On Rescuing Half Dead Birds by Lizbeth Meredith
“I’m sorry, Shawn.”
I patted the urn that had housed my daughter Maria’s late boyfriend for the previous seven years after his father had gifted her with his cremains.
I had naturally assumed once she finally got her own place, Maria would take him with her. But that didn’t happen.
I stood on my tiptoes, hoisted him up on the closet’s top shelf, and carefully closed the door. Since Shawn’s death, I’ve occasionally busied myself with tending to his post-mortem needs.
I was moving Shawn from his regular spot on her old dresser, because Richard, Maria’s current boyfriend of four years, intermittently estranged from his own family, was coming over for Thanksgiving. She was studying out of country for a term. He had reached out and said he didn’t wish to spend the holiday alone. Would I like to have dinner with him, he wondered. He insisted on doing the cooking since he was training to be a chef. It was a nice gesture. Still, I wanted to say no.
I had been looking forward to seeing a Thanksgiving matinee alone. As an empty nester, it would be my first, and I relished the idea. Instead, I found myself hurrying about the house, readying for a meal I didn’t want, hosting a holiday I’d meant to skip, and feeling guilty for not appreciating the company.
I loathed the holidays. Decades of too little money as a single mom had me constantly coming up short while the girls were growing up. But now I was on my own, still feeling the pull between selfishness and martyrdom. In the end, martyrdom won out. I didn’t want Richard to be alone for the holidays, or to feel that he was somehow eclipsed by Shawn’s shadow. Or ashes.
***
“I’m making a turkey omelet,” Richard said as he pulled the turkey breast from the oven. “I know you don’t like leftovers that much.”
That’s nice, I thought. I listened to Richard complain about the newest job he had begun to hate as I slid the pumpkin bars I’d decided to make at the last minute into the oven.
Somewhere between closing the door on Shawn and opening the oven to check the pumpkin bars, it hit me: this habit of caretaking my daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t normal. It also wasn’t new. As early as high school, her dates had resembled the half-dead birds that my cat brings to me and lays at my feet. Here, Mommy. A gift.
After making the drop, she would run off, while I remained and attempted CPR.
I’ve scrambled to revive them long after she’s backed away. Some had addictions. Abusive childhoods. Illness. Major depression. You name it. They’ve had it. And I inexplicably attached myself to their maladies and held on fast, despite the fact that I knew better. Or I should know better.
That’s nice, I thought. I listened to Richard complain about the newest job he had begun to hate as I slid the pumpkin bars I’d decided to make at the last minute into the oven.
Somewhere between closing the door on Shawn and opening the oven to check the pumpkin bars, it hit me: this habit of caretaking my daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t normal. It also wasn’t new. As early as high school, her dates had resembled the half-dead birds that my cat brings to me and lays at my feet. Here, Mommy. A gift.
After making the drop, she would run off, while I remained and attempted CPR.
I’ve scrambled to revive them long after she’s backed away. Some had addictions. Abusive childhoods. Illness. Major depression. You name it. They’ve had it. And I inexplicably attached myself to their maladies and held on fast, despite the fact that I knew better. Or I should know better.
***
My daughter came by her issues with boys honestly.
At two, Maria had watched her father strangle me. I left him and filed for divorce. From three to five, she’d been the protector of her younger-by-a-year-sister during his court appointed visitations. By six, she’d become the mother figure after her father kidnapped both girls and kept them in hiding for two years in Greece. During that time, she absorbed the aftershocks of his deed, buffering her barely younger sister.
Those two years of my daughters’ lives still remain a mystery to me. I later confirmed that they were rarely in school. That they couldn’t play outside with new friends because they lived in hiding. That they rarely saw their older cousins, because even relatives were considered, by my children’s father, to be a threat to his control over keeping the girls from me. I don’t know what all happened to them in the twenty-four months of their disappearance. What I do know is that I’ve never fully forgiven myself for the missing years, or for unwittingly selecting for my girls a monster for a father. For thinking that leaving him was the simple solution to ending the violence. And for it not being a solution at all.
The collective wisdom at the time among other domestic violence advocates was that I couldn’t blame myself for my former husband’s conduct. “Abuse is never your fault.”
