Hi Mom,
I miss you. For weeks I've been watching the calendar, keenly aware that the date you left us 25 years ago is quickly approaching. July 22. I hate that day. I will always hate that day. It's the day my life changed forever. I've debated how to best honor your memory on that day. I thought about putting a memorial in the paper. But that seems showy. And frankly, times have really changed mom and not many people who knew you are likely to read the paper anymore. Then I thought about why I want to honor your memory and what I hope to accomplish and I realized I really just want to talk to you and tell you I've missed you and that I cannot believe you've been gone from us for 25 years. And I need to clear my head and heart about our relationship so I can finally move on. I want to tell you I forgive you and I love you, more than anything.
I remember the day you died as if it were yesterday. I'd never been in a funeral home in my life and suddenly my mother, at 48 years young was dead. You were way too young, way too healthy when it all happened and I didn't understand.I still don't. It shouldn't have happened.
Because you and I had a difficult relationship; I first went through tremendous guilt. How many times, as a young girl and teen, had I lain crying in my bedroom wishing you dead. And it came to be. Then dad, in his own way of grieving, shut me out of his life and I went through tremendous gut wrenching grief. I'd lost both of my parents. I had my 4 year old daughter,Shandra, the light of your life, who didn't understand where you went. I had a brand new marriage to a man that would turn out to be a tormentor in our lives. He didn't want to share me with my grief and I was struggling to keep it all together. He used my grief and pain to further hurt me. I built a shrine of photos and memories of you in my home and I placed you and my memories high up on a pedestal. I was 28 years old,trapped in a terrible marriage with a young daughter to protect and you were gone. And dad had deserted me at the same time. I'm grateful now that I had my daughter to focus on because it kept me going. Ironically, despite our difficult relationship; you had begged me not to marry that man and I didn't listen to you. You feared he wouldn't be good to my child and you were right. Ten years later, I left him for that very reason. That was my strongest, proudest moment in my life. I stood up to a monster and fought for my children and for me.
No one knows for sure what Heaven is like. Maybe you know everything that is happening in my life. Maybe you don't. Many times, early on, I felt your presence in my surroundings. Several times I felt sure you personally sent a sign of one sort or another. When cousin Jeff got married and the one lone candle kept blowing out, was that you? Were you there? We all believed you were.
Dad's gone now too mom. Maybe you've seen him? I'm still grieving his death very deeply. You know I was always a daddy's girl and that he and I got along best. I'm lost without him. I can't stop that horrible pain deep inside when I allow myself to think about him and his having died. I wish now that I'd asked so many questions about you and him and my childhood. There isn't anyone to answer them now. You have 9 grandchildren now mom, several grandsons in law and 3 great grandchildren. In our house we no longer use the word "step" so it doesn't really matter whether they're biological or not. You would love them all. My little granddaughter Lily is to me what Shandra was to you and I would love to share this joy with you. Tomorrow is her birthday and I so wish you could be there.
It isn't lost on me that had you lived, my life would've taken very different paths than what it has. If you had been here for me to run to, I'd have left the abusive marriage long before 10 years. If you hadn't died, maybe as I reached my mature adulthood; you and I might have been able to recognize where your torment came from and how it became mine and we might be the best of friends now. I'd like to think so.
A few years after you died, I stopped putting you on that pedestal and I began to allow myself to remember my miserable childhood at your hands. I remembered the feeling that you never loved me, that I had somehow disappointed you, that you seemed to favor the boys and savor the opportunities to put me down and hurt my feelings. I remembered the terrible things you did to humiliate me, the terrible things I did to humiliate myself, while trying to gain your approval. I never understood it wasn't in you to give it to me. All I wanted was for you to be proud of me, to love me and it seemed like the harder I tried to accomplish that, the more elusive it became. And I was a fat kid ( I'm still fat mom!!!) and I believed that was the reason for all of it. I was an embarrassment to you. But the coping skill I found as a child was, sadly, to eat. I ate my pain away. Or at least I tried. So it was a vicious circle, one that neither you or I were able to recognize or stop. For many years, I walked around angry, doing a slow burn on the inside. As family situations evolved with my grandmother and aunts-your family-I began to realize that you had your own torments and demons. I remembered all the bickering between you, your sisters and your mother and how I was torn in the middle of it all. I remembered all the times you went to bed with a "headache" and all the counseling sessions you and dad attended. I especially remembered the year you and dad separated. I was a freshman in high school and I was elated about the separation. I hated you and how you made me feel and I wanted to live with dad after the divorce. But you reconciled and the torment continued for me. And my brothers and I watched various versions of what a marriage can be like, some wonderful lessons, some not.
