comparative and integrated approach to family therapy

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Dorothy's Child \ 101

Jairalynnc Agx liked to think of herself as just another bright young woman who found her mother embarrassing. Her g1rIfkiends echoed this feehg-they appreciated their moms, but sure didn't want to turn out like diem. These women wanted to take bold chances with their ca- reers, and then allow their professions to get healthy head starts before they had children. They would choose husbands who valued this same plan-men who wanted to be equals at work and home. And because of their M s . . . because they wanted so much more than their moth- ers . . . because they and their mothers seemed symbolic of entirely dif- ferent eras. . . their relationships with their mothers were inevitably awkward. They took their mothers with a grain of salt and rolled their eyes when Mom went old-school on them.

That was just the way it was. Doesn't every mother sometimes drive her daughter crazy? So Jarralynne Agee could console herself with the way her feeling

toward her mother seemed parallel to everyone else's. She could hide

in plain sight, her secret intact. Nobody had to know that her story was theirs hut in extreme. They had moms whose lives had not worked out the way they had planned, and so did Jarralynne. They had to step from their mother's shadow in order to succeed, and so had Jarralynne. This symmetry provided an e f f h v e camouflage. Nobody had to know

But in August 1999, Jarralynne's past could no longer be kept from sight. She was forced to deal with it, and in doing so she slowly came to own it. Now, five years later, she's no longer ashamed of where she came from. She can say proudly, This is me; this is my mother, this is us to- gether; this is our life.

Her mother is Karen FIetcher.

When Karen Fletcher was a girl in D a ~ o n , Ohio, her parents consid- i

ered themselves to be the black bourgeoisie, part of a proud middle- class renaissance. In that culture, bourgeois did not have the capitalist connotations ascribed to it by Karl Marx; the phrase had descended from pre-Civil War usage of bourgeois noir, when it meant "a black free- man," as opposed to a slave.

Her grandmother had been part of Miami University's elite. Her

aunt had married a respected doctor. Her father was the assistant p i n - cipd at Dunbar High School in an era when teaching at Dunbar was as prestigious as being a university professor might be for a white man.

Karen's mother, Dorothy, was very fair-complected, and this, too, con-

ferred status. Her father was very protective of his wife, and he often repeated that people did not think he deserved a woman as beautiful as she. They lived on Stolz Avenue, on a street where six other Dunbar teachers lived.

But from her front door, Karen could look up past the m t to the neighborhood known as Sugar Hffl. Those on Sugar Hifl had only a little more money, but it was a time when a slight difference in in- come made a bi difference in how peopk thought of themselves. Peo- ple who lived on Sugar Hilt belonged to black professional societies such as the Links and sent their children to social orgamzations like Jack-and-Jill. They were doctors and lawyers or had management jobs at Frigidaire and NCR. They parked their Cadillacs ia driveways beside houses with nice porches. Their children wore expensive shoes and skirts. Karen was born on the border of this upper-middle-class black society. Her parents and family had the education to match, but not quite the income. Sugar Hill was more than a temptation or aspiration; Karen considered it her destiny, her right, her natural progression.

On the night of her junior prom, Karen Fletcher's date was a nice boy from Trinity Presbyterian named James Kirk. Karen and James went down the street to meet all the neighbors and show off her dress-that was how it was done back then. ?3ey were all expecting

102 I Why Do t Love These People?

her. At one of these houses there was a family of three boys, one of whom was barred from the prom because he'd been suspended from school. "You think you look so cute in that dress your momma bought you?" he taunted, cruelly. Well, she's not really your momma. You're adopted."

When she arrived at die prom, Karen reported the taunt to her mother, who was there as a chaperone. Her mother in turn reported it to her father, who was there as an administrator. Both seemed to watch her all night, protectively. It dawned on her that there might be some validity to that boy's accusation.

In the morning Karen's parents sat her down. They told her that they loved her and that Karen should be glad someone had wanted to adopt her. But Karen was devastated. Back then, being adopted was some- thing that nobody spoke about. That the secret had come out, publicly, in front other prom date, was horrifying. The stigma attached to adop- tion back then made an adopted child feel second-rate, never able to be

loved like a biological child. Once she went looking for the evidence, Karen could find plenty to support her fear that she was not loved like a "realn child. Her shoes came from a thrift store and her clothes from a discount store-was this not proof that her parents did not care

enough even to dress her like the other kids? Karen looked elsewhere for lave and attention. By the fall of her se-

nior year she was pregnant. This scandalized the neighborhood- Karen's father insisted she should put the baby up for adoption. He had raised his daughter to marry a rich man; her chance at that was already ruined,

but perhaps some of her life could be salvaged. Every week of the preg- nancy, Karen's father dragged her down to the Community Chest building to meet with the executive director, who counseled Karen on how they would place the baby with another family. However, the di- rector insisted that the choice was Karen's. She eventually decided to keep the baby. She had a daughter, Jackie, in August 1967, right before she was to begin college. She had been accepted to Kentucky State Uni- versity in Frankfort. The university kept calling, wondering when

Karen would make her deposit on her dorm room. Her father punished

Dorothy's Child I 103

her by refusing to pay. He eventually called the school and told them that his daughter had "fallen from grace."

