My daughter Ellie looks really like her Dad, Sean. Every time I used to catch them looking at the TV sitting beside each other or doing a puzzle or game together, I'd be struck by how much they were alike, how much my daughter looked like her father. Which was great. My much loved daughter looked like my much loved husband. Cushtie.
Then, one fateful day, I looked across at daughter, seated beside Sean, watching TV. And there was Ellie. My daughter. But it wasn't my daughter, it was a mini-Mary. A mini-my-Mum. My daughter looked like a little four year old version of my mother. Then I looked at Sean. And it hit me. Like a shovel. Like stepping on a rake in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Like a big wet stingy kipper in the face. I had married my mother. I rushed to the photo of her that I keep in the hall and checked my rememberance of her. Yup. Ringers. Bloody hell. Who knew? I kept the information to myself for ages. I was almost ashamed, I certainly felt foolish - how could I not have noticed before that Sean looked so like my Mum? What a cliche too, there I was thinking I was controlling my actions but in reality I was hotwired by conditioning and genetics. Eventually I told Sean and he told me not to worry about it, I looked like his Mum too.
Ever since my blinding revelation I am struck by the likeness. Half glimpses of my Mum, when I'm just moving focus to or from Ellie. It's astounding how similar they can look. I wonder if my Mum ran about like Ellie. Did she sing at the top of her voice songs she didn't know - Ellie's "Dancing Queen" - "feel the beat in a tangerine" and "You can dance, you can ji-high, having the tie mory live" - did Mum do that. Sing like no-one is listening, dance like no-one is watching and don't give a fuck if they are. I love that about Ellie, about all kids pre-school. Before they get self conscious, before they care that people will laugh, before they know that people will laugh. I love the way she'll chat to herself, or watch how she looks when she's crying or try and catch her sleeping face in the mirror. Did my Mum do all those things, before her Mum let her down, before she twisted her and hurt her. Before her Dad let her down, before he twisted and hurt her. Before her dirty old man, old John, before he hurt her, before she knew what he did was wrong. I don't know what's worse, the thought that she was like Ellie and all that was snuffed out, or that she was never carefree, never unhampered, never untrammelled. Her mother had never wanted her, never loved the man who she was married to - who wasn't my Mum's father - and had never shown her any love, any warmth, affection or kindness. Mum had never been shown these, and in turn did not know how to show them.
I hope, with everything I have, that I don't do to my children what my grandmother did to my mother, and what my mother did to me. I hope I'll never have to step up to protect my child the way they were asked to in their time. My grandmother did try to protect my mother from Old John but my mother was, by that time, so damaged that the nice things and kind words he gave her for her silence where more valuable than the favours she gave him. My mother didn't try to protect me from my 'Old John'. She told me she didn't believe me, that if I persisted in my lies I'd break up the family, that my siblings would be put in care because of my wickedness, and that no-one would love me. I hope I never have to, but I know I'd do better.
Maybe, if Ellie is happy and fulfills some of her happy dreams, reaches any of the peaks of her potental, maybe I'll feel like I'm laying down some of my mothers ghosts, making amends for the horrors of her childhood. Poor Mum, she didn't stand a chance.
I love you Mum.
