Missing Pieces
03 October 2006 - 12:16 .
It's been an interesting weekend. My mom flew in this weekend and stayed with me for the past few days. She flew in on Friday morning, and left yesterday afternoon. We did some touristy stuff, she came to watch me at a rowing regatta, and we had sushi. None of this by itself is really remarkable. What is remarkable about it is that I've only really known my mom for about 2 ½ years.You see, growing up, my mom was never there. She left when I was something around a year or so in age. The reasons she left have been explained to me, and I accept them as true, so I won't go into details about it (it's not your business anyways). But some 34 years later she decided that she wanted to see how I'd turned out, so she made an effort to locate me, and succeeded. There's an argument that could be made that it was selfish of her to try to find me after all that time, and it may even be a valid argument but it's not really something I concern myself with. I don't really care.
This last weekend was the 5th time in my aware (post-toddler) life that I've seen my mother face to face. I grew up being raised by my grandparents and my great-aunt, so I was never lacking for a mother-figure, and the surrogates I had filled in admirably I think. I dearly love my grandmother, and I terribly miss my late great-aunt, and I think they did a damn fine job with me. But it's still not quite the same.
A number of people have asked me what it's like to meet my birth-mother after such a long time. It's weird. It was weird to begin, and it's still weird now, although far less so. I guess the best analogy I can come up with is that it's kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. We all go through life, and everyday another piece of the puzzle is added to the overall image. The only difference for me is that now I have a complete picture of the image on the outside of the box, where before there was a big chunk of that picture missing. I've got a better idea of why I turned into the person I am from knowing my birth-mother. Genetics work, and they really do count for something.
I'm glad she came to visit, and that we could spend some time alone, just the two of us, finally getting to know each other a little more closely. And I like the picture that's developing of where I'm likely to end up.
Posted by Linda Vance on 03 October 2006 - 12:35
Every now and then the impossibility of predicting the future is brought home to me by an event or episode that I would never in a million years have foreseen--in this case, riding up to the Night Market on the back of Jeremy's motorcycle on Friday night. (We will not discuss his insidious plan, which was to lure me into the food stalls, poison me, and take over the ranch, which would position him for the ultimate takeover of the Northern Great Plains. That is what I think he means by "where I'm likely to end up." I am notifying George Bush that if his efforts to control mexicans fail as miserably as his efforts to control terrorists, he should set his sights of Jeremy's imperialist intentions). But I digress, again.Posted by Jer on 03 October 2006 - 14:21
Thank you mother... this site is regularly crawled by spiders, so now I'm sure some DHS bot has determined that I'm a threat to the American national security program. Much appreciated.Posted by Linda Vance on 03 October 2006 - 16:48
Okay, listen up, DHS: Jeremy is a GOOD BOY. Even though he is a Canadian, he LOVES the U.S. and he respects our LEADERS. Besides, if he really wanted to take over the Northern Great Plains, he'd trample Alberta and Saskatchewan first.Posted by Jer on 03 October 2006 - 20:18
Mother... a) no one believes that I'm a good boy, b) why would anyone want Saskatchewan for anything, and c) you know how I feel about your leaders. I can handle my own seditious nature and tendencies, thank you.Posted by Linda Vance on 03 October 2006 - 20:58
Shhhh! *I* know how you feel about them, but *they* don't. And it's true about Saskatchewan, isn't it? If Canada were a monopoly game (and we all know that multinational resource companies think of it that way), I'm sure Saskatchewan is the equivalent of Baltic Avenue. By the way, did you know that the prototype for Monopoly, The Landlord's Game, was designed to teach children about the evils of capitalism?All this fluff and nonsense aside, I do want to note that I always wanted to see how he turned out, but spent years steeling myself for potentially awful truth before I was willing to find out. Think: he could have been my dark side, my alter, my inner beast --or some horrid reflection of the worst of his father. It was way safer to just imagine him. Now that I know who he is, a little, I'm trying not to fall victim to regret, but instead to just delight in such unexpected experiences like a motorcycle ride through a warm Vancouver night.
Posted by Matt on 03 October 2006 - 23:53
*snif* I'm gettin' all misty here...Posted by Lady J. The Frequently Invisible on 30 October 2006 - 02:42
Having known Jeremy for many, many years (and Linda, he is NOT a good boy, but he is very talented), and having had the pleasure of meeting Linda and educating her on the loin-cloth wearing customs of the contemporary Irish - reading this exchange has warmed both the cockle and sub-cockle areas of my heart.And Jeremy - are you adding sedition to your list of nefarious hobbies?