Her father kicked her out and cut her off. Karen responded by hav- ing three children from three different fathers by the time she was twenty-two: Jackie, Jarralynne, and James. She got an apartment three

blocks away. During this period her mother, Dorothy, snuck her money and looked after the children while Karen worked at Ohio Bell as a tele- phone operator. When the youngest was one month old, Karen's mother suddenly and unexpectedly died. A neighbor came to her door to tell her. Karen stumbled out into the street and wailed. She looked to the heavens and asked God why he had taken her. In one moment, Karen lost everything. Her mother was the one who cared, the one who

listened, the one who loved. "The rest of our days have been ruled by the loss of my mother," she

recounted. Quite suddenly without child care, and having a salary that covered

rent or food but not both, Karen begged her father for help. She knew he did not want to see her, so she limited her pleas to only the worst emei-gencies. He complained that all his daughter wanted was money.

Karen and her kids became "those needy people." In his eyes Karen had fallen from grace. Then she kept on falling,

with no bottom in sight Without any options, Karen applied at the housing agency for a place

to live. They told her she could move into the Metropolitan Apart- ments south of town, which were brand-new. But in the meantime, while the Metropolitan was being finished, she would have to move into the cold cement hulks at the Parbide Homes, the nastiest housing project in Ohio.

The day she moved into Parkside, her television moved out. In the year that followed, a neighbor was shot on his doorstep. Another mother's baby was lolled when her boyfriend dropped the child. A five- year-old girl was molested. The housing agency never lived up to its promise to let Karen move into the Metropolitan.

"It was a shocking transition," Karen remembered. "I was completely

104 I Why Do f Love These People?

unprepared. I was a society girl. I was not used to being around people who drank alcohol. To this day I have never tasted a drop myself. Every night the neighbors fought. I have never gotten over this."

Rarely could Karen find a babysitter for her children, so she some- times left diem in the care ofher oldest child, Jackie, who was only five. One night Karen came home and found the apartment reeking from smoke. There had been a fire when Jackie tried to warm up a can of poA and beans on the stove. Amazingly, the postman had saved her children. But Children's Services had been telephoned. They began an hmtigation. Trying to avert a disaster, Karen took her children down to Head Start.

Head Start evaluated each of die children, and then considered Karen. Head Start told her they could care for her children, but that Karen needed help, too; they believed she was showing signs of mental illness, perhaps set off by the loss of her mother. They offered to steer her to the proper agency. Karen considered this to the fullest extent of

1' her capabilities. The potential benefit did not seem to outweigh the risk of some doctor declaring her unfit to care for her kids. So she insisted she was not ill, she had simply lost her mother. Before they could stop her, she grabbed her kids and left.

Karen Fletcher

-

WhenJarralynne was a young girl, her mother seemed constantly over- whelmed, Then there were tunes Jarralynne thought her mother was suffocating under the burden. As if she were on her last breath. Like on the night her mother putJarraiynne in the backseat of the car with her little brother, Jamie, and her older sister, Jackie.

Karen drove and cried and muttered. Jarralynne was accustomed to Mother crying, but it never failed to scare her. Where was she taking them? To a restaurant to beg for food? To Granddaddy's house? She rubbed the fogged windows with her jacket to look for clues.

When the car turned onto North Main Street, Jarralynne and her sibling became stone silent. Mother parked the car in a lot beside some brightly colored bungalows. The sign read SHAWN ACRES. Jam-

lynne knew what it was. She had known kids who had been there. Shawn Acres was a county foster home for troubled children and orphans.

Her mother's tears went from dribbles to sobs. "Lord, give me strength," Karen bawled.

Karen climbed on the seat back and reached to hug and kiss each of her children.

"I'm so sorry, children. I have to let you go. I can't do it anymore. I can't."

"No, Momma," Jarralynne cried. We're sorry. We won't cause you any more trouble."

"I could have had a life if not for you all. You've been my chain. Don't get pregnant young, or your life will be over like mine was."

