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Sympathy for the Mutant
Jessica Zafra
(July 2003)
When my mother died two weeks ago the general reaction was one of surprise-- surprise that I even had a mother. It is easier to think of me as a product of spontaneous generation, or of some hideous experiment that escaped from a laboratory.
I did in fact gestate in a womb and not a Petri dish. My mother¹s name was Araceli. I am told I look exactly like her, although I hope the comparison is based on how she looked when she was alive and in excellent health. My mother always seemed more alive than most people. She fairly crackled with energy; her presence set up a force field that took up every available inch of space. This is why I had to move out of the house twelve years ago: there simply was not enough space. Even when I was alone in my locked bedroom at 3 a.m. and she was asleep in another part of the house, I could feel her reading over my shoulder, making suggestions. She had a gift for vivid description, and a well-developed sense of the ridiculous.
Friends point out, in slightly accusing tones, that I never told them she was ill. How do you work into a conversation the fact that your mother is in the hospital ICU with dozens of tubes attached to her? “Hey, how are you doing?” “My mother is in critical condition, probably dying.” I find it tiresome when people parade their agonies for public viewing; the last thing I want to evoke is pity. We are all the walking wounded, your pain is no worse than everyone else’s. Okay, I did tell a few people, but they were still surprised when my mother died. I just didn’t exude enough misery and impending doom. The one thing that worries me is that with my mother gone, the voice in my head that tells me to be nice to others has been silenced forever. I fear for other people.
When I was a child my mother treated me like the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy. It started because she gave birth to me after eight years of marriage, when she was resigned to not having children at all. During her pregnancy it was actually suggested that the creature in her womb was either a snake or a moron. I turned out to be something in between. My mother, who taught elementary school, was devoted to me. She told everyone who would listen that I could speak in complete sentences, cusswords included, at eight months, although in the interest of fairness she had to add that I was such a klutz I couldn’t walk on my own till I was almost two. My academic career got off to an unpromising start. I dropped out of nursery school, and in prep I would weep hysterically if my mother wasn¹t standing at the school gates the minute I stepped out of the classroom.
Then came the event that was either the most significant factor in the development of this personality, or a terrible mistake. I took an IQ test. The school informed my mother of the result. This confirmed her illusion that she had produced the savior of the world. (My father, who was slightly more skeptical, brought me to a psychometrician for confirmation. For the record I do not believe that IQ tests measure intelligence so much as the ability to second-guess the testers, to give them the answers they want.)
From then on I was exempted from all household chores, which was good, and if my grades fell below outstanding I was given a sermon that lasted for days. Imagine the arias of recrimination and guilt-laying when I lost the Spelling Bee at age 10. The way my parents carried on it was as if I’d taken a dive in cahoots with the mob, deliberately misspelled a word in order to spite them, my devoted parents who worked themselves to the bone so I could have all the advantages they never had blah blah blah segue to the privations of World War II. (Which happened when they were seven years old.) Then again, most parents carry on as if raising children were like building the Pyramids single-handedly. It’s more romantic than saying, “I am ensuring the continuation of the species.” My liberation came when my sister was born, and she took over the onus of being the suspected messiah. From then on all my grades went straight to hell.
These are things I’ve written of before. You can look them up. It¹s funny when people ask why I never wrote about my mother. Maybe they think the stuff about my childhood was fiction. There are certain rules to be observed when writing about our parents. We can only describe them as transparent figures with golden haloes, smiling down at us from heaven, large flag billowing in the breeze optional, just before the end credits roll. No embellishment here: I loved my mother. She did such a good job at raising me to be my own person, I ended up disappointing her. She would’ve preferred that I become a lawyer, married, with two kids and a nice house in a gated community with security guards, three cars in the garage, and membership in the PTA. This is a pleasant vision, it works for a lot of people, and it¹s not my mother¹s fault that it is my notion of purgatory.
My emotional range is limited. I can’t do grief, but rage is my friend. For instance, I hate death by sickness. It is nothing like Homer, the Old Testament, and Tolkien led me to expect. It is not noble and awe-inspiring. No one delivers a final soliloquy. It is as abrupt and banal as the flicking of a switch. The squiggly line on the monitor straightens out, the defibrillator doesn’t even go whomp, the epinephrine is useless, the nurse doing CPR looks up and even before the doctor pronounces the words, you know. This is not what death should be. Death, the reason for religion, the subject of great literature, the certainty we spend our lives warding off, the giant mystery that looms over everything we do, death should be spectacular, not pity-inducing, a bang and not a whimper. A huge ball of fire, a shower of sparks, a final charge into the ranks of your enemies, a terrific explosion, a backward dive into the fiery pit. Not. . . this.
In the meantime someone has to come up with new words to say at wakes and funerals. “Condolences.” What exactly are those? “I’m sorry for your loss” Why, you didn’t kill her. “I know how you must feel” Of course you don’t, you’re not me. “Words fail to express.” Then why are you saying them? It’s not words that fail, it’s the people who wield them. We have no power over life and death, we are subject to pain and disease and misery, but we command words. When you think about it, words are all we really have.
