Can I Drive You Home?
Welcome to Biddy Sounds Off, a place for episodic writing and music I love. I'm Biddy. Do people with big families wish they had smaller ones? Fewer cousins? Siblings?
Biddy:One of the best discoveries I've made after losing my parents is 2 new to me cousins, 1 on each side, and both of them discovered the way I imagine finding a buried treasure, especially if that treasure chest opens to reveal great golden beams of light stumbled upon while dragging oneself through the mud of grief. It has been a revelation to find and reconnect with family when I thought I'd lost them all. We were a small family to begin with, and so it was a most welcome find. Both cousins are my sister's age, so a few years older than me. And to find people who knew your people when they were alive is heartwarming and provides some kind of sensation of relief to some kind of homing device in my chest.
Biddy:I hadn't gotten to know my mother as a person very well at all when she was alive. So to hear my cousin tell stories of his experiences, seeing the 2 of them as sisters, is amazing in kind of a stupefying way. My mother was a very private person, withholding, not just of her love, affection, warmth, knowledge, skills she'd mastered, but she also withheld simple factual information about herself. Seeing another view of your parent is like adding a whole new dimension to them. My cousin on my dad's side is better known to me.
Biddy:Me. My dad was too. We reconnected after a lifetime of parental alienation kept us apart. And having been BFFs in childhood, it was natural for us to find each other again after my mom died. We only had a few years together before he passed, but for us, it was easy to connect on a human level that wasn't attainable with mom.
Biddy:Dad kept everything. It was a real problem, actually, and became a hoarding condition. But as overwhelming and stressful as that was to contend with, alone and in the first stages of his loss, I came away away with some treasures. He'd kept not only all of his childhood school memorabilia and essays and assignments, which really helped me get to know how he felt and thought about things and the way he took in the world. That also kept hours, and I got to see my own childish handwriting and read the play my sister and I put on for mom and dad.
Biddy:She was the headliner, but was gracious enough to include me. I'd only ever remembered the way we were constantly at odds after the divorce, but here, she generously included her bratty 4 year old sister. I was to open the show as a magician. In the golden hour, I found an old agenda of my sister's. She must have left it at my mom's house some time or other because I found it when I closed out my mom's house.
Biddy:By the way, neither of my parents took the time to estate plan, and this is my plea to anyone and everyone. Please don't put this off. It doesn't have to be a complex task. I suggest printing documents in advance and carrying these and a pen around. Keep them in the car so they are handy, and just have that slightly awkward conversation.
Biddy:It is worth not having to struggle through after the fact, especially, I imagine, when one does have that larger family, all those siblings and cousins. Right? But I've been going through my sister's old calendar. It was a sort of burgundy leather color, a day runner from 1999. And I'm just besotted by her handwriting.
Biddy:Bubbly, cursive, a definitive style to it. I noticed the way she had kept track of everyone's birthdays. She hadn't filled up much of the agenda, but no job to declare or travel itinerary, just doctor's appointments and court dates, and then the pages go blank again for months. As I flip through, I spot my new to me cousin's name and birthday, his phone number next to it so she'd remember to call. This cousin hadn't been lost to time.
Biddy:He'd just been lost to me. But they knew each other before I was born, before the police had come to talk to me that time the neighbor took me with them, before the divorce, back when my family was robust and full of talk and music and art and more people and life. This new to me cousin brought a new understanding of my sister into my life. This sweet birthday keeping side, in addition to his friendship. One of the best ways to celebrate friendship and birthdays is with music.
Biddy:Let's take a break. First was Planet Birthday by Beverly, followed by Interference destination. I don't recall the destination, just the fact that the hotel had a pool. Later, we were all settling onto rollaway beds and cots and I remembered an extremely awkward conversation with all of them. The topic of stepfamilies had only just started when it turned quickly and into a kind of interrogation.
Biddy:All of their faces turned to me, perplexed as to what I thought I was going on about. I hardly spoke to begin with but it just rattled off the reasons we would never be allowed to refer to Phyllis and her children as our stepfamily because that would be legally inaccurate unless the family went through the legal process of adoption through the courts. My mother had recently taken a job as a paralegal, and I was her only confidant. We were becoming so toxically intertwined as a unit, mom and me, that she'd even sprayed her perfume inside the pillowcase I packed with me so I could smell her close to me, while I had to be away from her on a court ordered family vacation with my dad. Leaving myself well informed, I didn't hesitate to share this information.
Biddy:Though I did leave out the part when mom told me privately about how if I referred to Phyllis and her children as my stepfamily, it would be a betrayal from which she would never forgive me. Then a couple of years later, just as soon as they'd appeared, Phyllis and her 2 children were gone. We never spoke of them again. However, just a year or 2 later, there were more, quote unquote, step siblings. My mother's new husband had 2 girls.
Biddy:They were mine and my sister's age. Luckily, my loyalties weren't to be tried in the court of mother's opinion this time around. I saw the girls infrequently but Kelly was my age and when she was around, we gravitated towards each other. There was even the occasional sleepover, which I absolutely hated sleepovers as a kid. I had to get picked up once, and come to think of it, it even involved a cockroach.
