Mulberry 5-8024

By Kristy Seagle

Growing up with loving yet complicated alcoholic parents, Kristy learned quickly that life gets tricky when no one is in charge. She learned to survive in an erratic, chaotic environment created when grown-ups are in active addiction. She entered adulthood with a limited set of resources, showing up as classically codependent. Then her son was b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristy Seagle
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989877171

Book preview

Prologue

Early 1990s

I KNELT, LOOKING AT THE DARK HOLE I was supposed to crawl through. I had no idea how to start. I just knelt there on hands and knees in a paralyzed state. I couldn’t move. I had been in this room with these same people last month, but I didn’t have the courage to do what I was now here to do.

This weekend was part of a year-long training program exploring different healing modalities. Last month the training was on birth regressions. The day began with our instructor setting the stage for the whys and the hows of birth regressions.

Standing on a raised platform at the front of the room, like she had every other weekend of the training, our teacher began to speak, We perform birth regressions to uncover any emotional wounds that may have occurred during the actual birth process. Sometimes these forgotten wounds can lead to unconscious beliefs or personality traits that are not understood until the re-birthing happens. I heard the words, my body tensed, my mind resisted. This was the sixth month of training, and I had willingly and sometimes even joyfully participated in other exercises. The wall was up on this one.

Here’s how we’re going to do it. I will ask for twelve volunteers to sit on the floor, cross-legged, knee-to-knee. Six on one side, six on the other side facing each other. Each of you will place your hands on the shoulders of the person sitting in front of you. I’m going to cover all of you with a blanket to shut out the light and form a dark, tight tunnel. The participant who volunteers to be birthed will crawl from one end of the tunnel to the other; squeezed by the people forming the tunnel. Before you go through the rebirthing process, you will pick out a person that represents your ideal mother. A mother that will be there for you, is ready for you and perfectly able to care and nurture you. Use your intuition when choosing this person. You will know who the perfect person is to welcome you into the world. Are there any questions?

Well, yes. Who the hell would volunteer for that? I kept my mouth shut.

Our class had about 50 people in it. I watched people so excited to crawl through that tunnel. I watched them come out the other side.

That was amazing. I felt my birth. My real birth. Now I get it. Now I understand why I feel so responsible for my mother. That was intense. I could literally feel her pain. Person after person reported incredible results. I saw them come out the other side lighter, full of joy, falling into loving arms.

I sat in the training room all weekend watching other people be re-born. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I don’t need to do that. Fear becoming skepticism becoming sarcasm. Self-defeating thoughts chasing one another through my mind. Head and heart pounding in conflict. Heart wanting to move forward; head demanding I stay still.

I resisted. This isn’t for me. I’m not going to ask twelve people to stay under that hot, heavy blanket while I trudge through their laps. I made it through the weekend, my fear and resistance winning.

The problem was, throughout the next month, I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who went through that long, dark tunnel. The images kept coming up in my mind. I would see them go in, I would hear the sounds as they were going through the tunnel and then I would watch again the utter amazement and relief on their faces when they emerged.

October 7, 1954

My mother was in a brightly lit operating room, ready for her scheduled c-section. She had already given birth twice, both by cesarean, so it was all but mandated that my birth occur this way as well. She could choose the date and was offered October 6, 7, or 8. I’ve always been glad that she picked October 7.

The doctor began the incision right below her belly button, drawing his knife through her abdomen and then into her uterus, ending right above her pubic bone. As I grew up, I saw this long and wide scar on numerous occasions. As a child, seeing it was frightening – a valley burrowing through her abdomen. Later in life, I was grateful for her willingness to give birth.

I was pulled out of my mother’s uterus by the doctor and there was a collective gasp around the room. All but one nurse in the operating room had placed a bet that I would be a boy. I went unnamed for several days because they were so sure I’d be a boy they had only picked out boy’s names.

My family consisted of my mom who was thirty-six years old, my dad who was forty-two years old, and my brother who was three years old. My parents were both well advanced on the alcoholism curve by the time I was born and had colorful pasts that included other marriages, affairs, career changes, and mental breakdowns.

