I had a birthday recently...my 55th. Most would consider that a milestone day. To my husband Liam, it was just another day on the calendar. To my sweet daughter Siobhan, it was a day to be celebrated-- with gaily wrapped gifts, bright balloons, a lovely cake... To Mama, it was a day to tell once more the sad, sorry story of my birth. (It is also one of the many chapters of Mama's own Miserable Life Story; like everything else, it is ultimately About Her.) Be warned--it is a dark tale, full of bitterness and hatred...but not mine.
My parents met the year they both turned 20... My mother was a pretty girl with dark hair and dark eyes,working in a hosiery mill downtown. My handsome green-eyed father was serving in the navy; Elvis himself couldn't hold a candle to Daddy in his uniform.
My parents married while my father was home on leave. Following their honeymoon, Daddy returned to his ship, and Mama did the only respectable thing at the time--she moved in with his family. Life after that became a twisted Cinderella tale, with Mama--of course-- cast in the starring role as tragic heroine, being generally disliked and constantly mistreated by my grandmother and 2 aunts. Or so she says.
When my father's enlistment was up, he returned home and "rescued" her from his wicked family. Daddy put a down-payment on a neat little cottage in a quiet neighborhood, and they lived quite happily there until my aunts began having children...Not to be outdone, Mama began trying for a family, as well. Months passed, and then years; sadly, no babies were in the offing. Then one aunt gave birth to a 2nd child, the other aunt, a 3rd. Mama was even more determined now, and after 5 miscarriages, she finally gave birth to my sister Saphrona.
Saphrona was a pretty child, a plump baby girl with curly hair and big blue eyes; both my parents doted on her, but clearly she was the apple of Mama's eye. (And after waiting so long for a baby, who could blame her?) By my mother's own admission, she became obsessed with the new addition to her family. For a very short while, Mama's world had revolved around my father; now Saphrona was the center of her universe...
A few months later, all our lives changed irrevocably. Mama was pregnant again--this time, with me. My sister and I would be 15 months apart in age, so Saphrona would still be quite young when I disrupted her small world. My mother had serious misgivings about that; she couldn't bear for anything to take her away from her darling Saphrona. Mama's only consolation was the thought that I might at least be a boy...(At that time, females had little hope for a career; their Great American Dream was a husband, a house, a white picket fence, a girl, and a boy.)
The more she thought about it, the more my mother liked the idea of a son...That evening, Mama told my father the news. Daddy was pleased at the prospect (he genuinely likes children). Smiling, he went to embrace her--and she pushed him quite firmly away. "Behave yourself! I don't have time for your foolishness. I'm a mother now, and when the 2nd baby is born, I will have even Less time!" She brushed him aside, and turned her attention back to Saphrona. Eventually my father found solace in another woman's arms...
Weeks passed, and people close to Mama began to notice-- she talked about Saphrona incessantly, but she never talked about her pregnancy, or the fast-approaching arrival of her 2nd child. Finally she did choose a name, but only one--Dennis. She never considered the possibility that I would be a girl...
Soon it was December, and Christmas was fast approaching. The holidays would be bittersweet for Mama that year. Saphrona was 14 months old now--running and climbing, rowdy and rambunctious. Cute--with a capital C. I was due in 3 weeks, and Mama knew this would be the last Christmas she could devote entirely to her first-born daughter. To compensate for that injustice, she indulged Saphrona with every toy imaginable that year...a rocking horse on springs, a shiny red tricycle with white sparkly streamers; a life-size Betsy Wetsy baby doll, complete with crib, playpen, stroller, and high chair; Lincoln Logs and towering wood blocks; a child-size rocking chair; stuffed animals too numerous to count...
Christmas morning must have been magical that year, especially to a child--tinsel and bright lights, shiny paper and bows...and all those toys. Little wonder that the toddler Saphrona rushed exuberantly across the room, and threw herself upon the doll's high chair. Even less wonder that the flimsy doll chair tumbled backward, promptly bloodying Saphrona's pouty baby lip and blacking one of her big blue eyes. (Snarky of me to say it like that, but there you are.)
All hell broke loose. Saphrona screamed bloody murder, as children are wont to do. From fear alone, Mama's water broke as she rushed to pick up her wailing child. Mama dearly loves to tell the next part...
My mother carried her first-born child to a well-worn rocking chair, and nobly ignoring her own labor pains, Mama rocked Saphrona for hours. The contractions became closer together, the pain became more intense; still Mama rocked. (Mama is particularly proud of this part; she thinks it proves what a wonderful, loving mother she is, because she put comforting her child before her own pain. She doesn't see the irony of how at the same time, she was seriously endangering her unborn baby, risking its' very life...) So on she rocked...
Eventually my nervous father could stand no more. He left a sleeping Saphrona with their closest neighbor, and drove my reluctant mother to the hospital....
On their arrival at the ER, a frowning doctor admonished my mother for not coming to the hospital sooner. Very shortly afterwards, I made my arrival into the world. Alas, my mother was devastated--I WAS NOT A BOY. Bitterly she turned away, hardening her heart against the tiny nameless infant. And so the only name I had that first day was my father's last name...
On the 2nd day, Daddy took pity on me, and bestowed on me at last a name. It was an old family name, and one of his choosing--Grainne. All that day, whenever the smiling nurses brought me to my mother, she refused to hold me in her arms--only on a pillow. And while she had been eager to breast-feed my sister, she insisted that the new baby be bottle-fed...
The third day, we were to go home. At the last minute, my poor embarrassed father hastily scrawled another name on the birth certificate form in front of "Grainne" ( there wasn't room to squeeze another name in the middle) so that it could be registered. As a result, my original birth certificate is quite colorful-- each name is written by a different hand, and in a different color of ink. And even though it caused confusion later at school, I have always gone by "Grainne"--my middle name...
Looking back, I like to think that Mama suffered from postpartum depression...Perhaps she truly did--or else I'm just being kind, making excuses for her strange behavior...I don't know why else a mother would reject her own child. Whatever her reasons, my mother never did form a bond with me. Throughout my early life, she made it quite plain that she neither loved nor wanted me--yet she remained close to my sister, and the brother that would come later...
As a child, I tried to make my mother love me. I willingly did my chores (as well as Saphrona's); I went to church gladly and I made straight A's in school. I remember saying a child's prayer every night, and adding at the end "Please let Mama love me." But she never did...
I am not bitter. Not now. Over the years, I have learned to accept it. Besides, my father loved me enough for the both of them. He still does. And having a wonderful daughter like Siobhan MORE than makes up for Mama.
So-- that is the dark tale of my birth... Perhaps it entertained you; possibly it taught you a lesson about Life; probably it convinced you of my own particular strangeness. After all, I was born into The Freak Show...
Kathal.
(Go gently.)
--Grainne
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