"Momma, we're sorry!" "I can't do it, children. You'tt be better ofE You won't go hungry." We're not hungry, Momma. We're okay! Please, Momma." "Lord, please Lord. Give me a break." Karen did not say anything for a long time. She just slumped over

and cried. Jarralynne and her s i b l i i huddled and continued to make promises. They wanted their mother to be happy. They would do any- thing to make their mother happy. But they were not getting out of that car.

106 I Why Do I Love These People? Dorothy's Child I 107

Hours seemed to go by. Then Jarralynne realized her mother had not made a sound in a long time.

"Momma?" Jarralymie looked aver the seat. Mother was slumped across the

front seat. She didn't seem to be moving. Jarralynne noticed that there was ahandgmontheflcmr in h t o f ' h e r moher.

"Momma! Mommy, wake up!" The lads reached over and shook her. Nothing. 'Mommy, don't die! Mommy, wake up!" They pounded on her and shook her until her eyes finally opened

again. The crying resumed. Then their mother said. "We wouldn't be

hungry if my mommy was still alive." Finally Karen restarted the car. "I'm sony, children. I'm sony for scaring you. Momma's just so un-

happy, I don't know what to do. I need a break. Pray for Mommy. Please pray for Mommy."

In the backseat, Jarralynne prayed. If there was a bottom, that was it. But this happened more than once. This scene recurred maybe four times a year, up untilJarralynne was

about ten years old. Karen would come out of those harrowing decision points outside

Shawn Acres with some determination. Karen was the working poor, which meant she was jealous of those on food stamps, who at least had something to eat. So she'd get creative. She would dress herself up real

nice, drag the kids to a restaurant, and announce, "Oh my God, the check didn't show up! But it'll be here tomorrow. The kids gotta eat,

though." If that didn't work, Karen would tell her girk to go up to a nice lady

somewhere and ask her to "be my godmother." Karen knew they would think it was cute, and some handout would come of it.

Karen's father had remarried and moved from his house on Stoh Av- enue. But he kept the house, and even kept it heated, so Karen would sneak her kids in through the window at night. When Karen's father

found out, he called the police and had them removed. They took to sleeping in their car because it had a heater. But Karen did not carry in- surance on the car, so when it was stolen it was not replaced.

In time, Karen married Gene Fletcher. He was about her equal, meaning he worked and yet had problems on a par with hers, and he was not able to add much stability to the situation.

"Whenever Jarralynne was invited to dinner at another girl's house,

she would make herself as busy as a maid, hoping to get invited back. When she was thirteen, she began working evenings at Huffies Bar B Q, which allowed her to bring leftovers home for her hungry family.

Most children in Jarratynne's situation develop a sense of the world

in which they are not prime movers-they believe they are utterly un- able to affect their environment. Everything they experience seems

outside of their control. The miracle in Jarralynne's development was that she was very good at letting go of so many bad things and very good at hanging on to the precious examples of situations in which her own effort paid off, such as at school and at work. She was a victim of tragic circumstance, but she pretended she was not, and she proved the virtue of this lie. By pretending she was in control, she constructed an identity that served her well. She remembers that she logged people as either Nonbelievers or Believers, according to their faith in her. She ignored the Nonbelievers and basked in the confidence of the Believers. Her biggest cheerleader was always her mother.

Despite her fall from grace and her debilitating depression, Karen Fletcher hoped her children could enjoy the same benefits she once

had as a child. Even though she could not feed her kids, Karen insisted that they learn all the skills proper children learn She signed them up for every group and summer program that die middle-class kids went

to. Jamie was on the boys' swim team; the girls were entered in beauty pageants and later joined female sororities. Karen used friends' ad- dresses to enroll her children in the best public schools. She insisted her children act in school plays, and when Jarralynne had to memorize her monologues for P w y & Bess, her mother also learned every single line and rehearsed it with Jarralynne to perfection. All of the children

108 I Why Do I Love These People?

were entered in speech contests. They joined the student government and in high school were voted student body presidents. The kids were expected to go to college. It was not an opportunity, not a choice. It was

an expectation drilled into tfaem4nce they were young. Jarralynne could never figure her mother out. On the one hand, the

rent would* unpaid and they would be publicly evicted. On the other hand, her mother was the only parent who knew how to do taxes cor- reedy, or fit! out a college application, or get somebody's son out ofjail. For this wisdom, her mother was highly respected by other parents. The Karen Fletcher they knew stirred hearts when she sang "The Other Side of the Mountain" in church. To this day, Karen Fletcher is revered in die African American community of Dayton. If this is hard for us to imagine, knowing what we do about her struggles, think of how much harder it was for Jarralynne to reconcile. She never knew which mom was going to be there at night. When Jarralynne was a junior in high school, she carried around a

brochure for a summer study program at Uhhington & Lee in Virginia. She knew her mother could never afford it, but the pictures on the brochure entranced her. She kept the brochure close to her heart, and stared at it in private moments.

