Reunion

My mother and I were cruelly separated when I was four. It took years for us to find each other again.

We Would Be a Family Again

My mother had been gone from my life for a year when my father took my sister, Kate, and me to visit her. It was about an hour from our home in the San Fernando Valley, near Los Angeles, to Camarillo State Hospital, where my father had committed her in 1955. But it might as well have been halfway around the world for how seldom we saw each other. A heavy curtain had fallen when Mom left. Sitting on the grass under a magnolia tree waiting to see her again, Kate and I, eight and five years old, were silent, subdued by the unsettling prospect of what condition Mom would be in. What would she look like? How would she act?

Reports from the doctors indicated she'd been going through some tough times, especially the first six months, my father said. She cried a lot, and at night, when she called out for Kate and me, the doctors tranquilized her.

Suddenly, walking toward us in the distance, we saw her, or who we thought was her. But this woman seemed old and unsteady on her feet as she shuffled along, holding the arm of a man in a white uniform.

I felt goose bumps springing on my arms.

Yes, it was Mom. But her red hair, once so thick and shiny, was now dry and choppy, all the natural waves gone. Once so attentive and full of life, Mom seemed listless, her eyes sad, searching. Her face frightened me most. Webs of ruptured blood vessels crisscrossed her skin, providing a map of the violence she had endured. It would be years before I understood better what had happened to her: She and many other patients had been subjected, against their will, to paralyzing electroshock treatments.

Sitting down on the blanket, Mom pulled us close, first Kate and then me. I had longed for this moment, figured everything would return to normal once I fell into her embrace. She would bake again and take care of me; she would play the piano as she loved to. We would be a family again.

She tried her best to make small talk. How grown-up we looked! she said. How pretty my hair was. And Queenie, how was the little devil? I began chattering on and on about our beagle's habit of digging holes under the fence, and Mom smiled, seeming genuinely interested.

As the sun slipped behind the mountains and a light breeze blew, we gathered our things to leave. We promised we'd come back soon.

That's when Mom blurted out, "I don't belong here. Really, I don't."

Her words froze in the air. Kate and I looked at each other, trying to deflect the moment's awkwardness. As Mom started to cry, Daddy told her, "Now, now, Dorrie. No more tears."

She wiped them away, knowing that her husband didn't like emotional displays. She brushed her hands over her dress, as if smoothing the wrinkles would straighten out her life. "There, all better," she said. "Good as new."

And then Mom was led off while we turned our backs, walking away to freedom. I was haunted by that. On the way home, the three of us hardly spoke. "When will we go and see her again?" I asked Daddy.

"We'll see, honey," he said. "We'll see."

But we never returned, not for the nine years my mother was kept there. It would be a long time before I ever considered her feelings about it.


Some names have been changed for privacy.

I Never Got to Say Goodbye

Born in Detroit in 1910, my mother, Doris, used to say she was a natural mother. She loved caring for her husband, Gordon, and her two girls. I wasn't very coordinated and often fell down. Mom was always cleaning dirt and gravel off my knees.

Her dream of family was shattered when Daddy said he wanted a divorce. Soon after, the death of her own mother, who lived with us, sent her into a deep depression. Nanna and Mom were very close, more like best friends, and my mother just lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling and crying. Shortly after this, Daddy took Kate and me next door to the Shellers to spend the day. I sensed that something important was up, otherwise why would Mrs. Sheller offer us cookies so early in the day?

I sat out by their pool, periodically excusing myself to use the bathroom. It was a ruse so I could look out their living room window and try to figure out what was going on at home. On my third trip through the living room, that's when I saw them. Daddy was guiding Mom by her arm toward his car. She kept turning toward him with an imploring look, crying. Finally she got in the passenger seat and Daddy locked the door. He climbed into his seat and drove away. Through the window, I watched them move slowly down the street, getting smaller and smaller.

Late that night, Kate and I were asleep when Daddy returned. I vaguely remember him leaning over me, and as he kissed my forehead, I smelled his breath mixed with alcohol and tobacco. In the morning, he explained to us that Mom wasn't well and that he'd taken her to a hospital to recover.

"When will she be coming home?" I asked.

"Not for a while," he said. I never got to say goodbye.