When my parents met, my dad was married to a woman named Pauline. Much later in life, he told me he married her because all his friends were married, and she was a good dancer. He probably should have gone a little deeper into his reasons for marriage. Pauline was a volatile woman, maybe even psychotic. She was jealous, possessive, and obsessive/compulsive. When my dad would come home after working late, she would hide behind the front door and try to bash him over the head with an iron skillet. Pauline would follow my dad around the house, cleaning up after everything he touched. He was required to put a doily under his head to sleep at night. He was not happy. He was also Catholic. Back in those days, a divorce meant you could no longer receive communion from the church which for my dad was the same as being kicked out.

My mom was hired to be my dad’s secretary. She was a beautiful woman; quiet and classy. She had done some modeling prior to her secretarial career. When she was hired by my dad, who was Chief of Personnel at United States Steel, she was ready for a husband and determined to be a good secretary.

My mom was soft-spoken and rather shy. She loved to drink. Her self-esteem was ground level when she met my dad. Being beautiful did not make up for the wounds caused by her competitive mother and absent, alcoholic father. Drinking gave her the courage to abandon self-doubt and be social.

My mother worked diligently to become a professional secretary. Somehow during those late working hours, my frustrated father and my obliging mother began an affair that lasted for seven years. My mother did rebel at one point when she met a man who was home on leave from the navy. She married him to show my dad he couldn’t just leave her dangling indefinitely. When her husband returned to his naval duties, my mother returned to her affair with my father. This time, though, my father agreed to leave Pauline. They quit their jobs and moved to Reno to obtain quickie divorces. My dad dealt craps, and my mom was a cigarette/change girl in one of the local casinos. They stayed there until their divorces were final. Then they moved to Pittsburg, California, where my dad started his career all over working for US Steel, but this time in the mills.

So here I was on that October day, snatched from my mother’s womb and placed in quite the intriguing family. In later years, reviewing my life in therapy, I wondered if, as I descended through the spiritual chute toward life, I hollered, Hit me with your best shot.

Early 1990s

When we checked in to the training the month after the birth regressions, I told the facilitator that I couldn’t stop thinking about last month and the experiences I saw people have as they were re-birthed. She nodded, smiled and said, We need twelve volunteers to form a birth tunnel. Groans could be heard around the room. Nobody wanted to get under those hot blankets again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. The facilitator persisted. Intuitively, she knew this was important for me. The room was filled with therapists and eventually twelve people volunteered.

I chose a woman to be my ideal mother. She was a friend. She was an introvert who loved horses and broke through bullshit quickly. I trusted her. She waited at the end of the tunnel for me to emerge. Her job was to whisper the words that babies most want to hear from their moms. The tunnel was formed. And I couldn’t make myself move. I knew I was supposed to go forward, but I just stared into the birth tunnel. My mind saying move, my body saying no. I felt a shove from behind that started my head moving through the darkness. There was pressure around me, I belly-crawled over knees and laps to get to some destination. It was dark and damp with breath, a heavy moist atmosphere. Stifling. Frightening. Unfamiliar. Part of my consciousness was aware of where I was and what I was doing, but another deeper awareness felt both afraid and determined, lost in a new experience.

I continued the belly crawl. There were times when the pressure felt like it was meant to stop me and then other times when it pressed me forward. I came through to the other side where the lights were dimmed. It was quiet, and I fell into the arms of my ideal mother. The first thing she did was tug my pants up where they were starting to come down from my journey through the tunnel. She will never know how that one gesture healed a very deep wound. A mother whose first gesture was to protect her newborn daughter. How beautiful. How strange. And at that deep level of consciousness, so very real. I fought for my birth. It was hard and scary, but I made it. On my own with the pressure around me—I gained a new self-confidence. And then, the most beautiful gift of all – a mother who was waiting for me, who knew all the right things to say and how to shield me from life.

Chapter One

Born on a tabletop in Oakland, Cal.