Outwardly, I agreed. Yet I felt I had culpability for making such an important choice like making him their father that produced lifelong consequences. It was a mother’s job to tend to her child’s basic needs. If I hadn’t buckled my babies into their car seats and they were subsequently harmed, I’d have been punished. If my children were malnourished, I would expect a range of penalties. It didn’t add up that by accidentally selecting the worst possible co-parent, I should walk away without significant aftereffects while my daughters were given what amounted to a life sentence. I must have intuited what research would later prove-that too many toxic stressors in early childhood could have a crushing impact both physically and mentally much later in life. Maybe a public flogging would have been in order to help me move forward beyond my shame.
Maria was eight before I was able to bring her and her sister back home to America from Greece. But she was no longer a little girl. And though I and a legion of others sought to change that—giving her all the love, counseling, kid-friendly activities, and toys that a child could handle—the innocence, the trust, the sparkle in her eyes was forever gone. I had hoped for a happily ever after. I felt we deserved a fairy-tale ending. In its place, I found that she had interpreted my inability to protect her from her father as the ultimate betrayal, and she would never trust me with her safety again.
While counseling and support and the passage of time papered over the trauma, that paper began peeling off after a decade. And the underlying damage manifested itself in big and small ways. She had sleep problems. She hoarded food. She couldn’t be left alone, even in early adulthood, calling me at work to be sure I was home before she returned. She never felt completely safe. Physically, mentally, spiritually, my daughter still hurt.
But the boy problems seemed solvable. So, whenever I heard from these young men—whether in person or on the phone—I rolled up my sleeves to help.
I found myself dispensing advice to the boyfriends when they asked for it. “Have you thought about acupuncture for anxiety?...Did you call your sponsor?...What about setting up a repayment plan for your parking fines?”
Then I dispensed advice when they did not ask for it. I offered referrals. Rides. Resources. “What about a vocational rehab intake?...What about getting your GED?... I know you didn’t ask me to, but I called someone I knew at the agency, who said they would squeeze you in for an appointment…Perhaps it’s time to address the source of the dysfunction driving your addictions.”
Shawn, while in the thick of both radiation and chemotherapy at twenty-two— told me it was his life’s dream to be a published poet. So, I began writing editors of poetry journals as though my life depended on it, pleading with them to accept Shawn’s sonnets. I imagined his sweet smile as he read the acceptance email. A published poet, at long last. In the end, I couldn’t find a home for his work until a year after he died.
At two, Maria had watched her father strangle me. I left him and filed for divorce. From three to five, she’d been the protector of her younger-by-a-year-sister during his court appointed visitations. By six, she’d become the mother figure after her father kidnapped both girls and kept them in hiding for two years in Greece. During that time, she absorbed the aftershocks of his deed, buffering her barely younger sister.
Those two years of my daughters’ lives still remain a mystery to me. I later confirmed that they were rarely in school. That they couldn’t play outside with new friends because they lived in hiding. That they rarely saw their older cousins, because even relatives were considered, by my children’s father, to be a threat to his control over keeping the girls from me. I don’t know what all happened to them in the twenty-four months of their disappearance. What I do know is that I’ve never fully forgiven myself for the missing years, or for unwittingly selecting for my girls a monster for a father. For thinking that leaving him was the simple solution to ending the violence. And for it not being a solution at all.
The collective wisdom at the time among other domestic violence advocates was that I couldn’t blame myself for my former husband’s conduct. “Abuse is never your fault.”
Outwardly, I agreed. Yet I felt I had culpability for making such an important choice like making him their father that produced lifelong consequences. It was a mother’s job to tend to her child’s basic needs. If I hadn’t buckled my babies into their car seats and they were subsequently harmed, I’d have been punished. If my children were malnourished, I would expect a range of penalties. It didn’t add up that by accidentally selecting the worst possible co-parent, I should walk away without significant aftereffects while my daughters were given what amounted to a life sentence. I must have intuited what research would later prove-that too many toxic stressors in early childhood could have a crushing impact both physically and mentally much later in life. Maybe a public flogging would have been in order to help me move forward beyond my shame.
Maria was eight before I was able to bring her and her sister back home to America from Greece. But she was no longer a little girl. And though I and a legion of others sought to change that—giving her all the love, counseling, kid-friendly activities, and toys that a child could handle—the innocence, the trust, the sparkle in her eyes was forever gone. I had hoped for a happily ever after. I felt we deserved a fairy-tale ending. In its place, I found that she had interpreted my inability to protect her from her father as the ultimate betrayal, and she would never trust me with her safety again.
