(Gasoline) Judy and (Greased) Lightning

Throughout most of my life, I have felt broken inside (in case you couldn't tell). I used to attribute this feeling to the loss of my father, who died very suddenly and tragically, at the age of 26. I was just over a year old at the time and my two elder sisters were 2 and 5 years old. We witnessed his death, watching from the cab of a pick-up truck while this young man, a tour de force in terms of energy and zest, very good looking, and considered to be a genius mechanic, made a mistake that cost us all nearly everything. He was a pioneer in the sport of tractor-pulling (which is a HUGE deal in this part of the world) and had built his own and modified it for speed and power, above everything else, of course. It was named Greased Lightning, of course. This thing was a complete monster. In my childhood imagination, it seemed more like an animal than a machine and even as I write this, the image in my mind of this tractor is synonymous with the ideal I have of my father (which may explain a few things about my personality). This tractor was like a skeletal dragon, it breathed smoke and fire, it roared and shook the earth. It had tires the size of my first car. It had exhaust pipes like chimneys and an enormous engine. It was a beast. 

The day he died, he took it out of the barn where it was being stored to show it off to us girls and somewhere along the way the night before, the counterweights were removed. He didn't know it and I guess didn't think to do a safety inspection before lift-off (relatable) but he was also probably excited and anxious, rushing around as parents of young kids always do. The other thing to remember is tractor pulling is a big money machine, in itself. A lot of money was invested in this machine and it stood the chance to make some big money too, so no doubt he was very preoccupied with it. Looking back on this now, I see a man under a bizarre responsibility all tied up in a hell of a lot of fun. 

The day he died, the tractor flipped on him and killed him, violently. It nearly cut his head off and that is the truth. My mother tells me stories about it now and then and I learn a little bit more about it with each passing conversation and to this very day, it is the most heart-breaking story I have ever heard. But it is not only a story, it is my lived experience and its all I know when I look back through the years into my childhood. I have never been a child, in fact. I have been young, but I have never known a day of innocence in my life. I have carried the sorrow of all of this with me, day in and day out. 

As for my Dad's tractor? I love it as an emblem of passion and ambition, but I fear it as a device that kills at the same time. All of this happened during my formative years and it has been a very heavy load to carry, to make sense of, and to cope with on an emotional level. I have known grief as a primary emotion and an unwanted household guest, and much like a poltergeist, it's not a pleasant thing to live with. 

I learned to grapple with my emotions through the expression of visual art and through a passion for faith. I caught on to the fact that drawing made me feel better early on in life and it became easy for me to channel my frustrations through my artwork and I plumbed the depths of my heart repeatedly, unearthing my sadness about my life and the life of my sisters and mom as though I was digging a fresh grave over and over, but there was never any bottom to it. Everyone was just so desolately devoid of happiness, all the time. 

Well, I made enough artwork to choke a horse in these last twenty years and never did find the bottom of all this grief. It's just there, like stones on the bottom of the riverbed, it's what makes me who I am as the waters of life rush over me, smoothing the rough edges. All the while, my relationship with my mother never flourished, but remained constant, sort of like the humming of an electric radio. Some eras between us were good, some were not so good. The volatility that erupted between us seemed to me to be off the charts bad and I was always tense and stressed around my mother and sisters and often opted to play alone or outside. I understood why things were the way they were to some degree, but there was something else going on under the surface and I could not figure out what it was. 

Life and circumstance sort of whisked me like a tumble weed back home to live with my mother, recently, in case you haven't heard. She was in a situation where she needed me and I will admit I was in a situation where I needed her. I went through an entire year after my separation not hearing from anyone in my family, including my mother. I was hurt by that but didn't let it deter me from seeing the opportunity to help her and my stepdad so I swallowed my pride and came home and slept on their couch. I am still (sort of) sleeping on their couch 3 years later, but something quite remarkable happened in this timeframe. I found the source of the brokenness and I have learned it did not come from my father's death, tragic and horrid as it was. This is good news, believe it or not. Where the pain was really coming from was smashing into the barrier between my mom and myself over and over again, a repetitive disaster as painful as bashing your head against any brick wall, I promise you. I could never get close to my mother and she could never get close to me. Why? 

Well, I would be lying if I didn't say my family has its fair share of mental health issues, but I also know every family does, I personally know it should not be a source of shame, it just is what it is. But, I will admit that I, like everyone else, expected my mom to lead the way somehow and get us out of this mess we all seemed to be in, but she never did and now I see, she never could. She's not equipped to lead, but has the qualities of a leader; others (including me) have been confused as to what we could expect from her, I think. 

