“I always did what was expected,” my mother said, over and over in the weeks after my father died. It usually came up in the context of going on alone or her move to smaller quarters in assisted living.The first time I heard if, I thought, “Yeah. You always worried about appearances. What other people would think of you. And that trickled down to us kids in all the unspoken assumptions about what our family believed and how we behaved. Somehow, we were supposed to be a little better than everyone else.” But I went on, sorting and packing, one drawer or cupboard at a time.
“I always did what was expected of me.” How much of her life did she feel she was living in a fish bowl? First the daughter of a prominent man at the plant in a one industry town. Then, for nearly 60 years, the wife of a pastor in the parsonage usually right next door to the church. Even the laundry flapping in the breeze on the clothesline shared its secrets to anyone who chose to look. And you can be sure they looked. I can’t remember her even going out for the morning newspaper without being full dressed, including shoes.
“I always did what was expected of me.” Does my heart deceive me, or is the pain of some secret yearning hidden behind those words? I try to listen more closely. I open the door of her memories, encourage her to tell me her stories, but on that one subject she is silent.
“I always did what was expected of me.” Now I hear, some days, the beginning of the “but.” Eighty-five years old and the gleam is back in her eye as she begins to do things her way.
© 4 February 2004 Carol E. Burris All rights reserved worldwide. Reproduction or use of any portion thereof is a direct violation of U.S. and International copyright law.