Atascadero Writers Group

November  2015

 

 

 

 

Last Letter to Roxie

 

     by Betty Finocchiaro

 

My dearest Roxie,

 

I had a dream the other night.  I dreamt Mama was sitting with her back to a darkened window in our front room.  It was open to a breeze blowing her long grey hair.  Mama was brushing it, staring at me with piercing eyes.  I woke with a muffled scream.  Mama didn’t have long hair, nor was it gray.

 

I’ve thought of that dream so many times over the years, always hoping I could figure out the real reason behind it. My parents always told me that my maternal grandmother babysat me for the first five years of my life.  I could never recall one day.  Why was that?  In doing a self - psychoanalysis, I’ve often wondered if my grandfather could have been the reason.  My grandfather drank heavily and beat my grandmother. Does the mind block out bad experiences?  Does it block out happy ones too? I don’t know why I think of these things so often, Roxie.

 

Winters seemed dark and cold back then, maybe because those years were clouded with war.  Germany had marched into Poland.  Russia was allying itself with us for the big push into World War II.  England wept.  I was fourteen.

 

“What did I tell you, Pop?  She was mad at me and I don’t even know why.”  I was talking to my father about how angry mom was again.  It didn’t take much to set her off.  The house could be turned into an inferno just by her moods.  Yet, sometime when we least expected, mama’s day seemed to go right for her.  And that’s when she sang in her pretty voice.  She would sing lovely Italian operatic arias and love songs, some of which have been translated into English.  If I sometime hear that music, it takes me to those days with a nostalgia that makes me almost makes me cry.  I can still hear my uncle Paul hollering, “Sing Fannie, sing that song again!” Uncle Paul was her youngest brother who adored her.

 

You know Roxie, it never dawned on me to question my mother’s erratic behavior.  I was a child, so questions about such things don’t cross our minds.  Yet, it affected everyone in the family, and because of that we suffered.  It was years later that I could understand the reason her life had been so dark.  Mama had lost a baby at six months, suffering bouts of depression, probably because of all that she had experienced as a child. I don’t think that there was much in the way for psychotherapy.

 

Mama’s life wasn’t happy until she married my father, but even then the ugly head of unrest and sadness began to appear and my dear father suffered for it.  Yet, he always loved her.  In fact, my Dad had a capacity to love most everyone.

 

Let me write you again, sweet girl.

 

Always and ever, I remain your loving friend,

Betty

 

 

 

 

Note to readers:  Betty Finocchiaro, one of the founders of the Atascadero Writer’ Group, passed away November 25, 2015