Overnight, it seemed, Kate and I slipped into a strange new category: motherless children. The mom who stroked my hair off my forehead when I was sick, who played the piano passionately, who loved to set a beautiful table for her family, was now gone. Just like that. It didn't seem fair at all, and Kate and I were never sure who was responsible for our feelings of sadness, of aloneness. To our faces, neighbors said things like, "Such strong little girls. Everything's going to be fine." Or, "Don't be sad. You still have your father." When they thought we were out of earshot, their tone changed. "Poor little things," we'd hear. "What will become of them now?"

In those days it was rare for a man to have sole custody of his children. "Stuck" is how my father described his situation. Bound to him now by need, fear and love, I began twirling my hair and sucking my thumb.

Daddy hired a series of housekeepers to look after us, but none lasted very long. Then, one day, my father was suddenly shipping Kate and me off to a convent boarding school. We'd live there for seven years, going home once a month and for holidays. "This is the best thing," I heard him say on the phone. It all happened so fast.

It was 1957. Mom was in her prison 75 miles away, and I now entered mine.

Every Trace of Her

In my childhood narcissism, I thought that Kate and I were the only victims. I didn't realize that my mother didn't have a choice about what happened to her. The '50s were the dark ages when it came to understanding emotions, and many conditions, now treated with medication and counseling, got labeled as mental illness. And the legal system in those days, I learned as a journalist, was stacked against people like my mother. They were subject to "involuntary commitment," the practice that allowed almost anyone to be put away on the say-so of a family member and a judge. My mother was just 45 when it happened, in the full bloom of life.

Mom's friends, when they talked about it, suggested that my father simply got tired of her. A loner with a wild streak, it's a wonder he got married in the first place -- four times in all (my mother was his second wife). Born in Covington, Kentucky, in 1910, he'd hitchhiked across the country to California and never really settled down, even after marrying Mom in 1945, working in real estate, and having two children. For much of his life, his center of gravity was outside the home, at a bar, sipping martinis, smoking cigarettes and flirting with every good-looking woman who walked by.

According to Daddy and the doctors, though, Mom had a nervous breakdown; both the deterioration of her marriage and the loss of her mother devastated her. Once, after an argument, when my father was heading out to a bar at night, my mom begged him not to leave her. She had two young children to care for; she needed him. He didn't change course. Feeling desperate, she ran down the street after him in her nightgown, crying.

Were Mom's problems due to her sensitive nature? Or was my father's inability to deal with emotion and monogamy the issue? I was so young; I didn't know the truth. And now, raised by my father, my wires got crossed. It became easier to blame Mom, since she was the one who had left me.

My father must have believed I'd share her fate, because if I'd cry over something, he'd say, "Be careful or you'll end up like your mother." Another time he said, "Get hold of yourself. Be more like me. I don't need anyone."

Sometimes, when Mom's friends first met me, they couldn't get over how much she and I looked alike. "Like mother, like daughter," they'd tell me.

They meant it as a compliment. But back then, I hated every word. Convinced I'd end up like her, I got rid of every trace of her I could.

Too Little, Too Late

Whenever I see a movie with a scene of an inmate walking out of prison after serving a long sentence, I think of my mother and the day she was released from Camarillo in 1964. I didn't know she was getting out and thus couldn't be there to greet her, but I like to think it was a beautiful day, warm and bright.

She was 54. She had no house, no job. Her parents were dead, her husband gone -- my father had divorced her by now -- and her daughters all but gone in terms of how little we'd communicated with her lately.

When she tried to get a job, what could she put on a résumé? That she'd spent nine years in a mental institution? All she had were a few folded photographs of her parents and Kate and me when we were little, and two small suitcases that held all of her worldly possessions.

Much later, Mom told Kate and me that she might not have been released for several more years had not Dr. Goodman, a Camarillo psychologist, taken an interest in her. The irony of his name didn't escape her. The first doctor to pay her real attention, this "good man" watched her interact with patients and staff around the pool, at picnics. Everyone liked her. She had a gentle, healing effect on others, often making them laugh.

My father told a different story. Mom, he said, started "to snap out of it" only after he filed for divorce. He had held off because a California law made it illegal to divorce a spouse who had been committed to a mental institution -- a protection against one-sided legal proceedings. But once the law changed in 1964, he filed. That gave Mom a dose of reality, he theorized, finally cracking her illusion that she might be able to hold on to him if she stayed in the hospital.

Mom wanted to be close to Kate and me, and live in Los Angeles. But after talking with Marshall, she chose the small town of Oxnard, California, right near Camarillo, to get her bearings, renting a motel room for $37 a week. The flicker of a once-bright light -- nearly extinguished by heavy medication, neglect and trauma -- still burned in her. She looked for office jobs. She listened to the radio and practiced shorthand.