While counseling and support and the passage of time papered over the trauma, that paper began peeling off after a decade. And the underlying damage manifested itself in big and small ways. She had sleep problems. She hoarded food. She couldn’t be left alone, even in early adulthood, calling me at work to be sure I was home before she returned. She never felt completely safe. Physically, mentally, spiritually, my daughter still hurt.
But the boy problems seemed solvable. So, whenever I heard from these young men—whether in person or on the phone—I rolled up my sleeves to help.
I found myself dispensing advice to the boyfriends when they asked for it. “Have you thought about acupuncture for anxiety?...Did you call your sponsor?...What about setting up a repayment plan for your parking fines?”
Then I dispensed advice when they did not ask for it. I offered referrals. Rides. Resources. “What about a vocational rehab intake?...What about getting your GED?... I know you didn’t ask me to, but I called someone I knew at the agency, who said they would squeeze you in for an appointment…Perhaps it’s time to address the source of the dysfunction driving your addictions.”
Shawn, while in the thick of both radiation and chemotherapy at twenty-two— told me it was his life’s dream to be a published poet. So, I began writing editors of poetry journals as though my life depended on it, pleading with them to accept Shawn’s sonnets. I imagined his sweet smile as he read the acceptance email. A published poet, at long last. In the end, I couldn’t find a home for his work until a year after he died.
***
Inevitably, life went on, but not always well. A death. A relapse. A mental collapse. And my daughter wept. And though I couldn’t identify why I felt so responsible, I did know that my daughter’s pain became mine. My daughter was a voodoo doll. When a pin pricked her, I began hemorrhaging.
It’s twisted. I’ll admit it. The belief that if only I could save her love, if only I could make him healthy, then she would have someone to soothe and protect her. Someone who wouldn’t abandon her. Someone who would do what I never could.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that I’d judged Maria for her choices in vulnerable partners while secretly congratulating myself for not dating fixer-uppers. But on Thanksgiving, while shuffling between Shawn and Richard, it hit me: while it’s true I’m not rehabilitating men that I date, the reasons are nothing to be proud of: I’m so exhausted trying to mother my daughter’s loves that I’ve no energy left for dating at all.
It’s twisted. I’ll admit it. The belief that if only I could save her love, if only I could make him healthy, then she would have someone to soothe and protect her. Someone who wouldn’t abandon her. Someone who would do what I never could.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that I’d judged Maria for her choices in vulnerable partners while secretly congratulating myself for not dating fixer-uppers. But on Thanksgiving, while shuffling between Shawn and Richard, it hit me: while it’s true I’m not rehabilitating men that I date, the reasons are nothing to be proud of: I’m so exhausted trying to mother my daughter’s loves that I’ve no energy left for dating at all.
***
“I don’t need you to fix me,” Richard told me after Thanksgiving dinner. I had proudly announced that after calling around to a few nonprofits, I’d found a grant that could help him get back on his feet after some financial setbacks. “I just need to be heard.”
“I’m not trying to fix you,” I told him. I was just being helpful, wasn’t I? But it sounded stupid as the words left my mouth. And after a few more back and forths, I had to come clean.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“I’m not trying to fix you,” I told him. I was just being helpful, wasn’t I? But it sounded stupid as the words left my mouth. And after a few more back and forths, I had to come clean.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
***
If the first step to recovery is admitting the problem, then I’m on my way. But after Richard left, I rushed upstairs to pick Shawn off the shelf.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I told him, encircling the urn in my arms and patting the smoothness of the word. “I didn’t forget you. Everything will be alright.”
If Shawn could speak, I suspect he would tell me what I needed to hear. That he was just fine. And so was my daughter and Richard, whose gifts and grit would lead them to their own brand of success. And that one day, once I could untangle myself from my daughter’s old wounds, I would be too.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I told him, encircling the urn in my arms and patting the smoothness of the word. “I didn’t forget you. Everything will be alright.”
If Shawn could speak, I suspect he would tell me what I needed to hear. That he was just fine. And so was my daughter and Richard, whose gifts and grit would lead them to their own brand of success. And that one day, once I could untangle myself from my daughter’s old wounds, I would be too.
