Where the Sun Don’t Shine and the Shadows Don’t Play
Growing Up with an Obsessive-Compulsive Hoarder
by
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I remember Mama...scrubbing me in a number three, galvanized washtub until I thought my stinging skin would come off on the washrag saturated with Ivory soap. Why was she so mad at me? What did I do? I remember Mama adding extra water to the washing machine. "Why are you doing that?” I asked. "Because it won't 'rench' them clean, if I don't". She answered. "Go on, get out of here, stop askin' me all them questions! I remember Mama rinsing dishes with water so hot her stubby fingers and hands were blood red. Once rinsed, the dishes would be stacked so high that we wondered how they could stay positioned for days and weeks while roaches crawled over and under without ever toppling them down. Shaking off the memories, I pick up the dingy, country-rose patterned fabric, photo album I made for Mama back in my "Earth-mother" days. It had been retrieved from under a pile of boxes, pillows, clothing, magazines and books in my mother's home. I open the eyelet-edged cover and there on the first, yellowed, cellophane page is a fading, umber-tinted, Kodak print of the two people who gave me life. They are closely seated on a chintz-covered sofa. Ancient, Victorian-print wallpaper served as a backdrop behind their heads. Daddy's right leg is crossed jauntily over his left. The cuff of his khakis is hiked up, Andy Griffith-style, as if he hadn't a concern in the world. Mama's left arm is casually cocked over Daddy's right shoulder. Her creamy-skinned hand possessively cradles his collarbone. They both appear to be wearing dark tops. Daddy's button-down, long-sleeved dress shirt is open at the neck, revealing the small, white triangle of his cotton undershirt. Mama is wearing a short-sleeved sweater tucked into a tan, pencil skirt with a flared hem. Her right arm lies in her lap slightly camouflaging a bulge in her lower belly. What great shoes she wore, two-toned, high-strapped, open-toed, high-heeled sandals! They seem so relaxed, so alive, so vibrant. So what happened? Suddenly, the questions of a life time ping-pong inside my head. Why did we live like we did? Why did Mama have to be the way she was? How could one person so outrageously affect the lives of five other people? I realized a long time ago, those questions would never be answered. The fire of them does not burn so terribly in my mind and heart as it once did. Occasionally, they will rekindle and flare a bit, causing me great sadness. I can only hope now that through my all too human words I can assist someone who may be suffering silently
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About the Book
As a child growing up in a small Louisiana town, Frances Boudreaux couldn’t understand her mother’s obsession with stuff. She stashed clothes, trash, and even worthless trinkets. It was only years later that Frances discovered the truth about her mother: she was an obsessive-compulsive hoarder. Brutally honest and emotionally-wrenching, Where the Sun Don’t Shine and the Shadows Don’t Play shares a daughter’s struggle to comprehend her mother’s fall from happy teenager to house-bound adult living in the midst of filth and chaos. Spanning her childhood during the 1950s through her adulthood years, Frances traces the rise of her mother’s obsessive compulsive disorder and speaks candidly about the abuse she suffered at her mother’s hands. A story rich in emotional complexity, this gripping memoir throws back the curtain on one family’s dark secret, and exposes the truth in all its facets. But even more, it reveals Frances’s determination to find healing and peace despite the scars of the past. “Ms. Boudreaux allows the reader to experience the full gamut of intense, complex, and contradictory emotions of love, hate, fear, tenderness, caring, revulsion, anger, affection, hope, and despair that she experienced. This is a brilliant and moving book, to be read and never forgotten.” —Bruce Mansbridge, PhD
About the Author
Frances Boudreaux lived for nineteen years with a mother who was abusive and an obsessive-compulsive hoarder. Those trying years helped to steer Boudreaux toward becoming an advocate for disenfranchised individuals in her community. She lives with her husband in the town of Ball, Louisiana.