“Her battle with pills and alcohol is well documented”
Christine’s funeral fell on her first sober birthday, March 28, she a member of Alcoholic Anonymous. I met three members of my sister’s AA group at the gallery reception after the funeral. They invited me to the group for a ceremony they were going to have that very evening. I could not attend. I wished I had because I would have got a clear picture of what my sister’s life had become, we not seeing each other after our falling out when we were drinking and drugging.
I celebrated my 25th. year of sobriety on April 7th. In AA we abandoned our natal birthdays for our sober ones, because we have had a spiritual rebirth. Christine nd I were brother and sister in Recovery, as I suspect Liz Taylor was. I pleaded with my family to focus on our Family Recovery, and was utterly ignored. No member has ever congratulated me on getting and remaining sober. Instead, they allowed the hallucinating outsiders to tell Rosamond’s life story. Above is a webpage that carries forth the lie that Christine crawled in a closet to draw, lest our mother discover her, and beat her, because Rosemary only wanted her four year old son to be a famous artist.
“The young Rosamond loved drawing, and would crawl in her closet after her lights were switched off, and armed with a flashlight, paper and pencils, draw for hours on end.”
This is it, folks, the creamy dream women have been entertaining for five thousand years, the big cultural pay-back. How easier it is to believe this absurditiy, then actually use your mind, go to art school – and learn something!
The year would have been 1950-51. How long did batteries last in those days, and, where did this child get the money to buy more batteries? This Dickenish tale gives the impression Mummy Dearest only allowed me to stay up all night if I want. And, if I feel inpired, I can ascend the spiral staircase to my private observation deck and studio Vic built for me overlooking the bright lights of Gothan City. Of course I have the option to send out the bat signal, and here come some gifted, and totally anonymous, ghetto child to render a masterpiece – I proudly sign my name to!
“Take her back to Brooklyn. I am quite done with this pretender!”
The truth is my family feared Christine and I recovering our beautiful relationship, and being brother and sister again. My family hated Rosamond’s sobriety because it pushed them away. As Rosemary said two months after he daughters funeral.
“You were her John (the Baptist). You prepared her way! Your sister always followed in your footsteps.”
I doubt Rosemary knew John was a Nazarite for life, and abstained from alcohol. In 1997 I sent long letters to the executor of Rosamond’s artistic legacy and begged him to make our Sobriety the centerpiece of the estate settlement – for the sake of our unborn who will be born with the propensity to drink. I was ignored. My sixteen year old daughter came into my life in the year 2000. Heather was my reward for getting sober. She was proof God had blessed the two sober and creative members of our destructive family.
In 1988, my friend, Michael Harkins, took me to a large meeting so I could get my one year sobriety coin.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2012
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
Christine, Liz, and I overcame our addictions.