Held Back

 

I can’t recall ever feeling unloved while I grew up in my mother’s home.  A lot of other feelings come to mind, but I truly thought she loved me.  Looking back, I could analyze everything and come to a different conclusion.  However, I felt very confident that I was loved.  I didn’t see the wonkiness of the things that happened between my mom and me.  My mom constantly watched out for me.  She kept me by her side all the time.  Smothering is a good word that comes to mind.  In one situation, this turned to craziness that changed the course of my life.

 

My first grade teacher was old.  Even looking back at pictures, she must have been in her seventies.  She kept her white hair short with curls that ringed her head.  Her glass filled her wrinkled face.  She wore pantsuits on her plump body, grandmotherly in all the right areas of personality.  Though I think she might have been tough.  We all behaved.  I adored her.  At the end of the school year, I felt so special when she invited us to dinner.

 

She lived just a few houses up from the doctor’s office and on the other side of the street.  Her house fit nicely on the bottom slop of a hill on the nice side of town.  I thought she was rich as we walked into the lovely furnished house with beautifully decorated walls.  The two stories made the house look like a mansion compared to our small singlewide trailer house.

 

Mrs. Delapp’s husband died years prior and her children lived far away.  Only the four of us sat at the table.  I haven’t a clue what we ate.  I do remember feeling comfortable and happy.  When we finished eating, she took us into the living room.  The conversation turned serious.  I couldn’t read well enough for her to feel comfortable with me continuing on to second grade.  She told my parents that they could let me go onto the next level, but she warned them I would struggle because I was so behind my classmates.

 

Concern crossed my dad’s face, “is she slow.”  I chuckle at how politically incorrect that response is for today.  Life was much different back in 1974.

 

Mrs. Delapp reassured him I was quite capable of reading.  The problem was that I missed so much school that I wasn’t getting the right amount of exposure to the lessons.  He had no idea I missed school.  In the morning, he left for work at five and returned at six in the evening.  Never did he think he had to check on my attendance.

 

The rest of the evening, I don’t remember what was said though I do think Dad agreed at her house that I would be held back and repeat the first grade.  I didn’t feel good anymore.

 

At some point, my parents had a long heated talk.  Dad wanted to know the reason why I missed so much school.  Mom said I couldn’t go to school if the weather was bad or if I was sick.  He questioned all of this.  In the end, he learned she kept me home if it rained, snowed, I sniffled, and every excuse in the book that made complete sense to her but not the rest of the world.  I imagine Dad was angry and told her how life would be the next year.

 

From that time forward, Dad took me to the library.  We worked on my reading and continued to talk stories we read until the day he passed away.  Each night, we talked about school.  I never had perfect attendance, but I had to be sick by his standards to stay home.  I didn’t miss much school.

 

Holding me back was the right decision.  I was teased.  Some would say I was bullied.  I hated that, obviously.  I blamed my mother for having to be held back when kids asked questions like why I was a year older.  I worked my ass off to get good grades to prove I wasn’t “slow.”  I also felt something was amiss with my mom’s thinking.  Sure, I was only six when this happened, but Dad and Mrs. Delapp didn’t approve of her keeping me home.

 

Over the years, I asked Mom a lot of questions about her behavior.  She threw her mother under the bus a lot by saying she was never taught to be a mother.  Grandma was sick a lot.  I would get mad and say Mom didn’t teach me either, but I figured it out.  Granted, maybe I didn’t do much better.  The jury is still out on that and I know one person who thinks I was a terrible mother.

 

As I quilt, I think of the changes my life took due to being held back.  I got over the shame I felt when being teased.  By high school, no one cared.  I was blessed with the friends I made as part of the Class of ‘’87 in both Eureka and Libby: Terri, Stacey, and a host of others.  Of course, I was led to study hard and go to college, meeting my dear husband.  I learned to love story and to write.  Who knows how my life would have turned out if I had graduated in 1986 instead?  The quilt of my life definitely would have been different.

Here is the fourth project I have finished for Mom.  I did the binding.