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September 1993 - An informal adoption
When it comes to Mother's, mine wouldn't win any prizes. Not unless they were being given at the Child Services “Most Dysfunctional Family” awards. In fact. She was a pretty terrible mother all round. In Kyoto, my Mother was almost completely absent from my life, and she had basically been content to let me to fend for myself. I left for school early in the morning. Went to a combination of private classes, friend's homes, and dojo seasons until it was late. Then I came home to sleep after it had gotten dark. All without involvement from my Mother. Half of the time she didn't know where I was or what I was doing, and she didn't really care either. She didn't even seem to care that I often took my baby sister along for the ride (My world was full of friends with mothers, or older sisters, who fell over themselves to help me look after Lucy). Just so long as I remembered to pick up the groceries while I was out. This all changed when we reached the Midwest. Suddenly, my Mother became very controlling indeed. To the point of madness, she took to planning every aspect of my life, right down to the smallest detail, and she absolutely had to know where I was going each time I stepped out of the door, and when I would be back. She even made me put up a chart on the refrigerator saying which clubs I was attending and when (this might seem normal to everybody else, but it was a bit change for me). More than this though, more than wanting to know where I was or what I was doing, my Mother suddenly became concerned about who I was with while I was out. Particularly if I was going to be anywhere that she hadn't personally arranged for me to be, and certainly if it was somewhere that I might encounter members of the town's adult population Bad Influences In these uncertain times, a lot of parents are more afraid that their children will be sexually abused by a family friend than they are of them knocked down on the way to school, and so it may seem perfectly normal for a mother to screen your her children's friend and their parents (This was still, thankfully, unusual in the mid west of 1993). However, unlike modern mothers, my Mother wasn't at all concerned that I might fall prey to a sex fiend (Any pervert who tries to molest a multiple Black belt is going to have a lot worse things to worry about than the police catching them. For a start, which way their limbs are facing). Instead, my Mother was afraid that I would fall under the influence of a parent who would interfere with the strenuous regime that she was increasingly putting Lucy and myself through, which was, by this time, verging on brainwashing. Mrs Garland My Mother needed somewhere for me to be in the time between my leaving school in the afternoon and her returning from work at night. I couldn't come home, else I would have no way to get to the Dojo or any after school practices that didn't start immediately, and she didn't want me staying with random friends as I had done in Kyoto. My Mother wanted someone with a home that I could stay in, and a car that could be used to transport me where I needed to go, and she wanted that someone to blindly accept whatever my she said was best for me and my sister, without questioning the outlandish hours that our family lived around, or fact that she was, herself, increasingly treating her children like they were in boot camp. She found such a person in Mrs Garland. At least, she thought she did. Mrs Garland was nominally the mother of a classmate of mine named Chet (my best friend at the time). She lived in a large close by the school. Had a lot of time on her hands now that her three eldest children had left for college, and, most importantly for my Mother, she was ditzy, vague, and thought so well of everyone that she never questioned a thing that anybody else did. You could commit a brutal murder in front of her, and she'd probably believe you if you told her that she hadn't seen a thing. At least that's what was the impression that she gave everyone. After having grown up with 6 rowdy brothers at home, Mrs Garland used good natured confusion as a defense mechanism. She appeared not to notice anything, and, in turn, people didn't notice her. In reality though, she was about as astute as they came. To the world at large, Mrs Garland, or Aunt K as I came to know her, was an airhead without an original thought of her own. Inside her own home, however, she dropped the pretense and came into her own. Having already raised 4 children and two nephews, she knew exactly what it was I needed and when. She was there for me when I needed an understanding adult to talk to, when I needed a shoulder to cry on, and when I was out of line, she was there to put me back in my place. She also knew when not to let on to my Mother what she was really like. In short, Mrs Garland was more of a mother to me than my own Mother ever had been. More of a mother to my sister, too. She could also cook like no other American woman I'd ever known, which was a bonus in itself. A Second Home In addition to providing me with the mother that I'd never really had. Mrs Garland also provided me with something else very important. Since her two elder sons, and her only daughter, had left for their respective colleges, she had a lot of spare space. Some of which she loaned to me. Providing me with a room of my own. Strictly speaking I already had my own bedroom. It had walls, windows and a bed. All of the things that you normally find in a teenager's room. What it also had, though, was bookshelf and a close that contained only the things I knew I could let my mother see. I kept everything else at Mrs. Garland's house. After the incident with the flag, and a couple of other incidents along the way, my Mother turned against everything Japanese that I owned. Believing that links to my past in japan would harm her attempts to turn me into an American, she forbade me from owning anything Japanese that she hadn't personally approved (Namely, most things that I owned that didn't have antique value). So, when my Mother ordered me to throw away most of what I 'd brought to America with me, I simply I moved it to Mrs Garland's house while my Mother was at work. What's more, by 1993, comic books and videos from Japan were becoming popular enough to be imported into the US and sold through mail order - Along with all sorts of other goodies that my Mother would have had nightmares if she knew I was buying - Mrs Garland's home not only provided m with somewhere to keep all of these, but also with an address to order them to. Epilogue Mrs garland did so very very much for me during the years that spent in the Midwest. She was a like a mother to me, and, when things ultimately deteriorated, several years down the line, she would be there for me, too. Helping to make sure that the remaining pieces of my broken home were firmly out of my Mother's reach. Of all the people I knew in America, she is probably the person whom I miss the most. |
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