Golden state in the land of the free.

Raised in the yard so’s she knew all the kids.

Called them by name before she was three.

Kristy, Kristy Anna, Queen of the Smith Household

Fought single-handed all the neighborhood fights.

Had plenty of scratches and lots of bites.

She whipped all the girls and kissed all the boys,

Broke all the dishes and lost all her toys.

Kristy, Kristy-Anna, Queen of the Smith Household.

When she lost her dolly she cried and cried.

Daddy bought another blond and blue-eyed.

She played all day and was happy and gay.

‘Cause she knew that daddy would give her her way.

Kristy, Kristy-Anna, Queen of the Smith Household.

She went off to school a-packing her books.

Had plenty of pep and lots of good looks.

She flirted and teased and often got squeezed,

But she didn’t care, she did as she pleased.

Kristy, Kristy-Anna, Queen of the Smith Household.

When she came home her educatin’ done,

The big college rush had just begun.

So off she went again with paper and pen.

Graduated with honors in spite of the men.

Kristy, Kristy-Anna, Queen of the Smith Household.

Her job is biggest and her job is best,

From an office career to her lovely hope chest.

We hope she gets married and has all the rest.

‘Cause we know for Kristy that’s what is best.

Kristy, Kristy-Anna, Queen of the Smith Household.

This was the poem that my mother wrote shortly after I was born. There are photographs of her sitting on the concrete steps of our front porch with my stroller right beside her, watching my brother climb trees. My dad raised English Pointers, and they are crowded around me. In home movies, dogs were always by my side appearing to stand guard. It would be easy to convince myself that this was a normal family. If only there weren’t those other photographs of me teething on a beer can and my brother clutching a whiskey bottle. The photographs are all true. The loving ones, the terrifying ones, the shameful ones. Sorting through it all as an adult was baffling, confusing and overwhelming. Living it as a child was terrifying.

There’s a photograph of our family dog, Suzie. Suzie was everything to me. The black and white photograph shows my hand reaching for Suzie from inside my stroller. My tiny toddler hand reaching for Suzie, who provided some of the best parts of my rearing. As I gaze at the photograph as an adult, I feel the joy of having her and the devastation of losing her.

Suzie was the house dog. The rest of the dogs stayed in a pen in the backyard. Home movies show me as a toddler heading toward the street while all adult eyes are finding entertainment in whatever stunt my brother was performing, Suzie follows me to the edge of the street and herds me back to the house.

My first real meeting with loss happened shortly after we moved to a larger house in a newer neighborhood. We moved in October and my parents said the house was my birthday present. It was a one-level, brick house surrounded by walnut, pomegranate and orange trees, A grapevine separated the dog pen from the backyard.

One day pulling into our driveway from a shopping trip, I was in the back seat of our car with Suzie sitting very tall to the left of me and my brother to my right. When the car stopped, my dad opened the door and Suzie jumped out of the car. I noticed a yellow spot around Suzie’s bottom just underneath her tail. I had never seen that spot before and for some reason, it scared me.

Daddy, come see Suzie’s yellow spot. I called to my dad, believing then that my dad could fix anything.

My dad lifted her tail and shook his head. He took her to the vet and when he returned home, he said, Suzie is sick. She has yellow jaundice. It wasn’t long after that that my dad had Suzie put to sleep. In my child’s heart, I believed I had done something wrong to make Suzie’s tail yellow. Suzie was dead, I started it, it was my fault, and I must make it better.

My parents kept a picture of my brother who only lived for twelve hours. He was their first born and was placenta previa at only seven months’ gestation. The photograph is an 8x10, black and white image of my brother lying dead in a bassinet. It is a startling image, one that my mother would pull out often in her drunken moments and cry over.

I sat beside my mom, holding her one hand while she held my brother’s photograph in the other. What happened, momma? Why did he die?

Mom’s words slurred together, and her head drooped, I wasn’t ready to have him. He wasn’t ready to be born. If only he had lived.

What would happen if he was alive?

