DAY 10 - Snap (21 DAYS OF RAGE)

This is the 10th instalment of a 21 day writing series about maternal rage and anger.

When I was four years old, I was bitten by my grandfather's dog. The bite travelled from the right side of my face to a spot less than a millimetre from the inner corner of my left eye. The scar next to my eye is barely visible now and I have an awesome boomerang shaped scar on my right temple.

Like lots of kids, my daughter had a phase of being frightened of dogs. She is nearly eight and she thinks my scar is from being scratched by a particularly sharp twig when I ran past a tree. I guess at some point I will tell her the truth.

I remember the moments before and afterwards but I don’t think I remember the moment I was bitten. I feel like I sat on my sister’s lap as the car speeded towards the hospital, though maybe this didn’t happen. I know my cousin was in the car and I think my mum was driving. I remember tea towels soaked in blood and being surprised by how much blood kept coming.

I don’t remember being particularly frightened. I’m not scared of dogs now and though the bite was serious and required extensive plastic surgery, the memory is not traumatic for me.

As a parent, it’s normal to think about  the kind of memories our children will have and also how we want our kids to remember us. I think both the good and bad news is that we don’t have as much control or influence over this as we might think. Our kids will have their own stories about who we were and what we did, narratives that are bound to differ from ours.

Growing up, I remember a friend’s mum who at the time I considered “scary”. From what I remember she was quick to anger, both snappy (a bit frightening) and more ragey (more frightening). I remember seeing her interact with her daughter in ways that I’d now consider shaming and blaming. I say this without judgement, simply as what I recall.  

When I’ve been either snappy with or exploded with rage in front of my children (or on some particularly fun days, both), my shame and regret comes from the way they were frightened and upset. My fear comes from something I might have broken about our relationship or broken in them.

I was thinking the other days about some of my memories of my kind, funny and brave mother and how I do, like all children will, also remember her losing her shit. In a moment the idea of the difference between memory and harm settled calmly in my mind and into my body like a feather floating through the window and then down down down to the root, down to the heart of the matter. I have memories but I don't bear scars. There was repair, something I have always known without being able to articulate it like that.

Things fall apart and loving parents try to bring them back together. That matters so much more than we think it does. We focus on our perceived transgression and self-flagellate. But what emerges from events is a feeling and it’s that which our bodies remember. There will always be conflict, the moment something snaps. There’s so much possibility in what happens next.