I And My Saddest Memories
When I was eight years old my mother encouraged me to have a friendly relationship with an older neighbor lady. This was very unusual since my mother usually made a point of either ignoring or intimidating neighbors.
My mother was usually quite unfriendly with anyone outside her cult-like group of friends. In fact, we got along with neighbors so poorly, we moved about every two years. A neighbor would get upset at all the screaming and noise (of my frequent abuse) and dare to confront my mother...and then my mother would announce in an angry tone of voice, "We're moving!" And we'd move yet again.
So encouraging me to visit my neighbor really surprised me; my mother enjoyed isolating me from any kind of a happy social life. But in my eight year old mind I guess I thought maybe my mother was easing up on her usual restrictions for some reason.
There [i]was[/i] a reason. I found out what it was one day on my third visit to her house. The lady collected butterflies and my mother knew this (the lady told her about it on the day we moved in).
I arrived that day in time to see the lady put a beautiful butterfly in a jar and kill it. She told me it didn't hurt the butterfly; it just fell asleep.
I watched the trapped creature in that jar, its wings moving slower and ever more slowly. And then...they stopped and it lay still. I wanted to help it, to save it, but I knew I did not have the power to do so.
It made me permanently sad. I could never appreciate a butterfly again without thinking about it.
I knew that I would never fully recover because I knew at that moment that my mother had lifted her ban on visiting neighbors for only one reason:
She wanted me to watch a butterfly die.
My mother was usually quite unfriendly with anyone outside her cult-like group of friends. In fact, we got along with neighbors so poorly, we moved about every two years. A neighbor would get upset at all the screaming and noise (of my frequent abuse) and dare to confront my mother...and then my mother would announce in an angry tone of voice, "We're moving!" And we'd move yet again.
So encouraging me to visit my neighbor really surprised me; my mother enjoyed isolating me from any kind of a happy social life. But in my eight year old mind I guess I thought maybe my mother was easing up on her usual restrictions for some reason.
There [i]was[/i] a reason. I found out what it was one day on my third visit to her house. The lady collected butterflies and my mother knew this (the lady told her about it on the day we moved in).
I arrived that day in time to see the lady put a beautiful butterfly in a jar and kill it. She told me it didn't hurt the butterfly; it just fell asleep.
I watched the trapped creature in that jar, its wings moving slower and ever more slowly. And then...they stopped and it lay still. I wanted to help it, to save it, but I knew I did not have the power to do so.
It made me permanently sad. I could never appreciate a butterfly again without thinking about it.
I knew that I would never fully recover because I knew at that moment that my mother had lifted her ban on visiting neighbors for only one reason:
She wanted me to watch a butterfly die.
70-79, F
