....always get me down. Well, not really. If I don't have to get out and drive in it, or walk in it, I actually kind of like watching it rain. And Mondays aren't good for anything else anyway, so it might as well rain. Both my sons were born on Monday. "Monday's child is fair of face...." Of course, both of them are beautiful to me, but I think I can say that they're both good-looking young men (especially now that younger son isn't dying his hair black). At any rate, other than worrying about the basement flooding, I rather like the coziness a good rainy day can provide.
Older son has ordered his cap and gown and announcements, so on May 10, we'll be in Tulsa, OK. Unfortunately, that's not the end. He then dives into intensive bar-preparation classes to help him prepare for the bar exam at the end of July. He's taking the bar for Missouri, so I'm assuming that he and his wife want to live in her home state (and a state that I myself really love). That's also where younger son and wife live, so there's family there for both of them. We're footing the bill for all these test-prep classes and bar exam fees, but that's not the reason I hope he passes the first time. He's too much like me--he needs the validation. Maybe the law isn't the right profession for someone with tender self-esteem, but he also is practical and hard-headed. He'll get there.
If only my younger son would "find himself"! One issue that I've been having with him lately is that of false memories. Many years ago, when he was a little boy, he said to my cousin Mary, "Mama and Daddy lock me in a closet and go places." If the look on Mary's face was horror, you can only imagine the look on my face. We have never done such a thing to him. We would not do such a thing to him. In fact, we could not have done such a thing to him, even if we'd wanted to, because the house we lived in did not have closet doors that could lock. They were all sliding doors. All I could figure was that somehow, my son had internalized as his own memory the story told by my former college roommate. As a small child, she lived with her parents in Cairo, Egypt, and her mother would go out daily to the market to get the food for the evening meal. Because shopping there is nothing like shopping here, I'm sure that lugging a wiggly little kid through a crowded outdoor shopping space was difficult, but the mother's solution was--according to my roommate, who could have false memories of her own--to lock her child inside their apartment while the mother was gone. The little girl would stand at the door crying, while neighbors would try to talk to her and console her until the mother returned.
Although we have explained all this to my son (who will be 28 this year), he still insists that it happened to him and that we are in denial (the good explanation) or that we are lying to cover up our sins. Yesterday I downloaded some stuff on false memory and sent it to him. I'm sure he'll believe it's my attempt to further conceal my guilt over having done this horrible thing to him. I can't help wondering about the therapist he's seen off and on over the last few years. It's been reported that therapists can place false memories in patients or reinforce those memories, and certainly, my son had not spoken of this locked-closet memory for years until he went into therapy. My son has had anxiety and panic attacks, and no doubt he'd like to have some reason for these things happening to him, but being locked in a closet by his parents did not happen, so it's not the reason.
Gee, I guess I have let this rainy Monday get me down. I didn't mean to. Thinking about my younger son often causes me to feel sad and hopeless, even though I know he's intelligent and that one day he will find himself. Maybe I'm worried about what he might lose in the process of searching.
Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. Sheila will be 55. I think. She was born in 1953, so that's the math, but it just doesn't seem right. Of course, seeing her as seldom as I do, I keep thinking of her as the skinny blonde with the sharp tongue and angry disposition. She still has a sharp tongue at times, but everyone who knows her knows she is all bark and no bite. She's not skinny anymore (even after gastric bypass), but she's not really heavy, either. She looks much older than she is, mostly because she smokes and has lost many of her teeth. Life has been hard on her (two failed marriages), but she has a good job and makes decent wages. If only her extended family didn't all try to live with her all the time, she'd be doing okay.
Tomorrow is April 1. April Fool's Day. We used to tease Sheila and tell her that she was just a joke played on Mama and Daddy. Yeah, I know. I was such a loving and supportive big sister. Not. In the years since our childhood, I hope I've made it up to her somewhat.
April 12 will be Mama's birthday. Had she lived, she'd be 75. This year marks the "anniversary" of her being gone for 15 years now and of my father being gone for 20. Yet they still live with me in my dreams and memories. Is that our only immortality? Or is that why I write and paint? Will my sons one day know who I am better than they do now, simply because they'll have access to what I've written? Where do blogs go when the blogger dies? Do we need to make provisions for our virtual possessions in our wills? It's just too damned complicated for a rainy Monday morning. I need more coffee. Dr. S.
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