Diamonds in the Snow

Foreword

My life has been a bit of a roller coaster ride, shall I say. And much like a roller coaster ride, there have been some incredibly fun parts, some truly terrifying parts, some unbelievably high parts, some definite low parts, and some rather loopy parts when I just wanted to get off the ride altogether.

The following story contains some, but not nearly all of my life experiences. I have just chosen to leave out a few of the twists and turns.

Every now and then I wonder how my life would have been had I made some different decisions and choices along the way. Chosen another path, so to speak. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been quite so many bumps along the way.

But then again…maybe there would have been more.

The names of the people in this book and, in some cases, their physical attributes, have been altered for the sake of anonymity – whether they are deserving of it or not.

My name is Michelle and I was born on April 20th, 1969 in Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada. I am no one famous, but this is my story.

Or at least a portion of it.

Prologue

Boo

The year was 1999 and it was a beautiful summer evening. The air was dry and hot and there were only a few wisps of cloud in the seemingly never-ending expanse of the Saskatchewan sky.

I parked my car in the parking lot and walked silently up to the front entrance. I walked down the long hallway and took a left at the nursing station. It was almost suppertime, so the staff was busy elsewhere and the station was vacant. I didn’t see anyone in the hall as I walked a few more paces before I stopped and faced the door. As usual, it was closed.

Her name was on the door. It was almost surreal to see it there and I stood looking at it as I took a long, slow, deep breath. Never would I have imagined that this would be her fate. My fate, too, I suppose, to just be there.

I took one last deep breath and reached for the door handle. I tried to relax as I slowly opened the door and poked my head inside.

She hadn’t heard me open the door. She was lying on the bed with her head elevated on two pillows, watching television.

Boo, I said with a smile on my face that took all the energy I could muster.

She lifted her head off the pillow just slightly and turned to face me.

Boo yourself, she said. She had a smile on her face.

This is how we always greeted each other on my daily visits. It had become our little ritual. And it was all ours. Something just between me and my mom.

***

I entered her room and asked how she was doing. She said that she was fine. That was her usual response. She never complained. I don’t know if it was because she was the typical stoic German or if this was just her nature. Maybe she was different with other visitors. All I know is that she never once complained to me.

I sat down in the big, blue recliner chair that was to the right of her bed. She was watching the evening news and had already finished her supper. Some days she had trouble eating, but today she had finished all of her meal. I asked her how the food was and she said it was all right.

Not like at home, though, she replied.

We just sat there and watched the news for a little while in silence. We commented a few times on what we had seen, but other than that, there was very little in the exchange of words between us. This was usually the case when I visited.

We would watch the news and, following that, we would watch Entertainment Tonight. She always liked to hear the latest gossip on the movie stars and their goings-on. I think she also liked to watch it because it was an escape from her own reality, if only for a mere half hour.

Sometimes, I would look over at my mom and see that she had fallen asleep while we were watching one of the shows that she enjoyed. She looked so peaceful and I would just sit in the oversized recliner and watch her. Every now and then, she would wake up and catch me looking at her. She seemed a bit embarrassed to have found me watching her, but then she would smile at me and I would respond in kind.

Sometimes, she would reach out and grab hold of my hand. She was pretty shaky at that point and her hands were quite weak, but she would hold onto my left hand and look at me and smile.

I enjoyed these moments with my mom. It was just she and I in that room and although we wouldn’t say much, sometimes the lack of words spoke volumes in itself.

***

Because my mom and I didn’t talk very much during my daily evening visits, I had a lot of time to think. And a lot of time to reflect on the past, and how things used to be with my mom…

Things had not always been so peaceable between my mom and me. I think everyone, or almost everyone, who grows up in a dysfunctional family is not really aware of just how dysfunctional it is. My experience with my own family was no different in this respect.

My mom, for as long as I could remember, was always extremely critical of me. In her eyes, it seemed I could do nothing right. She would lash out at me with her words, when she went into one of her unpredictable rages. I always felt like I was walking on eggshells around her as I never knew when the next attack of verbal abuse and accusations would be thrown at me. For whatever reason, my mom did not treat my younger sister in this same abusive, critical manner.

She used to call me a ‘stupid, useless tit’ and would tell me that I was ugly and unattractive to my face and yet, to her friends and family members, she would tell them how beautiful she thought I was. I recall my parents arguing over whose side of the family I resembled. My mom always insisted that it was her side.

As a result of these contradictory and mixed messages, I grew up with a very uncertain perception of who I actually was. If I wore my hair cut short, my mom told me that I looked like a boy. If my hair was long, she would tell me that I looked scruffy. If I scored two goals in a ringette game, she was always quick to point out the time I passed the ring when she thought that I should have shot it or pointed out the time when I hit the goal post. Whatever I did wasn’t good enough for her…ever.