One day her mother said, 'You're going." Huh? "How?" "I called them and persuaded them to take you." Partly because of her performance in that summer program and the

people she met there, Jarralynne was offered a full scholarship to Fisk College in Nashville.

Jarralynne did not stop at her bachelor's degree. She earned her PhD in psychology from Georgia State in Atlanta. She met Bob Agee there; he was studying to be a sports medicine physician. On their first date they decided to spend the rest of their lives together. Bob was from a family completely unlike hers. His father was a respected army sur- p a . When she went home with Bob to visit the Agees their first

Christmas together, there were more presents under the tree than Jar- ralynne had received in her entire life. To her surprise, every single one

Dorothy's Child I 109

of the presents was for her. She had no idea how to take this: She had some practice learning to accept food given to her, though she always offered to work for it; she had some practice receiving a night in a warm house, though she had always tried to tidy up as a way of repaying that, too. She thought she knew how to receive, but she did not, for this was

a kind of abundance she could never repay.

In August 1999, Jarralynne was twenty-nine years old and living in At- lanta. She and Bob were completing their studies with graduate-level internships. It was the end of a long haul for both of them, and they were looking forward to the future. Once they finished their intern-

ships, she and Bob intended to find jobs, buy a charming house, and

raise a family. Jarralynne did not want a better relationship with her mom. Mostly, Jarralynne just wanted her privacy. She had earned her freedom. She deserved her own life.

She felt a responsibility to her mom, but she did not really want to have to see her. She did not want her mom close by. She did not want to be emotionally vulnerable to her mom's antics.

So Jarralynne managed her responsibility with frequent phone calls, holiday visits, and money wires. She had no trouble sending money. When she was twenty-two, Jarralynne gave her brother a car. When she was twenty-four, she gave her mom a car. She often paid &IT phone

bills and rent. Though scraping by on graduate school stipends, she and Bob still managed to assist her family.

No, if all that was required was wiring cash by 'TOsstem Union now and then, Jarralynne had no trouble wtb it-

It was as if Jarralynne had been * a party for mnty-nine years, and the day for the party was just around the comer, and when she looked at the invite list she realized she did not want her mom pres-

ent. Her mom had ruined too many events before. At Jarralynne's bridal shower, Mom called J& "rich bitch" and "eVI1 heifer" right in front of Mrs. Agee. At the state oratory competition, right in the mid- die of Jari's speech, Mom stood up and whooped like Arsenio Hall.

110 I Why Do I Love These People? Dorothy's Child I 11 1

When Mom was summoned to Jarralynne's high school by the princi- pal, she showed up in her bathrobeand slippers with her wig on side- ways. Mom had a knackfordsbgsure nobody else was the center of attention. So when it came to tfae (acme Jamlymie imaginedÑBob the house, the kidsÑsh was not going to risk Mom making it all about her.

By then jarralynne's mother and stepfather had moved to Greens- boro, North Carolina. Jarralynne had run out of excuses for not paying themavisit So in August 1999, shortly before her school year resumed, Jarrdynne flew to Greensboro from Atlanta. She found her mom crawling on her knees in the driveway beside her Honda. The car's doors were open.

N o greeting, no hello. "I can't find it!" 7

"What, Mom?" "It's here. I know it is. Help me find it." Mom was frantic. "Okay. What?" "Don't 'what' me." 'What are you looking for, Mom?" Karen paused, thought about it. "I'll remember when I see it" "Mom. " "I can't remember, Jari." "Your keys?" "No!"

"Lipstick?" "No! It's something important. " Said like, Would I be on my knees h k -

insjor lipstick? Karen switched from combing the pavement to digging through the

car. Scrunched-up yellow wrappers filled the seat wells, keeping the Big Gulp cups and knee-high socks company.

"Mom, why do you smell?" "I'm lockim, Jari. Don't bother me." 'Mom, you're dirty. What are you wearing!" "Not everyone's rich like you."

"Mom, will you go get some clothes on?" Jarralynne went into the house to find her mom some clothes, but

her closets were emptied. There was no food in the refrigerator, either. "I was mortified," Jarrdynne remembered. "I could not help but feel

like she was doing it to embarrass me. She was playing me somehow. She was always good at acting the fool to get what she wanted, which was sympathy and food and clothes and money and more sympathy."