Biddy:We were meant to sleep in the family's basement, which was reasonably finished. It didn't seem like an unhealthy place or anything like that, which is why it was so surprising when one girl suddenly screamed and flipped her blanket and the bug went flying, causing an airborne cockroach event. Plus, I was enormously pee shy, painfully so. Like, I would wait until the next day to pee at home. Seriously.
Biddy:Learning the ways of the iron bladder, however, was useful throughout my teaching career though. Also, sadly, seriously, I had no problem turning down sleepovers or party invitations as I mostly just hung out with my mom. Whether this was her design, my mounting insecurities, or most likely both, it was unusual for me to enjoy spending time with someone outside of our small family. Dysfunctional families tend to isolate, don't we? It shocks me now to realize how blatantly my family took on the most distinctive characteristics of a family in danger.
Biddy:As a teacher, I would become trained to recognize them so that I could intervene and support those children. It would take many years for me, however, to be able to recognize that I'd grown up with all of them myself. So a nerd and trained to accept unacceptable behaviors as quirky or just the way it's minimizing bullshit. All of it conditions us to endure, to accept, acquiesce. A friend of mine, Brian, once suggested that would be a great band name.
Biddy:I miss him and look forward to telling you about him later. I was hopeful. Mom became more accepting of using step language once she remarried herself. I actually wanted to see Kelly. And it was nice to have someone over who fit in and right away kind of knew what we were working world.
Biddy:Happy. All of that pressure of bringing someone new into the dynamic at home was removed. We could just communicate as the actual human children we were. We must have been 12 or 13. We both loved to huddle and giggle together.
Biddy:We were both 7th grade fashion victims with hair sprayed to the heavens and hard as a helmet back then. We curled it and teased it and sprayed the top until we nearly choked on the noxious Aqua Net fumes between giggles. We'd spray the sides straight out, teasing a little more until our wings were done. Then that was that. The back of our heads were a stringy flat mess, but we were ready to walk to the 711 for a chico stick or a whatchamacallit.
Biddy:It was a bar. Plus, we were home all day alone in the summers and on school breaks. So we did what we wanted. I walked that neighborhood a lot after school into the evenings, selling candy bars for school and trying to find people to support me for the walk for mankind. I remember I had a walkman back then, my prized possession.
Biddy:And when the time came to walk for my fellow mankind, I couldn't be prouder and fucking cranked my headphones to that little ditty by Jack and Diane with the hands on and jeans or whatever by John Mellencamp. That whole Johnny Cougar thing is interesting too. When his manager gave him that flashy name and it stuck, that was fun to learn about. And you know what else is fun to learn about is that reuniting to tour their incredible album Diary for its 30th is Sunny Day Real Estate. Wild.
Biddy:I didn't see any international dates yet. Come on, CDMX or Guadalajara. But for now, catch them in the US. There are a lot of dates starting in March and continuing through October according to Pitchfork. Let's listen now.
Biddy:We started with In Circles by Sunny Day Real Estate before listening to a tune from a band I saw at The Raven in Denver ages ago which had previously been a roller rink and it was a cool venue for a short time. Another release from 1994, that was Engine Kid with windshield. Neither of my stepdad's girls came with us when we moved to California for that brief but enlightening year. I never saw Kelly again. I saw her older sister when we went to pay respects at Kelly's funeral, the year we returned to Colorado.
Biddy:She'd been murdered after prolonged abuse by her domestic partner. She'd been trying to break it off with him, and this is the most vulnerable time for partners trying to escape their abusers. He stalked her to a Target parking lot and then hid himself behind her car, waited for her to return from shopping. He shot her in the head before taking his own miserable life. Kelly and I were both 18.
Biddy:Kelly's older sister struggled to cope and, shortly after, was driving drunk with a friend. They crashed and her friend was killed. Kelly's older sister served time as a result. I never saw her again after the funeral, and we parted ways with the stepdad, so our families weren't in contact. We weren't in contact with many people back then.
Biddy:My mom and I returning to our old toxic relationship patterns, isolation. Now having outlived my immediate family, I'm ready to rebuild. To choose family beyond one's family of origin is a brave choice made by people who've been bullied, rejected, or even brutalized by the very people we trusted to love and support us. There are some incredibly moving stories about chosen family from the LGBTQ community, people who've been cast out of their born families, finding the social support that all humans need to survive and thrive in this dark world, where simply existing is reason to suffer. I hope to continue being brave in my own journey, making new friends, new family even.
Biddy:And make a plan for your future to care for your family and your loved ones without delay. This isn't a didactic podcast, but I'd still like to close with the public service announcement and reminder that your pets will also need provisions. Something to consider whether you're drafting your last will and testament for the first time or making revisions. Take it from your bitty. Death comes for us all.
Biddy:I tease you with truth, but let's end on a sunnier note, my friend on the other end, with this song by Japanther called First of All. This has been Biddy Sounds Off. Thank you for listening.
