GoKawiilKevin Jack McEnroe as a small child with his mother, Tatum O’Neal, and his sister, Emily.
My mother used to draw these pictures when I was little and she was high.
My sister and I would sit there with her and draw, too. My mother loved to be around my sister but my mother couldn’t not use drugs. It created lovely long lunches like this.
My mother had an autograph show in September. At just 62 she can no longer read or write, but she can sign her name—the celebrity part of her brain remains relatively untouched. She’s still Tatum O’Neal, the actress, after all, which is how she used to introduce herself when she made reservations. She still gets her nails done bi-weekly, by a woman who comes to her, who I have to Venmo. She gets her hair done at the fanciest place in West Hollywood, sometimes near Rihanna. When she gets nervous she needs to be more blonde. She vapes in the Uber, even when they ask her not to. She wants what she wants when she wants it, and she makes “no” feel impossible.
In certain respects, my mother’s stroke, caused by a drug overdose—most of which was prescribed, everything except the meth—has made her the mother I always hoped for. She’s relatively reliable, and accountable. She’s full of love—she’s a fan. I know where she is, and what she’s doing. She cares and she listens, and sometimes she asks how you’re doing, too, and not because she knows she’s supposed to, and not because if she queries then you might be more willing to ask her.
Because she wants to know. I always knew that was in there—in her. I remember it from when I was a kid, before drugs were prescribed by doctors, and so there was using, or there wasn’t using, and there was clean time, and some of those times were mom times. These usually coincided with periods where she seemed to forget to blonde her hair. And she always, with her kiddos, looks so happy.
And she’s safe. Most importantly, she’s safe. My whole life I thought if I wasn’t around then something bad would happen, because it usually did. Once, I was supposed to visit her over spring break or something, but I had just fallen for a girl and I wanted to take her on a trip. When I got back my mother had overdosed, again, and was in the hospital, and she told me it was my fault. If I had only visited, then this wouldn’t have happened.
My mother had an autograph show in September. At just 62 she can no longer read or write, but she can sign her name—the celebrity part of her brain remains relatively untouched. She’s still Tatum O’Neal, the actress, after all, which is how she used to introduce herself when she made reservations.
People used to ask me about codependency, and I would say I don’t think you know what that means. I don’t think I’m codependent because I don’t think something bad is going to happen if I don’t answer the phone when she’s calling, I know something bad will, because it already has. It always has, and she blamed me because she believed it. If she couldn’t be a mom then it wasn’t worth trying at life.
So my choice, today, is to not care, and move on, or try and help her. My problem, then, was that I didn’t know how to fail. I didn’t know what to do if I helped her and she still struggled because she was wrong. She’s a good person, allowed to live a good life, and she doesn’t need a reason. I don’t mind that I tried with her for so long, but for a long time I wished I knew how.
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