Eventually, through counseling I realized something, mom. You didn't give birth to me with the intention of tormenting me. You couldn't have. I took everything I was seeing and gathering from your family and likened it up to the way you had treated me and I realized you were doing what you had learned as a child. THAT was your "headaches" and "cruelness" and "coldness" coming back to haunt you. And me.That was a bitter pill for me to swallow because I adored my grandmother and I had to admit she'd been cruel to you, before I could understand and forgive my childhood. And that made me feel so sad for you. I don't think your life was a very happy one and I am so sorry for that, for you.
After grandma died,ties with your sisters fell apart. One walked away from the family to save herself, as I did. And the other two continued to try to control and connive their way through the inheritance that we all should've shared. I didn't care about the money. Once I realized that there was a family pattern of abuse, I just wanted to get away from it. Once, many years ago, my cousin Julie and I talked about our eating disorders and it wasn't lost on us that as the only two female grandchildren, we both had issues with food. It was all part of that need to please, to gain approval and the control and manipulation we experienced as children. I ate too much to make my pain go away and she starved herself in an effort to be perfect. So much emphasis was placed on appearances and diet in our family, it wasn't healthy at all. It was that controlling Dutch heritage that we were born into. That you were born into. I remember my grandmother telling me how horribly her mother treated her back in the Netherlands. I just never connected the dots and realized you'd also experienced it. I'm so sorry mom.
I don't see the boys either mom. When you died, all our lives fell apart in different ways. Bill(names not real) had a couple of failed marriages before he disappeared out east and shut everyone out. He wouldn't even talk to dad on the phone when dad was taking his last breaths. We begged him but it wasn't to be. I think losing you was something he never got over. He's a recluse. Jim (names not real) married a very bitter,unkind woman and he and I have mutually become permanently estranged. I've tried a couple of different times to make it work but I always get hurt and I just can't do that anymore. I did try mom. I don't think you'd like her very much. You and she would clash.
Did you know that after my abusive marriage ended, I reunited with Shandra's birth father and we got married. Him, you would've liked!! We had five incredibly happy years and if I had it to do over, I would, despite knowing his alcoholism would end it all. But he was and is a good man, kind, gentle, hardworking..........he just has his own struggle with an addiction.
I wish you could see Shandra. Or, maybe you can. She's gorgeous, she looks very much like you. She's so happy and beautiful and full of life. Her husband is so good to her. And she to him.
And I wish you could meet my step mom, Norma. Dad did a great thing when he married her. She brought us back together again. She brought dad back to his church too. And during our many heart to heart talks, any time I mentioned my negative memories of you, she always came to your defense and pointed out that maybe I'd let time overshadow my good memories of you.
I'm in a good place now mom. I want you to know that. I just really, really miss you and dad. It just doesn't seem fair. I don't have any family left from my childhood. I watch my friends and my husband with their parents and I want that. I want it so bad. I want to be able to point to my children with pride and see you smile. I want to snatch up my grand baby and plunk her on your lap and laugh with you. I want to go out to lunch with you or go shopping. I want to curl up with a cup of coffee and talk about all this "stuff" from the past. People tell me I look like you and I love that. You were so pretty.
You would like my husband. Dad did. I think he was very happy that I finally got it right. Larry is everything a husband should be. He's reliable, considerate, hard working, stable..........and he loves me despite all my baggage. We don't have much money but we have a cozy home and wonderful kids and grandkids and we are best friends. I would be very lost without him. I hope that you are looking down and know I am ok. I just wish I could look upward and see that you are too.
I'll see you one day again mom and we will have so much to talk about. I love you. Be at peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment