Keeping Secrets

When I was in the fifth grade my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. Back then, my
mother seemed to be the only person in the world who had something wrong with her. Her
illness was discovered one morning in February, after she had dropped my two brothers and me
off at school. She and my dad continued on in order to take my father to work, a few towns over.
Our baby brother was seat belted in the second seat.
My mother was driving our nine passenger station wagon that morning, when she experienced a
grand mal seizure. As the right side of her body convulsed, she lost control of the car and went
up onto a snow bank and then with my mothers foot now repeatedly flooring the gas pedal,
because of the spasaming on her right side, the station wagon careened off the snow bank, and
plowed head on into a panel truck.
I remember walking up the steps to St. Teresas Grammar School as the morning bell sounded
and saying a quiet Hail Mary to myself, when I heard the sirens of the ambulances leave
Overlook Hospital a few blocks up from our school in suburban New Jersey as I had been
taught to do by the sisters and indoctrinated to do by my Nanny, the queen of Irish Catholic
voodoo. (In a good way.)
That afternoon leaving school my brothers and I waited and waited for my mother in the parking
lot, but she never showed , and after about 30 minutes and a now empty lot, we decided to hoof
it, the mile and a half home as we did every other day of the week, when my mother didnt have
the car.

It was a bright afternoon, the sidewalks were cleared of the weekends snowfall, but I was still
furious that we hadnt been picked up, as that was all part of the deal with my mom getting the
car on Mondays we wouldnt have to walk the long walk home.
We were supposed to go to Woolworths after school to pick up packages of St. Valentines Day
cards. We trudged by Sally Guthries house, she was already home, past the Ruanes, Joe and
his brother were home, the McCaddins just off of Ashland Road, their mother was always on
time every afternoon. My book bag was heavy and the boys and I were soundless as we walked
home. Our family was one of the few who still only had one car. I couldnt understand this,
every other family except for the Gannons had a second car and the kids were fetched after
school.
We finally reached the front door and my mother opened it to let us in. I was shocked at her
appearance. Upon the impact with the truck, my mothers pretty face had smashed into the
steering wheel. It was now swollen and black and blue. They didnt have harness belts back
then or air bags buried into steering wheels and dashboards that spring into action with these
types of collisions, just their seatbelts. I turned to my right and my father was on the phone
speaking to someone. By now my mother had explained about the mornings accident, but I was
only half listening, I went into the kitchen and saw my baby brothers snow suit jacket covered in
blood and I went back out and asked where he was. My mother explained that he was in the
hospital with a fractured jaw. My father had a bandage wound round his head, from where he
had slammed his head on the dashboard and the blunt force of the impact had impaled his glasses
above the bridge of his nose.

Now this essay is not about the accident everyone recovered, including the driver of the panel
truck and while my youngest brother had to have his jaw wired together, much like braces, for a
couple of weeks, it was a life lesson I learned that day to always wear my seatbelt.
Rather, this essay is about the secrets we had to keep as children. We could never speak about
the accident or what caused it. From what I can vaguely remember, after that day, my mother
started to see doctors, until the EEG revealed the cause of the grand mal seizure. My mother had
a brain tumor, embedded deep inside the middle of her brain. It was inoperable.
The station wagon came back repaired, but according to my father it never ran correctly at
highway speeds. And my father needed the car for the highway every night (except Mondays).
My father was a sales manager for a large construction company, but the only night of the week
he was home was Mondays. Every other night after work, he would drive into New York City
and work back stage at the New York State Theater on 55th Street. On Mondays all theaters are
dark; my mother could have the car.
As children we were told not to mention this second job to anyone. So okay, I kept quiet about
that too.
Not too long after the accident my mother was admitted to the hospital. Im not sure if she was
sick as the result of the brain tumor or the aftermath of the accident. My dad didnt say. He
gave us strict instructions not to tell anyone that she had been admitted. If anyone asks, say
shes visiting her sisters, or simply that shes home.
But in our parish school, my mothers name came up on the list of parishioners who had been
admitted into Overlook Hospital. So when Sister Margaret Maurice came up to me in class and

asked me where my mother was -- I was caught between lying to the nuns or not adhering to my
fathers strict wishes.
I think shes home baking us a cake. I replied. Sister Margaret then turned on her black
heeled feet, the oversized black rosary beads, looped to some hidden belt or sash, made that soft
clicking noise, and I wondered which was the bigger sin: lying to a bride of Christ or disobeying
my father.
My family had acquaintances who worked at the hospital, word got around, but we were still
strictly advised to speak to no one about our mother being in the hospital.
Im not sure why these things were kept secret. I suspect that my Dad didnt want the people at
his office to know that he worked two jobs, that the salary at the first wasnt enough to sustain
his family. My father worked two jobs for over 25 years. Yet I loved my fathers stage job.
Hed take me in with him some Sundays and Id sit in the audience and watch the ballet, or a
musical. Wed have lunch across the street, at a small counter only diner, where wed both order
hamburgers and I a cherry coke. Hed have to be backstage by 1:00 and the matinee would start
at 3:00. I might sit in a corner backstage, where I would read a book, or just watch the comings
and goings of the singers and dancers, as theyd brush up on a pas de deux, before the show or
walk through a tricky piece or scene. Id be quiet and remain as unobtrusive as possible until my
dad came to bring me out front.
Besides meeting some of the stars or the dancers, my dad would introduce me to the men who
did the lights, the sound people, everyone was dressed in black, the walls were black, the guys all
smoked. Backstage was an enchanted and protected world, that I had to keep all to myself. On
those Sunday afternoons, I entered this exquisite domain, within the charmed realm of amazing

sets, of beds that traveled to the land of the sugar plum fairy, the fogged atmospheres of
Brigadoon, fake oversized diamond rings, that Eliza threw at Henry Higgins.