Applying at the Kelly Girl temp agency, Mom tested well enough to land a secretarial position. For the next few months, she worked two jobs, finally accumulating enough savings to buy herself a used car and rent a room in a private house. Any day now, she would be ready to invite Kate and me for a visit, and then everything would be as it once was with us, she hoped.

By now, my sister and I had graduated from the convent boarding school and were living our high school years with a single father who picked up women as easily as most men picked up the morning newspaper. There was a constant parade of his girlfriends through our home. He provided the basics for us -- food, shelter, clothing, presents at Christmas and on birthdays -- but beyond that, he had no clue how to raise children.

He got rid of our beloved dog, Queenie, when we weren't home one day. He padlocked his bedroom door so we wouldn't disturb him. During our teen years, he had two pieces of advice for his daughters: "A woman can never have too many black cocktail dresses" and "Don't just get married and have a family. Look what happened to your mother. Find a good career."

By that time, Mom was a stranger to me; she'd missed so many years of my life. No wonder that when my father arranged a weekend visit for Kate and me in Oxnard to see her for Easter 1966, I threw a fit. It would be forced, artificial. I didn't need a mother anymore. That's what I told myself, anyway.

"You're going and that's all there is to it," said my father firmly.

And then, in the Greyhound bus station, there she was, rushing toward us, her arms open wide. She appeared old for her years, and her left eye drooped. She took my face in her hands and kissed me. Unsure of how to respond, I said, "How nice to see you." Even stiffer, Kate pulled away.

As Mom loaded our suitcases into her faded blue Ford Fairlane, I remember thinking what a clunker it was compared to Daddy's classy Cadillac, and how embarrassed I'd be if anyone I knew saw me in her run-down car in this cow town. Much of the weekend is a blur except for Mom's eagerness to jump through hoops and make us happy. "I still think of you as my little girls," she told us, anguished. But for us it was too little, too late.

All these years later, I still shudder at how I treated her.

Mom needed someone to take responsibility for her until she got on her feet. When Dr. Goodman asked my father to do it, he declined. It was time to cut the cord, he said. Instead, he offered to give her some money and to contact her cousin, Marshall McCoy, in Kansas.

"I Never Wanted to Leave You"

Our visits with mom became more regular over the next few years, once every month or so in either Oxnard or Los Angeles. I felt myself softening. She continually told us she loved us. She took us to the movies, to miniature golf, to the beach, to stores. She let Kate date, wear makeup and lie out by the pool in a two-piece bathing suit (something Daddy forbade, saying it was "much too risqué").

When we visited her, I felt like I was on vacation. "I want you girls to relax," she'd say. She bought me books, and knowing how much I liked animals, she gave me a baby chick for Easter one year. Sometimes on Sunday mornings, she would quietly pull back the covers and crawl into bed next to me, gently stroking my hair as she did when I was a little girl. At first I wasn't used to such care, and it somehow repelled me. Pretending to be groggy with sleep, I pushed her out of the bed.

She never hesitated to revisit the past; she had been a good wife and mother, she told us. "I never wanted to leave you girls," she said.

In time, Mom met Harold Hanson, a kind, simple man whom she enjoyed riding bikes with and picnicking on the beach. Their wedding was in 1981, in a lovely garden in a Presbyterian church in Oxnard. Mom looked radiant, the best I'd ever seen her, in a green silk dress and a corsage of gardenias. Those of us who knew her history cried that day. After so much loss and sadness, she had come so far. At the age of 71, she had found love again.

As the years passed, the center of our family gradually shifted away from Daddy toward Mom. "This is your home too," she'd say when we visited. Kate and I would sit out by the pool as Hal grilled steaks; Mom made margaritas and baked mushrooms, our favorite.

One day I found an ad in the paper for a used piano, and called. Bargaining with the owners, I got them to bring the $600 price down by $100. Mom was thrilled. Now she could play again. She and Hal moved the piano into their condo. The past was gone, and in its place was a brand-new life.

Life Could Be Better

In 1984, at age 74, my father collapsed on the floor of a restaurant. Kate and I were there, and thought he was having a heart attack. The bartender called the medics, but Daddy refused to go to the hospital. "I'll be all right," he said. "Just take me home." He began popping nitroglycerine pills.

A few months later, he had a stroke. "No fried foods and no cigarettes!" his doctor ordered. "This is serious." Daddy didn't listen.