Did she think it was an act? "It was easier to think it was an act than to consider the alternative,

which was something I absolutely did not want to face." Jarralynne drove to the grocery store to fill the refrigerator. She de-

cided she could not bear to stay with her mom, so she rented a hotel

room. Later, Mom showed up at the hotel. Jarralynne was getting ready to go out with one of her college roommates who had moived to Greensboro. She was looking forward to spending die c-"veiuii.g on the town with someone sane.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" "Let me stay here, Jari." "No, you can't stay here, Mom." "I won't cause any trouble." , .+ "No. My girlfriend will be a minute to pick me up. And

you're not staying here "Why not?" -A a! ..US. "Because you're acting& GQ home, Dad needs you." "Please, Jari. Please let mestay. It's so nice here." "No, Mom. Go. Go fume." "I'll come later, then." "Mom, this is my hotel room. Mine. I will see you tomorrow." It was too much. After ushering her mom back to her car, Jarralynne

blew off her friend. She went straight to the airport and flew back to At- lanta under the cover of night. She knew her life would never be the same. She knew the future was never going to look the way she had pic- tured it. Her mom had always been a time bomb and was now down to

1 1 2 I Why Do I Love These People? Dorothy's Child I 113

her final ticks.Jarralyme knew she would be right back in Greensboro

soon. So she escaped to Atlanta to enjoy the last days other privacy, the last days other new life before it turned back into her old life.

"I ran because I was scared," Jarralynne said. "I was scared of how she was acting, and I was scared of all it meant. She was clearly out of her mind."

Six clays later a nurse called from the hospital in North Carolina. Theywere unable to reach Karen's husband because his phone was out, so they called Jarralynne. Her mother had suffered a massive stroke.

That was it,*Jarralynne says as a way of summarizing that day's im- pact. She recognized what realty mattered and brought her mom to live

with her. O r so that version goes. When Jarralynne is not rushing the story and plays it out piece by piece, t n ~ f r u t h turns out to be far more complicated. In fact, the circumstances ofher mother entering the hos- pital flipped Jarralynne's feelings from oh-my-gosh responsibility to how-could-I-have-been-so-callous guilt. Karen had been admitted to the psych ward after a 91 1 call five days earlier-the morning after Jar- ralynne fled town. The doctors on the psych ward had trouble diagnos- ing her, but now that she'd suffered a major stroke, they realized in retrospect that she'd been having repeated minor strokes for more than

a week. Her brain had been misfiring. Transient ischemic attacks is the condition's clinical name. In other words, Karen had been having those strokes the day Jarralynne found her in the driveway.

"I'm a psychologist! If anyone should have seen the signs, it should have been me," Jarralynne recalled, scolding herself "I should have taken her to the hospital. Maybe the big stroke would have been pre- vented if she'd been put on blood thinners sooner. Instead, I ditched her. I really thought the way she was acting was somehow about me, just the next act in her saga, refusing to comport herself like the normal mother I always wanted her to be. All I could think about was all the rimes Mom had embarrassed me. I will live with the guilt over that weekend forever."

On blood thinners, Karen recovered reasonably,well, though her

legs remained fairly immobile and she was stuck in a wheelchair. J a m - lynne and Bob could not consider taking her in, because they did not have a place of their own. So they paid to set up Karen and Gene in a se- ries of apartments in North Carolina.

Over the course of a year, it became clear that no amount of money was going to guarantee the Fletchers* safety. Each of their tenancies was marred by mystifying neglect. The money that was sent was often mis- used. Her parents did not pay their electricity and did not eat properly. One building they were renting was scheduled to be torn down; the day demolition was to begin, her parents were d in their apartment, oblivious, despite an eviction notice pinned to their door. Jarralynne moved them to a new place and paid the bills herset After a stom, the pilot light in the furnace needed to be relit. Gene just thought die gas bill had gone unpaid, so they froze and did oat amplain. The plan to care for them by wiring Western Union worked about as well as using a T-shirt for a bbnket.

The word for what Jarralynne fe1twasduad. "I kept thinking, Oh no, it's ping to follow me again. I'm chawed to them. I'm neverpitg to leave this behind. "

When they finished their internstups, the Agees found jobs in Northern California. Bob was hjxed a s a sports medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland and as a doctor for the University of California athletic teams. Jarratynne received a fellowship in the stu-

dent counseling service at Berkeley. She was pregnant when they ar- rived. They needed a house, fast. Bob's parents were willing to help with the down payment. The only question: how many bedrooms?

Jarralynne reflected, "If I had been married to someone from my own background, his attitude would have been Fuck your mother, she's not living with us. Nor is my mother. This is our life."