No one else at St.

Theresas Grammar School had a father who did this no one. It was a small school, I would
have known. But I kept my mouth closed; I didnt tell people what I did on weekends.
I try to remember how this made me feel, all this keeping secrets.
When people, such as Mrs. McCaddin would find me in her backyard where my brothers and I
were playing with her kids, shed ask me directly where my mother was, and I said she was
visiting my Aunt Elaine or my Aunt Marge. I now realize that Mrs. McCaddin was probably
trying to figure out if I knew where my mother was, or if I had been told some story by my
father. There were times when these neighborhood moms would look at me and try to figure out
that answer, attempt to give me a hug, but as time went on, I became quite good at sliding away
just before their arms grabbed my shoulders.
Sometimes when my mother was hospitalized, her mother, our Nanny would visit us for a week
at a time. I loved it when Nanny visited, she would return order and calm to our house. She
didnt let my brothers leave their sporting equipment on the dining room table or their filthy
clothes draped across the backs of chairs in the living room bring them here to me she called
to the boys and theyd turn and do as they were told.
But all these keeping of secrets have in some measure affected me in my adult life. If I am
traveling somewhere, it is hard for me to tell people where, if there is something wrong in my
life, I tend not to tell anyone, with the exception of perhaps one or two people in my great circle
of friends.

When my husband and I decided to divorce we kept it from our two daughters for a year as I
wanted them to make decisions about their adult lives (for my oldest, where she would attend
grad school, for the youngest, a decision about what college to attend.) And Id overhear my
daughters talking about their fathers whereabouts, as he was staying with his brother for
extended visits in Washington DC. It was during those overheard conversations between my
daughters that I could feel myself transported back to my grammar school classroom with the
late afternoon sunshine streaming through the large windows, that the favored boys in Sisters
class would prop open on the heated days of fall and spring with foot long rulers. And beneath
Sisters vigilant glare, Id listen to the traffic out on Morris Avenue, as I met Sisters blue eyes,
her faced framed by the habit and instead of thinking about the lie Id tell, I thought about my
brothers and our long walk home, and Id want to tell someone about my mom, but I knew that
if I whispered what was wrong it would spread like a virus, a rumor across the school and the
parish and while I didnt understand the ramifications of such an action, I knew that I had to keep
my mothers illness secret.
Would people not be our friends? Would we be shunned? Did my father simply not want people
involved in his life? Was it that he didnt want people to feel sorry for us? Perhaps he didnt
feel like eating all those tuna noodle casseroles that might get dropped off if people knew? Did
he feel that my mothers illness was only his burden to bear? He didnt want people to worry?
As I stood staring down anyones mother who would ask me where my mother was, while there
were some I longed to tell, just for the release of the information from my body, I knew I
couldnt.

I also thought that if Id tell someone, the whole thing would fall apart. If no one knew my
mother was sick then she wasnt. This is Irish voodoo thinking at is finest. Psychologists now
call it denial I beg to differ. Perhaps it is a way to get through the difficulty, push through to
next month, next year, when surely things will be more than fine, or better, or different, or in my
mothers case, cured. This was the magical moral sky I lived beneath for much of my youth and
adolescence.
In Gaelic the word no does not exist. Instead in the English, the Irish turn of phrase might be:
We wont be doing that today or I dont think we will be having that for dinner. So with my
mother, it wasnt as if anyone was telling us that our mother wasnt sick, we were simply not
telling ourselves that she was, and not fostering that idea, seemed to keep the cancer at bay.
Even today, over 3 decades since my mother passed away and then my father in 2000, I dont
have any answers. Many times I thought to ask my father in the intervening years long after my
mothers death, why we couldnt tell anyone, but then Id sense from him the old quietness about
issues, he didnt want to deal with, or answer.
I kept the secret of my husbands and my plans for divorcing for over a year. I told one person
whom I trusted completely, but she knew that she couldnt tell anyone, and we both knew that if
she mentioned it to anyone, the soft murmurings, the hissing of phone lines across the small city
where we lived might reach my daughters through their friends, and if there were two people on
the planet I was protecting from all of this it was them.
As a species, we have to live with a certain detachment from reality. Our realty is that we are all
going to die, and yet we cant focus on that every day. Instead we have to focus on making