Sympathy for the Mutant
Jessica Zafra
(July 2003)
When my mother died two weeks ago the general reaction was one of surprise-- surprise that I even had a mother. It is easier to think of me as a product of spontaneous generation, or of some hideous experiment that escaped from a laboratory.
I did in fact gestate in a womb and not a Petri dish. My mother¹s name was Araceli. I am told I look exactly like her, although I hope the comparison is based on how she looked when she was alive and in excellent health. My mother always seemed more alive than most people. She fairly crackled with energy; her presence set up a force field that took up every available inch of space. This is why I had to move out of the house twelve years ago: there simply was not enough space. Even when I was alone in my locked bedroom at 3 a.m. and she was asleep in another part of the house, I could feel her reading over my shoulder, making suggestions. She had a gift for vivid description, and a well-developed sense of the ridiculous.
Friends point out, in slightly accusing tones, that I never told them she was ill. How do you work into a conversation the fact that your mother is in the hospital ICU with dozens of tubes attached to her? “Hey, how are you doing?” “My mother is in critical condition, probably dying.” I find it tiresome when people parade their agonies for public viewing; the last thing I want to evoke is pity. We are all the walking wounded, your pain is no worse than everyone else’s. Okay, I did tell a few people, but they were still surprised when my mother died. I just didn’t exude enough misery and impending doom. The one thing that worries me is that with my mother gone, the voice in my head that tells me to be nice to others has been silenced forever. I fear for other people.
When I was a child my mother treated me like the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy. It started because she gave birth to me after eight years of marriage, when she was resigned to not having children at all. During her pregnancy it was actually suggested that the creature in her womb was either a snake or a moron. I turned out to be something in between. My mother, who taught elementary school, was devoted to me. She told everyone who would listen that I could speak in complete sentences, cusswords included, at eight months, although in the interest of fairness she had to add that I was such a klutz I couldn’t walk on my own till I was almost two. My academic career got off to an unpromising start. I dropped out of nursery school, and in prep I would weep hysterically if my mother wasn¹t standing at the school gates the minute I stepped out of the classroom.
Then came the event that was either the most significant factor in the development of this personality, or a terrible mistake. I took an IQ test. The school informed my mother of the result. This confirmed her illusion that she had produced the savior of the world. (My father, who was slightly more skeptical, brought me to a psychometrician for confirmation. For the record I do not believe that IQ tests measure intelligence so much as the ability to second-guess the testers, to give them the answers they want.)
From then on I was exempted from all household chores, which was good, and if my grades fell below outstanding I was given a sermon that lasted for days. Imagine the arias of recrimination and guilt-laying when I lost the Spelling Bee at age 10. The way my parents carried on it was as if I’d taken a dive in cahoots with the mob, deliberately misspelled a word in order to spite them, my devoted parents who worked themselves to the bone so I could have all the advantages they never had blah blah blah segue to the privations of World War II. (Which happened when they were seven years old.) Then again, most parents carry on as if raising children were like building the Pyramids single-handedly. It’s more romantic than saying, “I am ensuring the continuation of the species.” My liberation came when my sister was born, and she took over the onus of being the suspected messiah. From then on all my grades went straight to hell.
These are things I’ve written of before. You can look them up. It¹s funny when people ask why I never wrote about my mother. Maybe they think the stuff about my childhood was fiction. There are certain rules to be observed when writing about our parents. We can only describe them as transparent figures with golden haloes, smiling down at us from heaven, large flag billowing in the breeze optional, just before the end credits roll. No embellishment here: I loved my mother. She did such a good job at raising me to be my own person, I ended up disappointing her. She would’ve preferred that I become a lawyer, married, with two kids and a nice house in a gated community with security guards, three cars in the garage, and membership in the PTA. This is a pleasant vision, it works for a lot of people, and it¹s not my mother¹s fault that it is my notion of purgatory.
My emotional range is limited. I can’t do grief, but rage is my friend. For instance, I hate death by sickness. It is nothing like Homer, the Old Testament, and Tolkien led me to expect. It is not noble and awe-inspiring. No one delivers a final soliloquy. It is as abrupt and banal as the flicking of a switch. The squiggly line on the monitor straightens out, the defibrillator doesn’t even go whomp, the epinephrine is useless, the nurse doing CPR looks up and even before the doctor pronounces the words, you know. This is not what death should be. Death, the reason for religion, the subject of great literature, the certainty we spend our lives warding off, the giant mystery that looms over everything we do, death should be spectacular, not pity-inducing, a bang and not a whimper. A huge ball of fire, a shower of sparks, a final charge into the ranks of your enemies, a terrific explosion, a backward dive into the fiery pit. Not. . . this.
In the meantime someone has to come up with new words to say at wakes and funerals. “Condolences.” What exactly are those? “I’m sorry for your loss” Why, you didn’t kill her. “I know how you must feel” Of course you don’t, you’re not me. “Words fail to express.” Then why are you saying them? It’s not words that fail, it’s the people who wield them. We have no power over life and death, we are subject to pain and disease and misery, but we command words. When you think about it, words are all we really have.
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