Let’s talk about Fran. For those of you who knew my mom, she was definitely a force of nature. She was confident, intelligent, beautiful, and charismatic. I used to say that she didn’t just walk into a room, she “boomed” into one. All eyes would be on her. And she liked the attention.
But as with many of us, she had her demons and baggage. What most people didn’t know about her was that she was a product of abuse — physical (beatings), psychological (rejection), and sexual. These things definitely had an effect on her, and she hid them well.
I’m not sure when my grandparents, Olive Ann Smith and George Francis Clarke, met or how long they dated before my grandmother fell pregnant. Scandalous for sure in 1949 as they were not married. Well, George refused to marry Olive until her sister intervened and forced George’s hand. He relented and married Olive when Fran was 3 months old. George was convinced that Fran was NOT his child — this is ridiculous as all 5 of his children look alike, and they all look like him. Needless to say, George was not happy being married to Olive, which he took out on her verbally by calling her cruel names . Of course, George too had his own demons — he ran away from home around 16 years of age and lied to the Navy so he could enlist, but that’s a story for another day. As the arguing between George and Olive was constant, Olive started to take her frustrations out on the kids. I don’t know all of the stories of abuse, but I know they were beaten with extension cords which left welts. My mom understood how painful those beatings could be, so whenever Olive went after one of the younger kids, she would step in and take the beating for them. She did everything she could to protect them.
Along with those beatings came the psychological abuse of rejection by her father, George. The day she married my dad, George refused to participate in or attend their wedding — her younger brother, Ray, who was 16 at the time walked her down the aisle. She so desperately wanted George to love her. I have vivid memories of going to his house and my mom following him around just to get his attention. Of course I was a child so my perception of those memories may be incorrect, but it’s how I remember it. I don’t believe he actually acknowledge that she was his daughter until she was in her late thirties. I know that hurt her a lot. She would often say to me that at least I “had a dad that loves me” and that I had a “good childhood”.
As for the sexual abuse. It wasn’t anyone in our family, but it was someone she trusted. It was her therapist. I remember the day she told me about it…I was asking for help in high school for my “sadness”. I knew I needed psychological help, but she kept pushing back saying that no, I didn’t. I was fine. “What if I go talk to the guy you and dad used to go to (for marriage counseling).” “Absolutely not!” Of course being a teenager I kept pushing, and that’s when she told me what happened. The therapist suggested during a couples session that she needed solo sessions….and that’s when he assaulted her. I don’t know all the details. I don’t even know if my dad knew about it, knowing her he did not. Because again she felt it would be her job to protect my dad.
Call it compartmentalizing, I guess. She would “push down” or hide those painful things, those horrible things. She looked at herself as a survivor, not necessarily a victim. She definitely believed that if you want to have a good day, you will have a good day — this was something we didn’t agree on (another post for another day).
I tell you these things about her because I want you to understand that she was a fighter. She struggled for her place even before she was born! I think she was a pioneer for women in the workforce. I know that she would not get paid the same as men, even though she’d put in more hours. She wouldn’t get raises because she didn’t have a college degree — even though she had life experience and worked in the industry for more than 20 years. Men hit on her ALL the damn time! Even though I think she was flattered by that, she wanted to be taken seriously. She worked her ASS off! In the office by 7:00am everyday, and dad would call her around 5:30pm to ask what time she’d be home. Papers were always spilling out of her briefcase. She felt she had to constantly prove herself. I’m exhausted just thinking about it….it’s a life style that is hard to maintain.
Maybe that’s what caused the cancer, who knows. On May 14, 2002 — and I remember this day like it was yesterday because I went into labor that night and gave birth the next afternoon — she was diagnosed with cancer. More specifically, Pheochromocytoma (aka cancer of the adrenal gland). She was 51 years old. Now, this diagnosis was a huge blow to our family as we had already lost my dad in July 2000 to cancer. But she tackled it head-on. The doctor told her at one point that statistically speaking the survival rate (at that time) was 5 years from diagnosis, but more than likely she had been living with the cancer for YEARS. Pheo is a very slow growing cancer, so when they found it, it had metastasized to her major organs — liver, colon, kidneys, bones. Well, she told the doctor he was wrong and she was going to beat that statistic. Again, she was fighting! And she worked through the whole thing. She took a leave of absence for chemo, but she actually still did office work. They removed a portion of her skull to biopsy a lump that had grown out of her skull on her forehead, and put in a plate. She chopped off her long, beautiful, BIG hair (I think I cried watching the hairdresser do that). And she went to Duke for an experimental treatment in September 2004 where they injected her with a radioactive isotope. None of us could see her for a few weeks because she was radioactive and we couldn’t expose our babies (her grandkids) to her. By March 2005 the doctors realized there was nothing left they could do, she was dying. Yet, she was still working! Her oncologist told her about 2 weeks before she died, “Fran, you need to train someone to do your job.” She was still fighting! She truly believed the doctors were wrong. Unfortunately, it was the other way around and she lost the fight.
On Saturday, March 12, 2005 I called to chat with her — we talked every afternoon around 4pm. But she didn’t answer the phone, my aunt Mary (her sister) did. Hospice was there. WTF!?!? Mary said she’d call me later. Well around 7pm Mary called me back and told me, “if you don’t get here tonight you need to get here tomorrow morning.” I freaked out! I tracked my brothers down and told them to get to mom’s asap — I think Mary had called my mom’s brothers, Ray, Donnie and Mike. John and I grabbed Jakob and a change of clothes and headed to mom’s 45 minutes away. John dropped me off then rushed Jakob off to my Aunt Garnett’s house. By the time he got back we were all sitting in the family room with her — by all, I mean Joey, Jimmy, Ray, Donnie, her husband (Mike) and me. She was in and out of consciousness, so we all were kind of just staring at her and whispering. Then she opened her eyes and said she was going to bed….uh, no you’re not! We all told her to stay where she was. After a while everyone left except for John and I, we went upstairs to sleep in the guest room. Mike, her husband, sat up with her. Around 1am I just couldn’t sleep, I had to sit with her. Mike and I talked all night while I sat next to her, holding her hand. By 8am family started to arrive to say their goodbyes. Mike asked me to give her the morphine pill for pain at 9. So, I got the pill, leaned over her and told her “Mom, I’m going to stick my finger in your mouth, don’t bite me.” Then I sat down next to her (she was in a recliner love seat), grabbed her hand, and she exhaled her last breath. And that was it. She was 54 years old — she died 6 days shy of her 55th birthday.
Frances Ann Clarke Leckert Bennington
March 19, 1950 – March 13, 2005