things tolerable, happy, in spite of stubbing our toe out of bed, we hope, (at least I do) that the
day will be better I do believe we practice even on some level, a learned optimism.
So is some denial in life warranted? If we think about our impending death every day, will we
even get out of our front doors?
Were my parents so wrong? Or were they just trying to protect themselves and their kids from
too much worry?
I remember one afternoon, my brother Dennis brought home from the library a book on families
coping with cancer, and he left it on the sideboard in the dining room. My father found the book
and told my brother to get the book outta here and Dennis turned and said, I think this is
important for us to talk about as a family with Mom.
Shes my wife, and I say what we get to talk about and do. Get the book outta here.
I felt bad for my brother. We had spent years not talking about my mothers illness. We had
spent years living around it. People didnt come to our house, except for a select few, who knew
about our particular situation and realized how things played in our home. My mother might ask
you the same question 5 times in 20 minutes, or if you watched closely, she always balanced
herself against the wall or a piece of furniture as she walked. Her hip would graze the dining
room sideboard as she made her way to the kitchen. A shoulder, or an elbow might seem to
brush the wall.
Finally, in the last year of her life, my mother had been moved down to a hospital bed in the
living room, because she could no longer climb the stairs to the bedroom. There were nights and
months of nights before the living room bed was installed, that my father would walk behind her

on the staircase, as she made her way to the second floor. Hed stand behind her, ready to catch
her if she faltered and would sing the cadence of soldiers in marching mode, You lead with your
left, your left, your left. This helped her focus on raising one foot at a time, one riser at a time.
Perhaps in todays society/world, the doctors could have recommended family therapy, in home
nursing care, more people would know, and the protective web my father attempted to weave
around us could not have been sustained. But back then it could. Back then we had more
privacy in our lives.
Today on Facebook, I see friends, students, asking for prayers for sick parents, grandparents,
children, and I happily comply. I close my eyes and wish them wellness and recovery. I wish
for them aid and solace and peace and strength. I see my students change their relationship
status from engaged to single. And still to this day, while there is certainly information on
my Facebook page, I could no more put that personal info out there and Im not sure if its the
Irish voodoo or my practiced years of keeping secrets.
I know there are secrets that shouldnt be kept. Among my generation of baby boomers, there
are legions of us who grew up in families who hid alcoholism, job loss, breakdowns, wives and
husbands who didnt love one another, abuse. Weve come a long way with dealing with any
one of a number of these issues by not keeping them buried and secreted behind our front doors,
making our kids and ourselves pay the price for silence, and yet there are silences that still make
sense to me, that still are arguably the right thing to have done.
I sometimes wonder if my mother could face her illness, face the fear, face the unknown, face the
fact that shed never see her children married, her grandchildren being born, and so she chose

instead, never even to complain about headaches, never mention an upcoming hospital stay, a
new drug regime that changed the way she looked and felt.
When she went in for chemo therapy and lost her hair, my father had me call department stores
in New York City to arrange an appointment for her to go in and be fitted for a wig. He sat in
the next room and made sure I explained things just right, that we didnt want my mother upset,
or made to feel different, or the ladies in the department store to be surprised at my mothers
thinning hair. He always was protecting her from the harshness of what she was facing.
Were these defensive actions wrong? Was his course of action such a bad thing?
I remember that day trip into New York. I went with them, but we didnt talk about the
appointment in the car on the way into the City, and while I dont remember the store, I do
remember meeting the nice woman I had spoken to on the phone, who whisked my mother into
the dressing room and they outfitted her with a blond wig. My dad and I waited outside until my
mother appeared, What do you think? We looked up from our magazines and smiled, because
she was smiling.
The rest of the day was spent running some other New York City chores, special cookies from
this particular bakery and perhaps lunch at Schraffts and then home and no one mentioned
anything. I have to think, that was the way she wanted it, and it was after all, her life, her
disease, and how she wanted to face that particular battle.
Although I wonder if she thought of the cancer as a battle? I dont think so a struggle perhaps
or the healing she might have sought nightly in the litany of prayers she said.

I wonder would if it could have made her life any better to talk about the cancer? I honestly
cannot say. Might talking about my mothers brain cancer have made my life better perhaps.
It might have released me from the burden of being the oldest and the only girl with three
brothers. I was the one the neighborhood mothers and nuns grilled for information.
When my Nanny came and stayed, Im sure it was hard for her to watch her youngest become
sick with something we were all unable to fix. So every holiday was still a holiday, we werent
burdened by the impending tragedy of her death. We smiled, we laughed and enjoyed what we
did have, the meals she made, the dishes we cleaned, the presents we opened, the shows we
watched together on the television, the board games that as her memory and speech diminished
she was unable to play, but she watched us and laughed along as we all took a drubbing in
Scrabble from our father who was a crossword ace.
Did we have to talk about her cancer? Was forcing my sick mother to confront her options, her
lack of a future necessary? Im not sure. I believe we were all buoyed along by the denial in
some fashion, including her, and since she was the one who was sick, and since it was she who
was going to die, and since it was she who didnt want to well then those secrets, both large
and small, and my discomforts, seem now to have been a nominal price to pay for whatever
happiness she and my father were able to find.