How the Women Who Came Before me in my Family Did the Chicken Dance

Bear with me. What if I am the reincarnation of my mother’s mother’s mother? There is a complicated yet Fibonacci-like circularly balanced intertwined history among the four of us. There is a pattern of abuse that fits the times in which it occurred. My great-grandmother was Sicilian. She came over on a slow boat from Sicily. I am told she was severe and strict. I imagine her sitting in her black dress disapproving of everyone and everything. It doesn’t sound as if love was part of any of the equations that formulated her life. She spoke only Italian. She was harder on her daughters than on her sons. I’m not sure if she had one or two sons. I don’t know if they made it to adulthood. I met four of her ten daughters. One of which was of course my grandmother. I imagine my great-grandmother was only valued for her ability to produce sons. I’m sure her family considered her a failure. All those daughters. Back then they blamed the women when girls were born and crowed about the virility of the men when boys were born. She must have been unhappy. I get that. But she was also harsh, mean, cruel by all accounts. I’m sure my grandmother was made to feel like a failure as well. She got knocked up at 16. She married my grandfather but was critical of everything he did. She thought he enjoyed life too much. He was too happy for her taste. She was also disgusted by bodily functions. How she managed to get pregnant three times is beyond me. After my mother she birthed two boys. They went by those nicknames all Italian men seem to have, Sonny and Chickie. She favored them. She was not loving to her children but she did take care of them. She drove them to school when they didn’t have a ride and she didn’t have a license. She had never driven before but figured it wasn’t hard. Eventually she drove my grandfather away. He remarried. He had three more children, a girl followed by two boys. He gave them the same names as his first family. This screwed deeply with my mother’s head, not to mention her heart.

My mother acted like a spoiled child for her entire life. Her father had doted on her. It seemed she was trying to rewrite the ugly parts of her childhood by insisting that everyone notice her and treat her as if she was the most precious thing in the world or at least in any given room. Not a horrible desire but she was willing to sacrifice the feelings and self-esteem of those around her, even those she claimed to love, in order to get what she wanted. She wasn’t warm or loving. She demanded obedience and an odd form of almost worship. There were moments when she taught me something, when she focused on me for a short, enticing while. This is how to draw a tree. This is how to make a good piecrust. This is how to arrange flowers or furniture. She turned her head while my grandmother said and did despicable things to me. She sacrificed me, hoping in some weird way that it would buy her, her mother’s love.

My mother tried to get me to choose her over my son, to sacrifice him in the same way she did me. I refused. I learned from her negative example. It took a long time for me to walk away from resentment, but I have always lived with my heart wide open. I knew this made me a target for hurt. I also understood it was the only way to let love and joy in. I didn’t seem to be able to live any other way. I still lead with my soul. I love myself. I don’t know if my mother ever actually did.I think she only loved herself the way that narcissists do. My grandmother seemed too angry, too outwardly judgmental to even think of loving herself. Whether I am the reincarnation that has given my great-grandmother a chance to experience love, to experience self acceptance and peace, or I’m simply the self-selected compilation of all that has come before, I’m grateful to be where I am now.

Cinse Bonino
2024