RIP, Nancy Carolyn Diggs Puckett
My Mom, born October 31, 1933, passed away Monday, January 12, at 1:48 PM. She was in the middle of dialysis, and went into renal failure. All attempts to resuscitate her failed. She was 75.
She was a complicated woman, highly intelligent yet troubled in her mind. She did the most amazing and often terrifying things when my brothers, my sister and I were small. She saw things and heard things that weren’t there; she believed things that were based in no known reality; she would be passionate one minute and coldly, frighteningly passionless the next; she could become extremely violent in a split second.
Our lives as children were a living hell. We were forever warped by the chaos she wrapped around herself like a shawl. It took some of us years to understand that it wasn’t her fault; some of us continue to struggle to understand it even now.
We all loved her and feared her, suffered at her hands and suffered for her. We learned, all of us, to love at a distance; it was safer that way. We became adept at jumping through windows, running full-blast from a dead stop, dodging thrown blunt and sharp objects, escaping suddenly grasping claws.
This woman who birthed me, who raised me in such a strange, terrible and perspective-altering way, is finally at peace. Her soul has escaped from its damaged container and gone on. I bear her no ill will; in fact, I wish her only the best. Please be at peace, Mama. We love you.
She was a complicated woman, highly intelligent yet troubled in her mind. She did the most amazing and often terrifying things when my brothers, my sister and I were small. She saw things and heard things that weren’t there; she believed things that were based in no known reality; she would be passionate one minute and coldly, frighteningly passionless the next; she could become extremely violent in a split second.
Our lives as children were a living hell. We were forever warped by the chaos she wrapped around herself like a shawl. It took some of us years to understand that it wasn’t her fault; some of us continue to struggle to understand it even now.
We all loved her and feared her, suffered at her hands and suffered for her. We learned, all of us, to love at a distance; it was safer that way. We became adept at jumping through windows, running full-blast from a dead stop, dodging thrown blunt and sharp objects, escaping suddenly grasping claws.
This woman who birthed me, who raised me in such a strange, terrible and perspective-altering way, is finally at peace. Her soul has escaped from its damaged container and gone on. I bear her no ill will; in fact, I wish her only the best. Please be at peace, Mama. We love you.