I don’t know, Krissy. It just would have been better. She continued to cry and stare at my brother. These times, sitting with my mom, I soaked in her emotion. I wanted to fix it, fix her. I wanted life to be different.

Through the years, I was able to put the pieces together of what happened in my mom’s first pregnancy. She began to bleed and cramp around her seventh month of pregnancy. My parents hurried to the hospital and mom had to have a c-section. As soon as my brother was born, they rushed him to the incubator. My father went to see him. The doctor took my brother out of the incubator so that my dad could hold him. My dad was convinced that’s what killed him. That doctor became a target for our family pain.

My dad articulated many times in his drunkenness. Stupid fucking doctor—what was he thinking?

Why was it the doctor’s fault, daddy? I asked the same question every time we had this conversation. I wanted somebody to blame too.

He was a dumb ass. That’s when your brother died. He never should have taken him out of the incubator. My father’s face was red, his fists were clenched, his powerlessness was palpable.

As a child, when I was told about my older brother, I didn’t understand placenta previa. All I knew was that it was bad, he was born too early, he died, and it broke my parents’ hearts. My parents named my brother, but as I comb through my memories, I can’t remember if his name was John Marshall Smith or if my name was going to be John Marshall Smith had I been a boy.

I’ve always missed my brother or missed what I thought he might have been for me. I imagined him to be my protector. I imagined him being tall and broad with fiery, red hair. He would be funny, and he would be able to stop the madness. I wanted him to be the family savior. In my mind, he would have been successful. Not like me. He would have been enough.

I imagined that he would have been kind to me. He would have taught me to swing a baseball bat. He would have put my mom to bed, he would have stopped my dad’s angry, vicious words flying at my mom. He would have been a shield and a companion. He would have understood. But he died.

Maybe my parents wouldn’t have been so sad if he had lived. I know enough of my parents’ stories to know that their lives were filled with pain before he was born, but what if this is what threw them over the edge? What if they could have hung on to each other and to a more normal life if he had lived? Would they have even had a third child? Would they have stopped with two boys?

If my older brother would have lived, my now-older brother would have been a middle child. My brother and I have had periods of time when we were close, but for the most part, it’s as if we were raised in different households underneath the same roof. He was my father’s son, and I was my mother’s daughter. He has his story and I have mine.

Would John Marshall and I have had the same story? Would our story be how close we were and how he protected me? Or would we be three separate people growing up under the same roof in our own different worlds? I don’t know. But I will continue to imagine that John Marshall is my hero. He may not have stayed on the planet, but I am positive that someone has been watching over me.

The rosary arrived by mail in a blue, rectangular box addressed to the Smith Family. My mom opened the box and showed me the white glow-in-the-dark beads.

Can I have these beads, Momma? I held them in my hands gliding my fingers over each bead. Some were larger than others. They were made from bumpy plastic strung together with string. A cross dangled from the end.

Sure, Krissy. My mom wasn’t as fascinated with them as I was.

What are they for? I wondered.

They’re to say your prayers. You say certain prayers for each bead. Your daddy will know the prayers. He’s said them since he was a little boy.

When my dad arrived home, I took the beads to him. Momma said you would know what these were. What are they

Tears welled up in my dad’s crystal blue eyes. This is a rosary, honey. I grew up in the Catholic church and we prayed with these beads every day. My mother loved her rosary.

This was the first time I’d heard of a Catholic church. I was vaguely aware that some of my friends went to church, but our family didn’t. This was the first time my dad teared up with thoughts of his mother. My dad was big, strong, funny, and loud, but this was the first time I saw his pain. It wouldn’t be the last.

My dad recited the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers to me. I didn’t understand a word of them, but I was comforted. Somewhere there was a Mother Mary and an Our Father. When I would miss John Marshall or wake up shaking from a nightmare, my rosary would be glowing calmly, consistently, reassuringly in the dark room where I hung it on my dresser mirror. I had a Mother Mary. I had an Our Father. I should find them.