But Bob's father had taught his son to look out for others. This was

partly the creed of being a doctor, and p d y personal-Bob's father

1 1 4 I Why Do I Love These People? Dorothy's Child I 115

was an only child, and he had always wanted more family So he em- braced people. Bob remembers "Aunt Martha" staying with them dur- ing the Christmas holidays; she was a widow they knew from church.

Bob wanted to takeJarralynne's parents in. He believed in love and medicine. They'd get Mom better medical attention, get her the right drues, put her in physical therapy, shower her with love, and heal her s o d It mi&t take a little while, but soon they'd be living as one big

"TKfe'vem got to lave her through it," he advised. Jarralynne discussed the prospect with her siblings. They were

aghast. "Are you crazy? You don't owe her your life! We're not expect- i n g ~ ~ ~ to do it. Don't do it." They had not been much help the last year; her brother had not even visited Karen. Their grandfather had died during the year-their mom's f a t h e r ~ a n d he bestowed about a hundred thousand dollars on his grandtads. Jarralynne's twoqibljngs

-,

refused to allocate any of their share to caring for their mother. "I felt dumped on," Jarralynne said. "Once again, the problem was

entirely mine to deal with. I had just started my life." Jarralynne realized that she would be taking care of her mom one

way or another, in North Carolina or Northern California. It might as well be right close by. She and Bob did not consider long-term care, be- cause it was extremely expensive and her parents were only in their early fifties. A decision was made, more out of inevitability than choice. They had located a neadycompleied house in a new subdivision offthe interstate half an hour north of their work. They paid fifteen thousand dollars to have part of the main floor converted into another bedroom, requested cheaper carpet throughout the house, and canceled the two- door stainless refrigerator on order.

And here's the thing about inevitability. When you have no choice, it is natural to start looking for the silver lining. As scared as she was, a part of Jamdynne got excited at the prospect of having a big old- fashioned extended family. Mom and Dad would be able to help with the new baby, who was due in a month. They would babysit in a pinch, or at least hold the baby when Jari cooked. They would have Sunday

meals together. Her children would know their grandparents. She started to look forward to it. She told her parents to get rid of every- thing. Which they did. Karen was excited, too. She felt like the family in TheJeffenom. "We're moving to California!"

It was a great feeling to have~we'refamily, we'll work it out. It was going to be fine, just fine.

Karen and Gene arrived from North Carolina by plane and moved into the bedroom on the main floor of Bob and Jarratynne's new home. They were welcomed with open arms, but Lhrmg uader one roof in- evitably brought out tensions.

'Mom, you already had one brownie. The doctor told you to cut down on the sweets."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't eat." Just about anything became potential fodder farm occasional digÃ

deciding what to watch on television,orchoosingfurniture for the new house, or picking -what to save for-daneaz

Jarralynne gave birth to her first son a month after her parents ar- rived. It was a glorious moment in their life, but taking care of a baby added to the stress. Janralynne and Karen were on each other's nerves.

So when Karen started peeing on the carpet, Jarralynne could not help but feel it was somehow her mom's "way of getting even for what- ever bickering had occurred an hour earlier.

"I'm incontinent, Jari." "You can't wear a diaper?" "It was an acodent" "Accident, my ass." Jarralynne did not employ her doctorate-of-psychology skills in han-

dling this. She handled it like any thirteen-year-old girl ticked off at her mom. She got furious. She'speeiftg on my new life! The more t h e Jam- lynne spent around her mom, the less she felt like the successful work- ing mother she was and the more she felt like a thirteen-year-old girl again.

1 16 1 Why Do I Love These People?

Then Uncle J * i and his wife came to visit from Ohio. Uncle Jimmy was Kaaen's brother, p s a g s r by six years. He was oddly stand- &h inhkpqamicmsh&e trip. He refused to stay with JarraIynne and Bob. Instead be rented a hotel room in San Francisco. Janalynne did not know what she could have possibly done to upset her uncle. When he!ifaoçee up at their house, he took one look around and con- fronted& sister. %told me they had you in the basement." TtifAe bottom floor." T&u made it sound like a dungeon!" He apologized to Bob and Jar-

*. Karen bid complained endlessly to him, so he had planned to come rescue her.

That reaffy hurt Bob, after all he had done for his mother-in-law. Uncle Jinuny laughed now that he saw what was really going on.

"We're going sightseeing. Man, I wish I lived this well." It turned out that Karen had been lying for sympathy at her church

as well. Jarralynne noticed that her mom started to get a lot of letters. Then food started being sent to the house. The congregation from Mom's church was sending get-well cards with twenty-fwe-dollar checks. She had told them she was having strokes again, which she was n o t

Jarralynne and Bob organized family meetings to address Karen's be- havior and set goals. For instance, they wanted her to stand and go to

the restroom, and pick up the remote control herself She tried, but couldn't manage i t When Jarralynne tried to persuade her mom that it was just a matter ofwill, that Mom's block was mental. Karen would cut her off "Don't you try that psychology stuff on me! I see you're doing that! Don't analyze me!"

