Mama, Part One

Excerpt from the memoirs of Pat Otterness

?Mama. Part One

Having a schizophrenic mother was always an adventure.?My mother was fun to be with, always full of wonderful ideas, but maybe a little on the manic side.?One thing for sure … she was never depressed, or if she was, she never let it show.?I was spared the dark days that some children of the mentally ill are forced to endure.?I was always greeted with a smile.?I was her window to the world.?I could go places and do things that her illness prevented her from experiencing.?And because of her intense interest in every facet of my life, I became a teller of tales, and eventually, a writer.

I was a beautiful baby.?So beautiful, indeed, that the studio that took my first portrait asked Mother if they could feature my picture in their window as an ad for their work.?So, right off the bat, I was the center of attention for a growing audience.?My mother had the portrait sent to my dad in the South Pacific, and I have a photo showing it proudly displayed in his tent there.?If you happen to be a girl, born to a dad who really wanted a son, it is better to be pretty.

My mom followed me to Virginia when I moved here from North Carolina.?In fact, she accompanied me to help with the move, since I was seven months pregnant at the time, and had a two year old to contend with.?We were practically starving, and Mom became so worried, she wrote to my dad’s aging uncle, asking for money.?I had never even met the man.?I was horrified that she had begged him for money for me, and was humiliated when he sent money and a letter to me, a very hurtful one, saying I should be more careful with my money.?He said that I shouldn’t be making my mother beg.?But this was all a part of her illness that I had to deal with.

Shortly thereafter, my mother became so frightened by our poverty that she began to break down, and even threatened my husband.?She told him that if he ever got me pregnant again, she would castrate him.?It was her illness talking, but it was time to have her hospitalized again.?My aunt insisted I would have to call the Sheriff’s office and have them come and take her to the mental hospital in nearby Staunton.?That was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.?Bad enough to be pregnant and penniless in a new town, but having to commit my mother was an even harsher reality to face.

Mom got colon cancer shortly after my divorce, when I was trying to cope on my own.?Her surgery was successful, but soon afterwards, her sister had her placed in a nursing home, where she remained for the rest of her life.?She was only sixty-six when she entered the nursing home.?I visited her there every Saturday for the next eighteen years.?I was working full time and caring for my three children, so I didn’t have much time to spare.?But every Saturday I would take my mother out to lunch, and then to the library, and sometimes we would shop for things she needed.?In spite of the regularity of my visits, she always looked surprised and delighted when I arrived, as if it was an unexpected blessing.?She never failed to greet me with a beaming smile.?I truly was the one delight of her life.?It’s a heavy responsibility to be that loved.

My mom died a month after her eighty-fourth birthday, of congestive heart failure.?I camped out in her hospital room on a cot, to be with her for the week or so that she was there.?Mostly, she was too ill to speak.?The last words she said to me were these:?“If I die, who will look after you?”?I said, “I guess I’ll have to look after myself, Mama.”?I was fifty-five years old.?But I was still her precious baby.?Her concern was still, right up until her death, for the welfare of her baby.

The night after her death, I dreamed about her and her elephant dress, a dress she had worn when I was a child, covered in elephants.?Her name was Ella, and I think she wore that dress in the dream to be sure I recognized her.?From that night on, she would often visit me in dreams.?We would have tea together.?She was always hovering.?The mind is an amazing thing.?Only one other person has ever haunted me more than my mother did in those delightful dream visits. ?

Then, about a year or so after her death, I had an unusual dream.?In it, she was young again and no longer suffered from her illness.?She was totally healed, totally happy, radiant!?And that was the end of the dream visits, except for a very rare one from time to time.?I have had this unusual kind of dream several times with those I have lost, and I know of others who have had them, too.?They seem to be a reassurance to those left behind that the person they lost has been healed and has a new life.