***

It was tough to visit my mom every day. There was so much that I wanted to ask her. Why did she say those things to me? Why did it seem like I was never good enough for her? Why did she never tell me that she loved me or was proud of me?

But I couldn’t find my voice to ask her these questions. I am not sure why.

How much more could she possibly hurt me?

I guess that was the thing. I didn’t know how much more she could hurt me, so I would sit there with her and not say much of anything.

***

My memories of my mom are very vivid and clear, and so is the pain that goes along with them. As I would sit there beside my mom, my mind would wander to the past…

I was in grade seven and I broke my right thumb playing in a volleyball game at lunchtime. My mom told me that she wanted to be the first person to sign my cast once the white plaster had completely dried the next morning. That was fine by me.

Morning came and my cast was dry. My younger sister was ready to sign it. My dad, who was a high school art teacher, was also ready to sign his name on it before he had to leave for work. But I told them that Mom wanted to be the first to write on it. Mom, who was between jobs as a secretary at the time, was still in bed.

We asked her if she was going to get up so that she could sign it. She said she wasn’t ready to get up yet, so I took this as the okay for my sister and my dad to sign their names. Big mistake.

When Mom got up and went to put her contribution on my cast and saw that it had already been written on, she was angry. She walked away without saying anything to me. In fact, she never spoke to me the entire month during which I had to wear the cast.

When the day finally arrived that my cast was to be removed, I was relieved for many reasons. It had been a very difficult month with mom ignoring me as well as my having to learn to function with only one arm being fully useful. Her silent treatment had been awkward and the atmosphere in our household so uncomfortable and tense.

My dad and I were just about to leave for the hospital, when my mom decided to write her name on my cast. So she signed it, I had it removed, and nothing more was ever said about the situation. My dad never brought it up the entire month that I was wearing my cast nor did he mention Mom’s behavior once it had been removed.

And I didn’t know what to say. I kept my hurt feelings to myself and just dealt with the ignore-me-routine that my mom had pulled.

***

All I had ever really wanted from my mom was her love and acceptance. Oh, I kept trying to win her affection, but I always came up short. I knew she was capable of showing love and affection because I witnessed it with one of our family pets. Yet another painful memory…

When I was twelve, we got a puppy. I had always wanted a dog and was instrumental in convincing my parents that we should get this puppy that I had fallen in love with at a pet store in one of the local malls. He was a little white, fluffy poodle-terrier and he was adorable.

We did end up getting him and my mom sure loved that dog. A little too much, I think. I recall her sitting on the couch with him on her lap while I sat off to the side of her, in an arm chair. She would talk to our dog and, that particular time, she said, Oh, Scotty. You are so wonderful. I love you. If I had known how wonderful dogs were, I never would have had children.

Nice. She acted like I wasn’t even in the room. I grew up to both envy and despise that dog because he got the love from my mom that I had always longed for and craved.

***

Another evening and there I was once again, facing the closed door to her room. I took my accustomed deep breath and opened the wooden door.

She looked over right away as I said, Boo.

Boo yourself, she replied. She always appeared pleased to see me even though she never verbalized any appreciation for my daily visits.

I had been having a lot of difficulty sleeping recently even though my days were kept full and busy juggling two jobs along with my daily evening visits with my mom. I didn’t have much of a social life. I really didn’t have much time or energy for much of anything those days.

I felt anxious most of the time. For as long as I could remember, I had those feelings of ‘butterflies’ in my stomach, but the heightened level of stress in my life was getting to me. Since I really didn’t feel I had anyone to talk with about what was going on in my life, I internalized my feelings and just kept everything to myself.

I had been keeping a diary since I was twelve, so I would turn to it to vent about my feelings. I found that it really helped to get them out, even if it was just on paper. It was a very lonely time in my life, but I had felt much more alone at other times, so this was not really anything new.

I assumed my usual position in the recliner beside her bed. I had barely sat down when, out of the blue, Mom looked over at me and said, Do you still do those ridiculous rituals of yours?

I was caught off-guard. Instantly, I felt embarrassed. I knew exactly what she was referring to and I felt the shame of it all over again. Hearing her say that took me back to my earliest memories…

It seemed as though I had been doing it forever, but I think it may have begun when I was seven or eight. I started to do these little rituals throughout the day and before I went to bed at night. It became so bad that I could not go to bed until I had completed my rituals. If anything interrupted my completing them in the order I felt I needed to do them, then I would have to start from the beginning again.

I felt that something bad would happen if I didn’t do my rituals. I never knew or could define what the ‘bad’ was, though. It was almost like a superstition, but my anxiety would increase if I was not able to complete the tasks that I felt I needed to perform.