Chapter Two

WHEN MY MOM WOULD PUT ME DOWN for a nap, I’d wait for a few minutes, then get up and say, I’m not sleepy, Momma. I can remember lying on my side, looking out my bedroom window, waiting for the right amount of time to pass so that I could get up and find my mom. She was always in the same place—lying on the sofa in the den. That’s when I first started watching soap operas with my mom.

We would lie together on the sofa, me in front, her behind, watching Guiding Light, Search for Tomorrow, As the World Turns, and The Edge of Night. At first these programs were only fifteen minutes long and we could watch several in one sitting. Then, As the World Turns came on for thirty minutes and we had to decide which ones we were going to keep watching.

Oh, darn it, Krissy. How are we going to choose? We can’t watch them all now. Mom loved her soap operas.

"I like As the World Turns." I was sure which one I wanted to watch.

"But if we watch As the World Turns, then we can’t watch Edge of Night. But I do like the Hughes. Okay, As the World Turns it is."

I loved this time with my mom. The house was quiet. My brother was at school. My dad was at work. Nobody was drinking. Just me and my mom watching the stories. I never doubted my mom’s love during these times.

Oh no! Why did she just do that? I asked. Penny just kissed someone who wasn’t her boyfriend.

Sometimes people do things they shouldn’t, honey. Mom was lying behind me with her arm wrapped around my waist.

Is she going to tell Jeff she kissed someone else?

Probably not. My mom’s arm tightened around my waist.

That’s like lying, I said with my child’s innocence.

What happened at night couldn’t erase these moments of closeness with my mom.

In the evenings, after my dad came home, life would change. Cocktail hour began and lasted several hours. My dad’s nickname was Snuffy, as in Snuffy Smith.

Snuff, why don’t you make us a drink while I start dinner. The first words out of my mom’s mouth every night before my dad even walked through the door. Her anxiety was high. It was time for the alcohol to flow.

Hello to you too, dad would say. Can’t wait to get that drink, huh? My dad’s words were coated with just enough anger, blame and sarcasm that we understood it was momma’s fault they had to drink.

I would walk out of the room to watch TV and let the chaos begin. My parents would stay in the kitchen and quickly consume the first three drinks. Dinner prep became louder as the drinking increased - like a battlefield after the first shots were fired.

Goddammit, Ginny! Where the hell is the butter? Did you forget the goddamn butter? My dad would yell.

No, Snuff. It’s in the butter dish in the refrigerator. My mom’s words were slurred. A pan crashed to the floor.

What the hell is it doing in the refrigerator? I like my butter soft! My dad’s words rang through the house.

The quiet was gone, a distant wisp floating in my awareness. Somehow my parents always managed to put a good meal on the table. My mom might be face down in her mashed potatoes, but the food was good.

When my parents had company, the volume and the chaos surged. Ashtrays overflowed, drinks spilled, laughter roared as drunken adults tripped over themselves.

Hey Snuffy, tell us some jokes. One drunken voice would rise above the uproar.

My dad was a big man with a big voice. He loved to entertain. He told jokes about Lord Clive, who had a butler named Jives.

He began in his booming voice, One day Lord Clive and Jives were hunting in the woods when Lord Clive found that he needed to have a bowel movement. He perched in the woods and when it was time to get up, he couldn’t rise. ‘My heavens, Jives, I believe I have puckered up on a daisy!’ Everyone would laugh, and it became a punch line for my parents and their friends.

Looking back, I wonder what all the fuss was about. I think it was just the way my dad told it, pacing the room, scrunching up his face, talking with an English accent. After a few jokes, my dad would launch into a ditty.

Aye, yi, yi, yi in China they do it for chili,

Here comes another verse that’s worse than the first verse

So waltz me around again Willie!

Or

Better get a woman, get a woman if you can

If you can’t get a woman, get a clean old man.

The louder he got, the quieter my mom became. The drunker he got, the dirtier he got. He filled up space and people would rally around him, and my mom would kind of disappear into a drunken haze. My brother was drawn into my dad’s orbit, and I’d edge toward my mom.