As fate allows, at times, circumstances will kick your ass until you get the lesson. For me, to put it in a nutshell,  I had to experience a lot of challenging things (ahem) to see what it might feel like to walk in my mother's shoes. What a journey it has been, through the nooks and crannies of my heart, to unearth all this gold. My mother was the source of pain, but she has also been the source of my healing. What I learned about my mother is she has a very rough exterior and she can be cold and often she can be mean, cutting you down at the utterance of just a word (a family trait). She has always had the capacity to push my buttons and  make me so angry, I would seethe for days. I could not figure out what it was the caused her to be that way until I realized it is due the way things were for her growing up. The word bullying comes to mind, and the kids in her family went through a lot of it, which changes you. It turns the world into a hostile place. 

In my own life, I only have one remaining sibling and we don't get along at all either and it bothers me, a lot. I considered what it would feel like to be at odds under the same circumstances as what my mother faced growing up and being in conflict with her siblings at times and I can see where her boundaries are and why they are there. She's just extremely defensive, all the time. Why? It's because underneath it all, she has a very soft and joyous heart, the kind that you aren't really allowed to show in this world in order to save herself from being targeted and bullied. It's the exact same stuff the current generation talks about all the time, but we seem to forget bullying is a very really problem that has existed for a really long time, so she learned to hide her true nature and hide it well because it was dangerous to do otherwise. This entire family spends most of its time guarding itself against each other, in fact. It's a learned behaviour as well as a generational thing and I hope to stop it dead in its tracks. 

Gratefully, thanks to these last several years, I have had the opportunity to sort all of this out. I see what makes her who she is, therefore I see what makes me who I am. Suddenly, all the chains and barriers fall away from me like dominos and I feel a certain kind of lightness of heart I have not felt, maybe ever. 

Firstly, she is an artist, just as I am. I am an artist because she taught me how to be an artist, in fact. And I took the time to examine her artwork and realized its where she hides the good stuff. Her sense of humour, her ideals for a happy home, her vision of a snowy evening, it's all there, in her artwork. I see, therein, she is not a big meany at all (ahem). She is funny and lighthearted and not guarded but detail oriented and keenly in tune with the world around her, especially plants and animals, but she also loves dishes and doilies and so on and so on. 

The dichotomy that exists between my mother and her artwork tells the story and leaves the trail wide open towards understanding her and it might also help to know she is named after the comic character Gasoline Judy (what's in a name?). To put it concisely, she is not afraid of conflict, will face any challenge, but will also walk away from a fight if it is in her best interest to do so. She is a genius with words, when needed. She is vague and aloof, when needed. Her voice is like the crash of thunder when she is angry, and her intuition is as precise as a bolt of lightning. Her story is one of survival, keeping the flame within herself alive, for the benefit of herself, and no one else. Not even me. This is what makes her hard to understand and hard to know, but once you know it, the walls go down and you get a chance to engage with a brilliant artist with wit, charm, and humour. It's like mining for diamonds, difficult and sort of dangerous, but worth it. The diamonds she sprinkles throughout her life bring me no shortage of joy and the same is true for her friends and caregivers, who love her work, not to mention her collection of dishes. As for her artwork? It makes me smile, every time. 

So, I found the bottom of all this grief and pain and it existed because of the separation between me and my mother, whom I love endlessly and fearlessly. She is my greatest source of curiosity because she is such a great artist, but she can be my greatest source of pain because she can be cold and severe, but I have to hold on through the storms because I know I need her and I know she needs me. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we have struck a balanced understanding and it is miraculous to me. Like steadying a ship through ragings seas. 

As with all of us, there is darkness and light within my mother, ebbing and flowing. Expectations aside, my mother is who she is and she is multifaceted, like a hybrid jewel of diamond and onyx, all in one. Sometimes I wonder how she has found the strength to carry on but I know where it comes from. She has rock solid faith, muted at times, to the world around her, but chugging along just the same, like a steam engine on a one-way track. She has faith in her purpose, which gives me faith in mine. 

It was daunting to consider the fact that my father's death might be this open, festering wound for me, as long as I live, but it turns out, it is not and maybe never was. It was the love for my mother, displaced and often totally spent on nothing, that left me feeling so lost. Now I see her for who she is, now I can see myself for who I am. Now we have something we can build on where there was nothing but shifting sand before.  I see incredible, tensile strength and a very bright light behind densely layered glass walls. I feel like we finally found each other after searching around through a lot of darkness. 

It's pretty great because, at the end of the day, my mother is a lot of fun. I am glad to be here with her now and when I move forward to whatever life has to offer me in the future, I will go there with a sure foundation, bright, shiny and solid like marble. I know who I am and I know where I come from and nothing in this world can ever take that from me. 

I Thank God a million times over for the things I have experienced in the last several years. I have never felt more alive, at times, but it is the love I have for my mother, and my mother's everlasting love for me, that kept me moving forward.  

Post-Script

I woke up in gale force winds, screaming to be heard, descending to the bottomless bottom, but I kept hearing my Father say to me "go home, go home, go home..." 

So I did. And here I am. 

xo