Ain't your fault, Ma, it's all in that old cellular memory

Last week I had one of those revelatory moments. Almost an epiphany in the sense it explained so much and left me with a bit more understanding about who I am and why I have done some of the things I have.

I have always had a memory with great longevity. To a degree I have a photographic (not to mention highly photogenic, my dears) memory. Not totally photographic but significant enough in impact that I see everything in pictures in my mind. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that I was a brilliant student. That was impeded by a strong element of lazy bastard-ness in me. I only remembered what I wanted to remember. And, that’s not really the subject of this essay, except in a peripheral way.

I also have a memory with great longevity. I remember back to the age of 2½ and not just as sporadic images but even sequentially to a degree.

Now, an attempt to tie this together. Last week I attended an afternoon long workshop for counsellors, social workers, shrinks and other such persons offered by the rather brilliant Dr. Gabor Maté, He is a man who tends to the wants and needs of the inhabitants of what is considered the ickiest bit of real estate in North America, Vancouver’s drug-wasted and tragic Downtown Eastside – a few square blocks of horror and tragedy that you will not find in any tourist guide. It’s a scary and sad place and that’s where Dr. Maté finds his client base.

Anyway, I was familiar with this dedicated man, and had interviewed him for an extensive newspaper article last spring. And, I had read his book. But, I hadn’t heard him speak and he was one of those speakers who was, in a word, riveting. The three hours passed like minutes.

Now, here is the revelation that ‘riveted’ me. He pointed out that we are all victims, more or less, of what we remember from our past. But, the information that took me to a place of revelation was that what we remember is different from what we recall.

Recollection is our conscious memory. You know, when I was five I had a red wagon. True memory is at a cellular level and begins, quite literally, at birth. We remember being thrust from the womb, as it were, but we are not conscious of it. And, what happens immediately after Mom’s final grunt to expel us sticks with us for the rest of our lives. And, if it’s not an ideal situation, for various reasons, then there is a penalty.

I have been bothered for many years by the fact I did not grieve for my mother when she died. I felt little emotion, but assumed it would come later after the news had sunk in. It never has. I have never, I am almost ashamed to say, missed her. I mean, yes, she was an alcoholic, an aloof and not demonstrative woman, she was immature, infuriating and all those other things. But, you know, she was my Mom, and that usually excuses a lot of stuff. Yet, when my grandmother died when I was 14, I was devastated. I still miss her. If there is a big reunion up in the sky after I leave the worldly scene, she is the person I want to see again.

Dr. Maté explained why. And the why is, my grandmother, as far as my little cells are concerned, was ‘my mother.’ Not as strange as it seems. Immediately following my birth, Mom came down with scarlet fever. She was put under quarantine for six months and my grandmother leapt into the breach. So, it was with her I bonded, imprinted, if you will and she was the one who in my vitals always filled the motherhood role.

I have written elsewhere that the happiest time in my very young years was when the family lived with my grandparents for a few months when they were building what would be our family home. As far as I was concerned, they needn’t have bothered because at my grandparents’ I was home. It was where I was ‘meant’ to be. The essence of my being told me that and I had no control over it. If my natural mother was anything she, through no fault of her own, was my adoptive mother.

It all explained a lot, not only my lack of grief for my mother, abandonment issues, and a seeking of numerous female liaisons throughout at chunk of my life, though not in recent years. I am with somebody whom I trust implicitly will not abandon me like my cellular memory told me mother had, even if she had no control over it.

Thanks, Dr. Maté for clearing that up for me. Makes it easier to move on with a little understanding and less guilt.