Before my mother had her first schizophrenic breakdown, I remember our family being happy. My mother made a big deal out of holidays, especially the decorations, and we always had dinner together. A lot of good memories.
And then it all disappeared.
I was eight or nine when my mom got sick, and a lot of her illness was expressed as a weird jealousy of me. She would do things like give my brothers birthday parties but not me. Around this time, my father stopped coming home for dinner. My mother would prepare dinner, then we’d wait for him while she paced around, crying.
I remember she had a china chest, and I’d stand there looking at this cup with this happy bunny family on it. Every so often I’d say, “Can I touch it?” and she’d take it out and let me hold it for a little while. Then she’d put it back. Even then, I guess I could feel that something was slipping away.
After college, I was getting ready to go overseas and she said, “Here, you can have this.” She gave it to me and said, “Go off and live your life.”
I took it with me to Turkey, where I taught English, and later to Kenya. The cup to me represented my freedom, and it really launched me into my sort of peripatetic life—and my ability to keep moving when things fell apart. When my marriages ended, it’s the one thing I held on to. I’ve lived in at least 20 different places, and it’s been all over the world with me, this piece of china. It’s a sweet little cup, but it holds a lot: It’s both a reminder of what was lost and a symbol of my independence from my mom and from her illness. It’s the only thing she’s ever given me—and it’s the one thing I’d always wanted.
~ Jenifer Fox, founding head, the Delta School, Wilson, AR