You know Barbara was an interesting woman from many aspects. Did she want all of those children? YOU know what I find strange is althought the kids know Barbara probably told me more about herself than anyone now alive,,.... none have mined my brain to know more about her real feelings of love hate life and everthing as it was as she saw it. Many think they know... and many maybe are afraid to know what she might have thougth at those moments of thoughtfulness. Another thing strange about barbara's children; None have ever matched her intellectual prowess, nor seem to have interest in it. Y,et I had great interest in learning too..... both role models, as we may have been at some time, never birthed any educational drives like she and I shared. I loved that about her, that she understood me, and respected my intelligence. She actually understood what the movie "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" was about and understood my facsination with it, yet she like any normal person certainly was bored by it after about 100 playings but she understood the intellectual subtleties as well as I did, and could quote lines. What did we talk about in the absence of the kids? Did any of the kids actually think a person like Chuck or Leighten Venn would have had an interest in Barbara (althought she had no college education) as an intellectual peer of curiosity. Poor and Lazy, often times as she was. She was smart. Did it ever occur to the children that without that apptitude I may have never been in their lives, If she had been a boring conversationalist with no ability to dicuss at least the news and politics of our time I doubt I could have lasted more than a few days and our lives would never have reached the point where we would recognize one another on the street today.........She was an intelligent woman .... do any of you ever plan to ( when you have the time and money) follow in the steps of your mother and unleash some intellecual curiosity about the world. Did you all know that she faught with herself as to whether she would continue her career in school, or step forward and fulfill the duty she felt she had to her parents to give up her studies, get her parents out of the nursing home, and take on the more dull task of caring for them at home. Yes she took their money. but not for herself .... no her children. Had she attained a bachelors degree with the demanding scholarly efforts required ( as she no doubt easily could have) She would have been far happier. But Barbara though superficially at times selfish.... In the larger role of sticking it out as a parent and keeper of her own aging parents ( 2 more children at that point who, by the way in their own ignorance and understandable senility of being in their late 80's, abandoned her to her only reliable son kevin.) Kevin took the broken woman abandoned by me, emabarrased and taunted by her son Joey and wife over a petty phone bill even the week before her death. He cared for her while the remainder of the family bickered and endulged in their transient bounties of money. (Timmy, Stephen and Joey) (all more fit financially to care for her and blind to her impending death) Kevin Stayed in a broken marriage suffering the criticisms of the family who did not understand his dilemma, keeping the fantasy alive for his mother, all the while, cleaning up the carpets the filthy blankets and cigarette burns. I still remember the kindness in the questions as kevin explained to us on the 48 hrs leading up to her death......"Mom did you have any accidents while you stayed up at Timmy and Steve's? Before she went to the hospital he had her take a good bath so that she would not be embarrased and then called the drugged rabble in Pampa that " Mom may be dying.... come quick.......we don't know whats going on.... they want to ventilate her and they won't let us see her and the doctors and nurses are running around all over" Later Timmy would curse me and our greed and blindness to her plight. Joey of course suffered in a silence only he knows, as it began to separate him from his mom and then after her death severed all ties to the man that held his hand till his senior year in highschool. Barbara lasted to see her last two children finally delivered up from the criminal justice system. first Tim;.. then only weeks before her death Jennifer. She said her good byes to all six of her childred and suffered the obstinante indignity of the abscense of her own parents and brothers from her funeral. Her Dedication to her children and grandchildren was to her a calling like that of a preacher to the service of the lord. As her own Mother cursed her checkbook than was never needed. Barbara in the final irony had taken 8 children to care for in giving up her studies, she gave up the only thing she felt was worth giving enough strength to keep her living, had it not been not for the greed of those of us in Pampa she may never have felt after gving so much that she had finally become a burden to those she's cared so much for. And rather than take more she died. She gave her life allowing her children to carve out theirs. Kevin found his love. Each has matured and changed not always in ways she would have liked. myself withstanding. But she left over 20 new lives in addition to the 6 she personally gave birth to. And now Kevin crys to smell her smell again. All one can do is marvel at the intensity of experience and reality one life makes in this huge and eternally fascinating universe. One small poor Lady never laid golden eggs but made lives a plenty and the family reunions in 20 years will be the snapshot, a mosaic of lives all the from the original labor pains of just one Intense sparkling woman. (The Obituary read she was survived by her husband Stephen O'Kelley and.......
No comments:
Post a Comment