Over die course of& year, it started to get weird for jarraiynne. She felt like she was living in the past. Her past had taken over the guest bedroom, unpacked its bags, and announced it liked the weather in California so much it was never going to leave.

Every time Jan-alynne opened her refi-igtrator and saw all the food

Dorothy's Child I 117

stuffed onto the shelves, she had flashbacks ofbeing a girl standing be- fore their empty refrigerator, knowing she was going to g~ h u w

again. Jari would get up in the middle of the night to breast-feed her son.

Climbing back into bed, trying to fall back to sleep, her earliest memo- ries would find their way up from the darkest recesses of her mind. One of those n&ts,Jarralyme wrote me aletter by hand. It was about a winter they survived after living in the Parfcside projects, in a place in Highview Hills that the kids nicknamed sLittle House on the Prairie."

The lights were off and that meant the heat ¥was too. We were in a

poorly insulated house with a din floor in the kttcbcn and bathroom. Somehow the carpet eroded into the earthÑ hajw no due where die foundation was. Jackie,Jamie and I would squeeaMnaselfes into sleep- ing bags on the floor-two of us together and soft in mother bag. It

didn't keep us that warm so we put stray kittens in 'tfae bag d our feet. The Idttens had fleas. The sleeping bag gut fleas- -we @todl nigh by fleas. So we slept on the floor and tried to faeep &kittens inside. Some kittens scratched us bad and then found their my oat of& bags. Those kittens died. We were sad because we had mcd to saw tfaem. keep them in that bag for their own good. It really is # R S & F @ . h X ~ survived with the flea scars that were so bad that we WBtr sfti'fci'w'iA sandals for years and I had the scars from scratching m6tl d @ad school years later.

When the memories first started returning, Jarralynne t h y @ , Oh, this isgood. I l l revisit the past a d I'll heal. But that turned oot to be naive. The process of remembering was much like when she was a W e girl, looking out the window at an Ohio blizzard. The snow was coming down. 3% soft snowflakes. It seemed so nice, so beautiful, that she wanted to open the door for a second, letjust a little in. The second she opened the door, the blizzard bit her like only freezing cold can, pun- ishing her for being so stupid.

118 I Why Do I Love These People?

So it was with her memories of childhood. Her mom's presence had cracked that door, and soon the blizzard hadjan-alynne out there k e z - ingwithit.

Stay warm, she was discovering. Don't crack that door. "They can't stay here anymore, Bob. Please, Bob, I mean it. I love

ttieoi, bat it's not working." ented. "All right. We'll get them their awn place."

--

Gene found an apartment five miles away, and with that the blizzard weakened, then gave way to spring. Today they have arrived at a work- able equilibrium-Karen and Gene are close enough to be looked after, but not too close. Karen's Social Security check pays the rent. Jarra- Iynne and Bob pay for the utilities, their van, and their groceries. They also want to provide for Karen's physical therapy, but she refuses to go.

"Bob talked to the doctors, Mom. They say there's no reason you can't walk again."

"They don't know what my legs feel like." Karen misses her independence. This topic makes her shed tears like

a sprinkler. "There are so many ways I would like to be a part of the community but am unable to do. In Dayton, I was so involved." She listed two worthy social programs she directed and a Christian organi- zation she participated in. It would fill a paep to include all the creden- rials of the people she met through those community activities. "Here, my only outlet is watching channel five and CNN," she sobbed. She also has her church, Sojourner's Truth Presbyterian, and does get to sing there occasionally. She is fifty-five years old, but going on old age.

"I'm back in the ghetto again," Karen remarked. Jarrdynne piped up. "Mom, this is not the ghetto. These are very nice

iyvartments.''

-- < - 1 m i s s the cable at your house."

-̂ - -..site's the same ninety-fhe-dollar-a-month cable as we have there. E.e-- Both bilk are charged to my card."