It wasn’t until I was twenty that I learned my behaviors and actions were the symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD for short. Up until that point, I just thought everybody did these things.

The number two was of great significance for me and I would have to lump ordinary items like cutlery, bowls, a brush and comb, and the salt and pepper shakers, to name a few examples, into groups of two’s with the items physically touching each other.

For some reason, I thought these inanimate objects would get lonely if they were left on their own and that something terrible would happen if I did not put them together in this manner.

Everything I saw had to be put together in these little groups of two. I would scan the kitchen looking for items that were not organized in this fashion and I would have to take care of placing the objects together on the counter that had not already been positioned as such.

It was painstaking, when I think of all the time it took me to get to bed in those days. And this was just one of the rituals that I felt compelled to complete before I was able to close my eyes and go to sleep.

Order and organization were also key things for me. Everything had its place and I could always tell when someone had been in my room and had touched something that belonged to me. This used to drive my sister nuts because she would come into my room to borrow some of my clothes from my closet and I always knew when something was missing. I would hang my clothes on the hangers and they would always be of equal distance from each other on the clothes rack. If something was moved or was just slightly out of place, I knew it instantly.

Whenever I went to the bathroom and had to use some toilet paper, the perforations would have to be ripped perfectly with no jagged edges on the remaining piece of toilet paper on the roll. If I didn’t rip it carefully and left some uneven pieces, I would have to keep tearing the paper until I finally got it right. This is not that easy to do, believe me.

Another behavior I had was that of checking and re-checking to see if the front door was closed and locked and also whether or not the stove had been turned off. I would place my hands on the stove to feel if it was warm as I didn’t trust simply visualizing that the knob was in the off position.

I had to flick my light switch off and on for a total of twenty-two times before I could actually leave it off and crawl into bed. Even then I was not done, as I would look at my clock and wait for the number on it to be an even number. Then I would finally be able to close my eyes.

At first, it was enough for it to just be an even number, but then I realized that digital clocks were a little more complicated for me to achieve a truly even number. As implied by the name ‘digital’, each number is composed of little lines or dashes that make up the actual number. For example, the number ‘one’ is composed of two of these little vertically-positioned digits to form what looks like a ‘1’.

So for me to get a truly even number on my clock, I would have to count up all of the individual dashes until they added up to an even number. To make it even more complicated, I would not allow myself to blink until I counted up the number of digits, so sometimes my eyes would be watering so much and they would be absolutely aching as I stared at my clock, waiting for it to be a number that would allow me to finally shut my eyes.

Digital clocks may have been a handy invention for most people, but for me, they were anything but.

I had a tough time completing my homework when I was in elementary school. When we were only allowed to write in pencil, I would squint at what I had written, to see if it was all of even pressure and the same degree of grey. If it was not, then I would trace over the words that were lighter than the rest until it was all even under the discerning eye of my squinting scan.

As a result of this, it would take me much longer to finish my assignments. During exams at school, it was not uncommon for me to be unable to finish writing the test in the allotted time.

These little rituals just became part of my everyday life. To me, they were normal, and I had no idea that other people were not also consumed by performing these specific, orderly tasks.

One day, when I was about twelve, my mom said, Oh, just stop doing those ridiculous rituals of yours. What’s wrong with you?

I wasn’t aware that there was anything wrong with me, but after my mom said that, I made sure to keep my behaviors, thoughts, and rituals as secretive and as private as I could. I felt a lot of shame from my mom over something that I really could not control.

My mind drifted back to the present at that point and from the recliner chair I sighed and replied, Yes, I still do some of those things.

She never asked me anything more about it. I knew she didn’t understand why I did those things and by her labelling them ‘ridiculous’ yet again, I knew she never accepted that this was just part and parcel of who and what I was.

***

My parents, like a lot of other parents of their generation I’m sure, did not discuss puberty or provide any form of sex education whatsoever to me when it came time to do so. Oh, I got the old ‘period’ film in elementary school with all of the other girls in my grade, but I didn’t understand it. And my parents were certainly not very approachable on the subject.

So when I started to develop breasts, I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. Sure, I saw other girls and women with breasts, but this was happening to my body and I was frightened. I thought I was dying.

Secretly, I took various ointments and creams that I found in the bathroom and in the medicine cabinet and smuggled them into my bedroom. I mixed up different concoctions out of what I had gathered and I rubbed them on my chest.

It didn’t work. Nothing did. My breasts kept growing and I was extremely self-conscious of my newly developing body. I would wear an oversized sweatshirt that belonged to my mom to try to hide my boobs.

But that didn’t work, either, and one day my mom actually approached me and said it was time for me to get my first training bra. I was mortified. How utterly embarrassing.

