How We Got The Blood Out

Red fruit juice dribbled down my 4 year old's Easter Sunday clothes and I groaned. We'd been sitting around my mother's dining room table, finishing off our Easter dinner, and I'd hit my limit. My mother swiftly stepped in.

"This is no big deal. You know how to get this out, right?" I didn't, actually. It was someone's job to teach me how to get red out of clothes before it stained, but those people (my parents) hadn't imparted that wisdom upon me.

"Hot water and soap?" I replied. "Never hot water!" she dramatically gasped. "Lemme show you." She gingerly removed the item from my 4 year old, who happily scampered off, still clutching the juice box. She led me to her small country kitchen and ran cold tap water into the sink.

"Just flush it out with cold water. You don't even need soap really." She soaked the red blotches with water and then rubbed the fabric against itself. Within a few minutes the red was completely out and the shirt was saved. "See? Nothing to worry about."

This morning I got dressed and hated what I was wearing. I was having one of those days where nothing felt or looked "right." I changed outfits six times, leaving a pile of clothes on my bed in the wake of my frantic try-on. Generally, I love my appearance and my body, but about once a month we quarrel. Today was that time of the month, if you catch my drift.

I finally felt like I'd found something suitable to wear out of the house, when a very specific sensation hit me. You know the one. That sudden feeling like the bottom has dropped out. The feeling like your day just got a whole lot worse.

I looked down at my beige wool tights and there I beheld the culprit: bright, red blood. "NOOOOOOOOOO." I moaned. I ripped the entire outfit off, hobbled to the bathroom, and promptly cried my eyes out.

It's not that big of a deal, but on days when you already feel like your body is your enemy, having it decide to ruin your outfit 10 minutes before you have to walk out the door, is enough to bring on at least a few tears of frustration.

So, I cried. I cried and I looked down at the pile of previously fresh-out-the-dryer underwear and tights, covered with blood from the crotch down to the upper thigh, and I just cried. My spouse came in for moral support. My teenager brought fresh panties to me. And my poodle, June-Bug, did her very best to support me as well.

And then, after I'd had my cry, I stood up, pulled my fresh Big Girl Panties on, and grabbed my soiled undergarments. I turned the Cold faucet at my sink to the right, and proceeded to wash the red out of my tights and panties. Just like Mom taught me.

The blood came out right away. Almost immediately. And I heard her voice in my head, "See? Nothing to worry about."

I changed into a new outfit and ended up liking it better than the old one. I made it out the door on time as well. Yes, my period is rarely a welcome sight, but it's nothing a little cold water can't take care of.

My mother and I weren't close in the conventional sense. We were close the way two people who've spent 30 years fighting, and screaming, and raging, and wishing to be understood by the other are close. We were close because no one understands you better than someone who has seen you at your absolute worst. And I'd seen my mother at her worst many, many times.

I was, I think, my mother's karma. I know she felt that way as well. After she passed away I read a passage about me in her diary. "Tamra is my difficult child. She is my punishment for my mistakes." I would rather her speak of me as she did my siblings, but she'd wanted them. I was unplanned and unwelcome.

It was not my intention to be her karma, but she paved the way with her resentment of my existense. She once lamented that I'd been such a ferocious eater she stopped breastfeeding me at 3 months because I wouldn't leave her alone. My mother was warm and kind to so many people, but she used all that warmth up before it reached me. The milk ran dry.

When I was 7 it occurred to me that she didn't love me. Children can tell, y'know. I could see how differently she treated my siblings. Our extended family saw it too. One of my aunts used to invite me for sleepovers when I was a child. She said it's because she'd always wanted a daughter, but instead got four sons. In hindsight I know why she really did it: she had some warmth to spare.

I'm grateful for the warmth so many people showed me, trying to make up for the lack of it at home. But, it's never quite the same as a mother's love. I wish I could have felt it the way I know my siblings did. One of my siblings had my mother's handwriting tattooed on their shoulder. "I love you."

My mother never told me she loved me. She certainly never wrote it down for me. When I saw the tattoo I envied it. I wish I knew what that love felt like.

By now most of us know the saying, "blood is thicker than water" is incomplete. In its entirety it reads,

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

This mean the bonds we create with others are stronger than those we are born into. It means it doesn't matter if your mother couldn't love you because she hated herself and she hated the choices she made because of your existence. You can still find love, build community, and create a found family that is happy you're alive.

My mother's coldness washed away the blood we might have shared and the love we could have had. Even in her last few months of life she couldn't quite get there. Too much of her ice, cold water had been washed under that bridge for far too long. We were two people caught up in a storm of trauma, and regret, and shame, and despite my best efforts, it was unlikely it would ever change, even if cancer hadn't taken her away from us in 2016.

But...

She did teach me how to wash red juice out of an Easter frock. She taught me that warm water feels better, but cold water can still be useful. I used the chill of her dissatisfaction with life to propel myself forward. Today I have a life I'm very proud of. And I'm becoming a person I'm proud of too.

I sometimes wonder who I might have become had I known her warmth. But, because I knew her cold, I knew how to make my own warmth. I am resilient because I had to be. She taught me that, in her own way.

So, thanks, Mom. If you made it to Heaven, I hope you're looking down and glad you taught me how to get rid of red stains before you died. I certainly am, despite it all.

I wish you could have loved me. But, most of all, I wish you could have loved yourself. Either way, my beige tights are no longer stained. And my life turned out pretty okay.