And during it all, I was told to go to bed. To go to my dark bedroom in the far corner of the house. As if it was perfectly normal for a child to sleep peacefully when there was literally no way to predict what harm could happen.

It was around this time in life when I was about five that I started having two recurring nightmares. One was I climbed up my chest of drawers. When I got to the top, I reached for a handhold and couldn’t find one. I started to fall backwards. The floor disappeared. The chest of drawers disappeared, and I tumbled into a black, never-ending void – a freefall into nothingness until I woke myself up with a quickly thumping heart and a sweaty nightgown. In another nightmare, I was going to the department store with my mom and Mrs. Rae (one of her best friends). They parked the car in front of the store. I was sitting in the back seat when they said, We’ll be back in just a minute. They both jumped out of the car. I looked down and a menacing witch came out from underneath the front seat, moving towards me in the back seat. I was terrified, and I jumped to the front seat. She followed and chased me back and forth, back and forth, until I again woke myself up with a heavy heartbeat and sweat-soaked gown.

This is also when I started listening for strange noises in my sleep and sleeping with my eyes open. Maintaining a state of alertness in sleep that carried through my adult years. And then, my mom started sleeping with me.

When the house quieted, my mom would stumble into my room, smelling of strong tobacco, Beefeater gin, and stale Chanel No. 5. To this day, a strong whiff of any of those smells can throw me back in time. She would crawl in bed behind me, wrap her arms around my waist, and pull me into her pocket—that curve of belly, hips, and knees. It wasn’t like during the day when we watched our stories - it was smothering and scary. My tiny body hauled into the suffocating embrace of a woman with no boundaries. The same woman who loved and nurtured me during the day became a smothering, needy vacuum sucking the life out of me at night. In my sleep sometimes I would lash out, throwing my elbow back with great force, connecting with my mother’s breasts. She would call out, Stop, Krissy. You’re going to give me breast cancer! I didn’t really care if this version of my mom got breast cancer—I wanted her out of my bed.

There are two different stories as to why my parents stopped sleeping together. My dad’s version was that my mom had an affair with his best friend, and he kicked her out. My mom’s version was that my dad was unable to please her, and she left. Which one is true? Probably both, but I could have lived my whole life without hearing either one of them.

My mom put me in tap and ballet school at the Art Linkletter School of Dance. I loved the sound of the taps hitting the floor to the beat of the music. I loved the little dresses we wore - tutus. They ranged from pastels to bright colors with fitted bodices, tulle flutter sleeves and short, bouncy skirts that barely hit the tops of my thighs. There was an attached cotton brief, and we always wore tights. I felt free and safe. I loved the movement and the music. Tap was my favorite - ballet not so much. Ballet was controlled and slow. I wanted to fling my feet and arms to wild, rhythmic music.

Okay, girls. See those pretty tap shoes you have on. Oh no! There’s a bug on the floor. Use those shoes. Kick the bug out. Bring the bug back. Now stomp on it! Our teacher knew how to make class fun.

Those hours spent in dance class were euphoric. I fit in. I wasn’t horrible. I never once thought about my mom or my dad or my brother or any bad thing that could happen that would destroy life. I just danced.

A small bus, sort of like a minivan, picked the students up and brought us to dance lessons and dropped us at our homes after class. On the way home one day the dance bus was in a small collision. They emptied the bus of all the children and asked us to lie down on the sloping grass hill of someone’s yard. I was lying there actually enjoying the sun and thinking about dancing when my mom came frantically running up the hill shouting, Krissy, Krissy, are you ok? Oh my God, Krissy open your eyes! By the time she reached me, she was shaking and crying and stumbling over herself. She fell to her knees and grabbed me by the shoulders.

I’m okay, Momma. I’m okay. I was jerked from my calm, warm spot in the sun to my mother’s cold, dark terror. I had to fix this.

She wiped at her eyes and then pulled me to her, arms tight. Oh Krissy, you scared me to death. There was a bus wreck.

I know, Momma, but I’m okay. Please believe