That time of year

I think a lot about my parents this time of year. dad's birthday was in August, he died in September and mom died in October. I try not to mark the anniversaries but have found it nearly impossible to ignore them. I loved my dad, but had a difficult relationship with my mother. She was abusive, physically, verbally and emotionally. She told me once that she was jealous of me...who is jealous of their child? She was manipulative and when she couldn't manipulate me, she tried to control others that she thought could influence me...like me husband and sons. I was telling someone recently about "Hurricane Norma". She would go into my room and toss it...mattress pulled from the bed into the floor with all the bedding stripped because it wasn't made right. She would remove my clothes from the hangers and dump them all into the floor, because they were not organized properly. She would pull all the drawers out and turn them upside down, emptying them into the floor, then replace the drawer, because they were messy. So I would come home from school to this disaster and be told, "Now, clean it right." I never knew when the storm would blow through, or what set it off. It has been suggested to me that maybe she was searching my room and this is how she hid it. I guess it's a possibility. This started about the time I was in, maybe 5th grade...which was about the time she quit hitting me. I have also been asked if my dad knew about the abuse. I don't know. I never told him, or anybody else. I never asked him either. I don't know, it never occurred to me. It never ever occurred to me, that if he knew, why didn't he stop it? These are things other people have asked me after my parents died. It would have been very painful to admit to myself that my dad knew, and did nothing...it's also hard to imagine that he could have lived in the same house and not known what was happening. But then, I remember my mother showing the bruises to her sister once. I was probably around 8. I have no idea why she showed them to her, I only remember her pulling my shirt up...yes, I had bruises to my back...and buttocks and legs. Mom's aim wasn't so good. Yet, years later, while my mother was hospitalized, that same aunt asked why I did not have a good relationship with my mother and I mentioned the abuse, she flat out told me she did not believe me. One of the last things I remember my mom saying to me, as I bent to kiss her good-bye, was, "Get your ugly pig face away from me." Nice last memory, huh? I tried so hard to maintain a civil, if not loving relationship with her. I'm not sure why. I guess I did it for dad...now, I wonder if it was worth it. The best relationship I had with them was when they lived far enough away that I saw them once or twice a year...and even then, mom managed to show up at my house unannounced, with plans to stay a month, coinciding, and cancelling, my own vacation plans to take my kids camping. I've had people tell me that they would just have gone on with their plans...they didn't know my mother. No matter how old you get, you never outgrow the scars of your childhood, especially when they've been inflicted by the very people that should have been protecting you.