Quit and be Quiet
by Mary Thurman Yuhas
Chapter
One
Tarnished Silver
Mom had just
finished polishing the silverware, a job she performed monthly back in the
forties. Pouring the boiling water over the shiny utensils was the last step. "Can
I help? Can I? Can I?" I begged my mother.
"Pull a chair up to the sink, Mary Kay," she sweetly said as she
removed the hissing, black teapot from the stove, steam roaring from its spout.
Eagerly I pulled my chair over to the side of the sink and clapped with excitement. To get a better look, I leaned over and placed my hands flat in the sink next to the silverware.
Eagerly I pulled my chair over to the side of the sink and clapped with excitement. To get a better look, I leaned over and placed my hands flat in the sink next to the silverware.
As Mom drew nearer, I took in a deep breath
to get more of the sweet smell that always surrounded her. I was only four and
how I loved her. I wanted to have the same long, thick, chestnut brown hair,
the same long, graceful fingers with neatly painted red nails and do everything
she did from cleaning the house to laughing delightedly at the funny stories my
Dad told us when he came home from work.
I watched Mom as she tipped the teapot towards the sink. I watched the scalding water as it spiraled down, almost as if it were in slow motion. And I watched in horror, when suddenly and without warning, the boiling water covered my hands and burned me with a savageness I did not know was possible. I stood there motionless and held both hands in the air, not knowing what else to do. Mercifully, blackness began to swallow me, and as it did, I could hear a little girl from somewhere in that darkness hysterically screaming, “Mommy! Mommy!” After that everything faded away.
For years I blocked the incident from my mind. To this day I can’t remember what happened afterward although the truth is, I don’t want to remember. I don’t know if Dad was home or if I was taken to the emergency room. I was too young to ask my mother what she was thinking or if my father asked her that obvious question. If he did, he never shared it with me. Most of all, I will never know if what happened was a lapse of judgment on my mother’s part or a preview of the impending madness that would soon consume her as completely as a spider’s silken shroud covers its kill.
My father and I − and perhaps my mother − were blissfully unaware of the monster that was growing inside her, but nonetheless it was. And it was growing stronger every day. Soon, it would be powerful enough to crush and tear away every thread of reason that up to that time held it at bay.
We lived in Galesburg, Illinois, a smallish railroad town, in an old, two-story, white clapboard house that despite its somewhat rundown condition retained a sense of elegance that newer homes could never quite achieve. The family who owned it lived below us, a common practice after World War II due to the housing shortage. But Mom and Dad didn’t like living with them and assured me this was temporary although at my young age it didn’t matter a whit. “We’re building a house and just our family will live in it,” Mom would repeat several times daily, her blue eyes sparkling when she talked about our future home.
My father was a plumber in those days, and I believed he could do anything. He reinforced that faith as I watched him and his friends turn what started out as a mountain of dirt into a house. Our ranch-style, one-story home was situated in the middle of a yard that seemed endless, and it had a front porch so big I could jump rope or skip or play hopscotch on it. And for the first time, I would have my own bedroom.
For almost a year as soon as Dad came home from work, the three of us climbed into our black, Nash Rambler and drove over to the new house so he could work on it. Mom brought along a supper she packed, and most nights we sat on the floor of our unfinished house eating what she called an indoor picnic. Whenever Mom could, she helped Dad. “Mary Kay, you help best help by going outside and playing with the other neighborhood kids,” she said hugging me tightly. “When we live here, you can run and play outside all day long.”
But the house meant nothing to the monster. It was growing restless, and I believe the morning she cleaned the silverware is when it first showed its hideous face.
It was not until years later when I was in high school when from out of nowhere my mother said, “I felt as bad as you did when you burned your hands,” that I recalled that terrible day. Those few words ignited my memory and the incident flashed through my mind as clearly as if it had just occurred.
