to keep my head from exploding while carrying on a conversation with my mother. When my feet hit the tile I kept walking until I came to the end of the hallway, then I turned automatically and walked in the opposite direction. My dad's a pacer, so I blame the habit on him. Maybe it was just his way of surviving Mom too.

My mother's baby shower for Bobby. I was almost four years old.

"Gosh, Mom, I feel terrible about all these problems you are having, trying to run a household, getting rides to the doctor and the store. My voice was modulated, yet pleasant. Chuck calls it my counselor voice. "But I don't know what I can do to change your situation."

"KATHLEEN!" She reinserted herself into the conversation with a characteristic blend of annoyance and condescension. "We helped Peter's mother get established, in what you want me to do, and it was very lovely. She had her own apartment, which was complete with a kitchen, a bedroom with two large closets, and a smaller sitting room, because they had such a beautiful lobby downstairs. The restaurant was on the top floor, and it was beautiful: linen place mats, and a choice of two or three entrees. But you are deluded, because even there, they will say, 'we are going to the mall today, whoever wants to go to the mall may go today.' Or, 'make your doctor appointments in a certain time slot.' But there is no ready, available transportation, and that is what you do not understand."

"And it isn't the house. I am not always going to have to find a lock box," she continued without taking a breath. "Kathleen, some of these things are one thing only, just like I will not have to bury another husband. But right now, I do feel over-whelmed and moving into a community is not the answer."

My mother leaving the hospital with me as a newborn.

"Life isn't perfect, Mom. Every thing's a trade-off. But I'm not talking about moving into a community. Maybe you need someone there all the time to help do these things for you."

"I have added two young women who are very helpful," she stated matter-of-fact, like a business owner taking inventory. But she quickly digressed into her favorite topic: chronically her difficulties getting other Alcoholics Anonymous members to give her rides to and from the meetings.

I patiently continued typing, forcing myself to stay interested in yet another retelling of the same tale of rejection. The way she talks about it, she's the octogenarian counterpart of Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls.


(to be continued...)

copyright 2009 Kathleen Stewart Goodrich