"Oh, you know how your father is," said Maureen, my father's new wife, when I worried. "He doesn't like being told what to do."

A few months later he had another stroke. When I visited him in the hospital, he was sleeping and his mouth was open. He had only sparse gray hair around his temples now, and deep, puffy folds under his eyes. I tried to remember the man who had held such power over me as a child.

He never regained his health. After he got out of the hospital, Daddy asked to see Kate. We were stunned. Following a series of arguments, they hadn't seen or spoken to each other in five years.

"Maybe it's worth a shot," I told my sister. "He's not going to live much longer." At his apartment, he smiled and hugged her. They tried to make small talk. Finally, Kate asked to speak with him in private.

When they came out 20 minutes later, I saw tears in my father's eyes. "Come on, Mary," Kate said. "It's time to go."

She explained what had happened. Wanting to rid herself of the angry feelings that had festered in her for years, she finally confronted him. "We were your children, but you were selfish and cruel," she told him. "You caused so much pain in our lives and in Mom's life."

She said he bowed his head as tears filled his eyes. And then he looked up at her and said in a small, childlike voice, "I'm sorry."

That was the last time Kate ever saw him. She refused to visit him in his final days, saying she'd already buried him. By then, I had undergone several years of therapy in an effort to understand the unhappiness and loneliness I had felt for decades. Something inside me, maybe the same flicker of light that had guided my mother, made me think that life could be better.

I went to see my father a few days before he died. I held his hand.

He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered over the ocean, as he wished. There was no memorial service. He had no friends anymore.

An Outpouring of Love

In 1985, on Easter Sunday, Kate and I weren't prepared for how bad Mom looked when we visited her. Two years earlier, she'd been diagnosed with uterine cancer, but with surgery and chemotherapy, it had gone into remission. Now it was back. Still, her spirits remained optimistic. "I'm going to beat this thing," she would say, and we believed her.

Until we saw her that day. She had lost over 20 pounds and her hair was thinning, but she had gone all out, as usual, in preparing for our visit.

The table was decorated with fresh-cut flowers and a basket filled with colored eggs, and she had dressed in a yellow organza dress. When we were seated around the dining room table, Hal served the ham, but Mom ate only a few bites.

Seeing our tears, she said, "Don't be sad, girls. It's a part of life."

After lunch, she sat down at the piano and played like old times, her fingers dancing gracefully over the keys. She was half-singing, half-humming. She knew she was dying, but she didn't show any fear. She was weak and emaciated, but I thought she never looked more beautiful and at peace as she sang the last song for us, "The Impossible Dream."

I began sobbing. Through my tears, I finally told her of my shame for having treated her so callously in the years after her release from Camarillo.

"Can you forgive me?" I asked her.

Smiling, reaching her hand toward mine, Mom said, "There's no need, honey. I understand why you were that way."

Late one evening in September, the call came from her doctor: "She's terminal." It took a few minutes for his words to sink in.

Hal met Kate and me at the hospital, and we went to Mom's room. I stood beside her bed, watching life fading from her thin body. Overcome by the prospect of losing her again, I crawled into the bed and lay beside her.

We had come full circle. We needed no words to acknowledge that.

As I held her frail hand, she gave me some last-minute advice. "Your only problem, dear," she said, "is that you don't know your own worth. If you could just see what I see. And don't be alone. Life is hard enough."

Soon after that, her hand slipped from my grasp. She drifted off to sleep.

Kate and I took a short break for dinner. When we returned 30 minutes later, she was gone. Her connection to us was so strong that she could let go only when her daughters weren't near her.

Mom had asked to be cremated and her ashes buried next to her mother's grave in a cemetery in the San Fernando Valley, near where we used to live. When I went to the office to retrieve her ashes, the man at the desk returned with a brown box. It was still warm.

Many of Mom's friends and former co-workers came to the memorial at her condo. It was so crowded, some people had to stand outside in the front yard. Hal, my mother's dear Hal, cried as he passed around appetizers.

Mingling with everyone, I was struck by how differently the lives of my parents had ended -- one with almost no one beside him, the other surrounded by an outpouring of love. After living through the darkness, my mother left behind an example of how one human being, with goodness and strength of character, could find her way out into the world again. She showed what a parent could be, giving me a legacy of love that has guided my sister and me since then.

When I noticed people looking at me intently that day, I knew they were thinking how much I resembled my mother. And I smiled, proud to be Mom's daughter.