So I got my first bra and continued to wear that big sweatshirt until one day I couldn’t find it anywhere. My mom had taken it while I was asleep one night and she had thrown it in the garbage. Now I had nothing to hide my chest with anymore and I felt even more self-conscious and uncomfortable about my appearance.

***

My mom had been critical of me in most areas of my life as I was growing up. I don’t know why she was so hard on me as I was a good kid and never experimented with drugs, smoked cigarettes, or consumed alcohol. I never went to parties either. I pretty much followed the straight and narrow.

When I was thirteen and had not outwardly exhibited any interest in boys and dating, my mom said to me, Why aren’t you interested in boys? What are you? A lesbian?

I had absolutely no idea what a lesbian was, far less if I was one or not. Her words caused me to question myself. Was there something wrong with me? Wasn’t I normal? I was indeed interested in boys and I had quite a secret crush on my high school French teacher, but I never felt like I could confide my true feelings to my mom.

***

My parents never did talk with me about sex, either. Again, they assumed that I would learn about it in high school. Well, we did have a class on sex education, but the day we were supposed to get the big, informative talk, our teacher decided to give the new intern the chance to enlighten us. The poor young woman could barely utter the words ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ let alone provide any specifics or adequate information about sexual intercourse.

In fact, it was not until a few years after I graduated from grade twelve that I even learned that I had two holes in addition to an anus ‘down there’. Imagine my surprise.

***

By the time I was eighteen, I’d had a few boyfriends, but my relationships with them had been extremely innocent. All we had done was hold hands and kiss and whenever any of them showed interest in going further than this, I would get frightened and break up with them.

My grade twelve yearbook quip was, ‘So who is it this week, Michelle?’ referring to the fact that I had briefly dated a few guys in my last year of high school. It might have appeared that I was promiscuous, but I was the exact opposite.

It got to be sort of a running joke with some of the guys in my school that they should definitely not take me to a movie or I would break up with them. The truth was that I was so naive and nervous about the whole dating scene that, when they would simply hold my hand in the movie theatre, I would get so nervous that I wouldn’t want to go out with them again.

***

A very vivid memory came to my thoughts as I sat there beside my mom one evening…

The year was 1988. I was nineteen and had my then-boyfriend of about three months over at my parents’ house one afternoon. We did not take advantage of the fact that we were the only ones in the house. He and I were both taking a much needed break from our university homework assignments and we were sitting on the couch together, watching Oprah. We weren’t even holding hands.

My mom returned from her outing with one of her friends and she said hello to my boyfriend as we continued to watch our show together. When the show was over, he went home to work on his assignments and I went to my bedroom to work on my organic chemistry homework. After he went home, it was just my mom and I in the house.

My door was closed and I was desperately trying to figure out some chemistry equation that, to me and my non-scientific mind, might as well have been written in Russian, when all of a sudden, the door to my room flew open and my mom burst in.

She was very, very angry as she said, Don’t think I don’t know what goes on around here when I’m not at home. I’m not stupid. I am not going to raise your bastard child if you come home pregnant one day.

Well, I really did not know what she was talking about, but she was so angry that she truly frightened me. I told her that I didn’t know what she was talking about and she said, Oh, please. Don’t play Miss Innocent with me. I know what goes on when I am not home.

Again, I didn’t know what she was referring to, but her obvious rage and accusations were really spooking me and I didn’t feel safe sitting at my desk anymore. I got up and nervously walked past my mom.

I went out to the kitchen and tried to get away from her. But she followed right behind me and kept saying that she knew what I had been doing and that she was no fool. I told her that I hadn’t done anything with my boyfriend, but she would not believe me. There was nothing I could say to her that would change her perception of me and my relationship with my boyfriend. I told her that I would go to the doctor and they could prove that I had not even had sex yet, but she wouldn’t hear of that.

She said, Don’t try to pull that on me. You know I would never take you to a doctor to have him examine you. Don’t try to call my bluff.

What bluff? I was still a virgin and I had absolutely nothing to hide. But she refused to believe me. She shot her accusations at me, over and over again, and I had nothing to say to her except that I was innocent.

An old saying that I had once heard popped into my mind: If you are guilty, you have no defense. If you are innocent, you don’t need a defense. I was the latter and yet there was nothing that I could say or do to change her mind about me.

I stood there in the kitchen with my mom accusing me of something I had never done, let alone done that afternoon while she was out with her friend. I was leaning up against the counter and I was clenching the edge of it as she kept accusing me of being a ‘slut’ and a ‘tramp’.

I reached back further as her anger intensified with my denial of having done anything wrong. In vain, I kept insisting that all we had done while she was out was watch the Oprah Winfrey show. She absolutely refused to believe me.

I felt something on the counter with my right hand. It was the knife I had used to cut some cheddar cheese for a sandwich that I had made at lunchtime.