For most of my life, I kept my childhood memories buried as if they had never happened. It was easier that way. The exception was my greatest fear. I couldn’t tame it, and it haunted me relentlessly during my early teen years. I was so terrorized that I dared not voice my fear to anyone. It was knowing that I could grow up to be exactly like my mother.
But after Mom died in 1998, something inside of me changed. My silence had protected the monster and its carnage. It robbed my brother and me of our mother and of our childhood. It destroyed my parent’s marriage. And it took my mother’s very being. As I opened up, one memory after another clawed its way out.
This is my life growing up with my mother and the monster whose name I eventually learned − paranoid schizophrenia.
I watched Mom as she tipped the teapot towards the sink. I watched the scalding water as it spiraled down, almost as if it were in slow motion. And I watched in horror, when suddenly and without warning, the boiling water covered my hands and burned me with a savageness I did not know was possible. I stood there motionless and held both hands in the air, not knowing what else to do. Mercifully, blackness began to swallow me, and as it did, I could hear a little girl from somewhere in that darkness hysterically screaming, “Mommy! Mommy!” After that everything faded away.
For years I blocked the incident from my mind. To this day I can’t remember what happened afterward although the truth is, I don’t want to remember. I don’t know if Dad was home or if I was taken to the emergency room. I was too young to ask my mother what she was thinking or if my father asked her that obvious question. If he did, he never shared it with me. Most of all, I will never know if what happened was a lapse of judgment on my mother’s part or a preview of the impending madness that would soon consume her as completely as a spider’s silken shroud covers its kill.
My father and I − and perhaps my mother − were blissfully unaware of the monster that was growing inside her, but nonetheless it was. And it was growing stronger every day. Soon, it would be powerful enough to crush and tear away every thread of reason that up to that time held it at bay.
We lived in Galesburg, Illinois, a smallish railroad town, in an old, two-story, white clapboard house that despite its somewhat rundown condition retained a sense of elegance that newer homes could never quite achieve. The family who owned it lived below us, a common practice after World War II due to the housing shortage. But Mom and Dad didn’t like living with them and assured me this was temporary although at my young age it didn’t matter a whit. “We’re building a house and just our family will live in it,” Mom would repeat several times daily, her blue eyes sparkling when she talked about our future home.
My father was a plumber in those days, and I believed he could do anything. He reinforced that faith as I watched him and his friends turn what started out as a mountain of dirt into a house. Our ranch-style, one-story home was situated in the middle of a yard that seemed endless, and it had a front porch so big I could jump rope or skip or play hopscotch on it. And for the first time, I would have my own bedroom.
For almost a year as soon as Dad came home from work, the three of us climbed into our black, Nash Rambler and drove over to the new house so he could work on it. Mom brought along a supper she packed, and most nights we sat on the floor of our unfinished house eating what she called an indoor picnic. Whenever Mom could, she helped Dad. “Mary Kay, you help best help by going outside and playing with the other neighborhood kids,” she said hugging me tightly. “When we live here, you can run and play outside all day long.”
But the house meant nothing to the monster. It was growing restless, and I believe the morning she cleaned the silverware is when it first showed its hideous face.
It was not until years later when I was in high school when from out of nowhere my mother said, “I felt as bad as you did when you burned your hands,” that I recalled that terrible day. Those few words ignited my memory and the incident flashed through my mind as clearly as if it had just occurred.
For most of my life, I kept my childhood memories buried as if they had never happened. It was easier that way. The exception was my greatest fear. I couldn’t tame it, and it haunted me relentlessly during my early teen years. I was so terrorized that I dared not voice my fear to anyone. It was knowing that I could grow up to be exactly like my mother.
But after Mom died in 1998, something inside of me changed. My silence had protected the monster and its carnage. It robbed my brother and me of our mother and of our childhood. It destroyed my parent’s marriage. And it took my mother’s very being. As I opened up, one memory after another clawed its way out.
This is my life growing up with my mother and the monster whose name I eventually learned − paranoid schizophrenia.
.