Karen has trouble being appreciative-she can't help it, because - --

*--

Dorothy's Child I 119

Karen sees her daughter having the life Karen was supposed to have, and was raised to expect. As she put it, "In some way, even as I am grateful that Jarralynne is doing well and married a rich man, it serves as a con- stant and grating reminder of the life I was going to have, and was set up to have. "

To get a sense of the world Karen once belonged to, you only have to hear her voice. While she stammers a little, and sometimes she can't find the word she's looking for, it is otherwise the voice of a veryproper woman, a woman who has been to finishing classes and cotillions. She

draws on an extensive vocabulary. All her descriptions are front-loaded, leaning hard on people's credentials: "Nobody else had graduated from a revered place like Miami of Ohio University," for instance, or "It was a very elite church; the pastor was involved in the NAACP." She will 2- ways inform you who so-and-so's parents were, and how respected they were. When Karen talks, if's like that prosperous middle-class black renaissance of mid-century is brought back to life. Make no mis- take: This woman was once a lady.

Karen has a deep need for someone, anyone, to understand what she has been through. She showed me the Bible she carried duringthe hard years in Dayton. In eveiy margin are scrawled prayers to the Heavenly Father thanking him fin advance) for the help she hoped he would send her way. These prayers are extremely specific, mentioning heating bills and car payments and clothes her daughters needed for school.

I asked Karen, "So I guess you've been in need of medical treatment probably since your early twenties?"

"Oh yes. Absolutely. I sure did. I look at antidepressants, and I won- der how they might have helped me back then. But of course that was not how they treated mental illness at that time."

"You were afraid they might take your kids if you pursued treat- ment?"

"Oh yes." A month later, I had lunch with Jarralynne and asked about her

mother's mental state. Jarralynne could now finally speak about her

mother like a psychologist, not a thirteen-year-old girl. She believes

120 t Why Do t Love These People?

c post-traumatic stress disorder,

own mother, Dorothy. She explains ch helps, but that Karen exhibits

petitive fixation. Her mother hears

and incorporates them into her own in Oakland, Karen wanted to move to

saying she had to "get to Oakland." y ill? Was she having strokes all

the poverty, and the repudiation from her father, and the strokes all obfuscated the situation, kept anyone from re-

sorder and chemical imbalance."

^Probably dysthymia with histrionic features. Dysthyrnia is chronic depression due to incessantly overwhelming negative episodes, really one bad thing after another."

"And it's better now?" "We haven't had one single shouting match." All things considered, it has been a lot better since Karen moved into

the apartment. It's doable. It is going to work. There are occasional wrinkles. For instance, last month Karen racked up six hufidred dollars in 41 1 calls, not realizing how phone companies have changed since her Ohio Bell days.

Both Karen and Jarralyme hit crossroads in their twenties where they felt like freedom was within reach if only they were not shackled to each other, if only they did not have the other to care for. This is how Karen felt when she drove her children to Shawn Acres, and this is how Jamlynne felt when she found her mother acting crazy in the driveway. Their desire was gone, and their will was weak, but the chain held, un- breakable.

It is common for us-people of every income and plight+ go through a period in which we're convinced we'd be free, if not for the family chained to us. The Fletcher-Agees suffered a tragic and harrowing fall, but despite

Dorothy's Child I 121

the devastation managed to return to prominence a generation later. It strained them but did not divide them. They have hung on to each other when others have not; they have found a way through it. Yet there have been times that I've been around them when I wondered, Is t h i s success? Is this success, if Karen is jealous of her daughter and often can't be nice? Is this success, if Jarralynne and her siblings talk on the phone all the time and yet never mention the inheritance from Karen's father that was not put toward her care? Is this success, ifJarralynne takes care of her mother but can't really enjoy doing so? If providing for her mother doesn't fill her with "a sense of purpose"?

Many times Jarralynne calls me to express this very same frustration. She usually has just come away from some unsatisfying encounter with

her mother or one of her siblings. These really eat at her-they bug her far more than &e burden of supporting the family. In other words, she doesn't mind having to help out so much is she minds that her family cuts one another down a size when they get a chance. She misses the days when they were united, "The Fletchers Versus the World." As a psychologist, she is trained to view a very normal amount of carping in her family as something wrong, a problem. But is it?

Perhaps these are just the scars of survival. Is a little bickering and de- nial worth being so offended by, particularly when we understand where it comes from, and how it could have been so much worse? I suggest to Jarratynne that comp1aming about bickering and denial may

be quite a privilege. It's not that I've lowered my expectations. But I'm learning to understand the bigger challenges that families face.

And this is what I tell Jarralynne when she calls. She has endured poverty, hunger, a mentally unstable mother, neighborhoods racked

with drugs and violence, and cruel neglect from a grandfather. If the only legacy of her childhood is a tendency to'take a few cheap shots when times are good, I consider that fairly amazing.

It always helps Jarralynne to hear this, and it often helps her find her pride again in their bottom line. "My mother's marriage to Gene has lasted nearly thirty years. All three children are college graduates. We have all had our hard times. Yet my sister, Jackie, is a lawyer. My