{"id":3347,"date":"2012-01-21T01:03:01","date_gmt":"2012-01-21T01:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2012-01-23T23:00:26","modified_gmt":"2012-01-23T23:00:26","slug":"mothers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/mothers\/","title":{"rendered":"Mothers"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a tiny child I remember my mother rocking me and murmuring, \u201cWhat shall I do when my baby grows up?\u201d It was a memory that lingered for many decades, bringing comfort like the soft stroke of a hand. Despite all of the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of my father when I was a young teenager, I always knew my mother loved me. When she found out about the abuse she took to her bed, sobbing continuously. My siblings and I wandered through the house in a daze wondering what happened to our \u201chappy Catholic family. In an excerpt from my book, Let Me Hurt You and Don\u2019t Cry Out, <\/em>I wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo longer did Mom get out of bed and fix us hot cereal and chocolate in the morning.\u00a0 No more did she avidly question me on how my day went when I returned home.\u00a0 Now, she was asleep when I went off to school.\u00a0 We fixed our own breakfast, stumbling through burnt toast and soggy cold cereal.\u00a0 When I came home, the house was dark, Marine Corps blankets covering the windows and the breakfast dishes sitting on the table in an accusatory manner.\u00a0 There was no dinner happily cooking in the oven and no cheerful sight of Mom listening to her soap operas, shushing me until they finished their fifteen-minute segments.\u00a0 Instead, she lay in bed in an emotional stupor, depressed and withdrawn.<\/p>\n

Dad began working a new job, one that took him away from home during the week.\u00a0 He returned on Friday nights to a house heavy with despair, a long line of crimes related by Mom about his children, who waited for punishments to be handed out.<\/p>\n

The change in Mom slipped into our lives almost as if programmed.\u00a0 Was this just another stage in mothers?\u00a0 I wondered if she were ill.\u00a0 With little or no communication amongst my siblings and me, we didn’t dare discuss it. \u00a0As time passed, I realized that Mom had indeed changed for good.\u00a0 My heart was frightened and hollow when I approached our home and saw the Marine Corp blankets covering the windows, signaling that mom was still in bed.\u00a0 I tried to waken her, to get her to eat, oftentimes grooming her as I would a pet.\u00a0 She’d lie in a state of apathy and have me shave her legs, wash her face, or comb her hair.\u00a0 I felt someone had taken my mother from me and left this strange lady in her place.\u00a0 What had I done?\u00a0 Was she angry with me?\u00a0 Didn’t she love me anymore?\u00a0 There was no more affection, no more interest, no more my mother.\u00a0 I grieved deeply.\u00a0 As time went on, my sorrow and bewilderment planted seeds of a neurosis that only grew with the passage of time.<\/p>\n

My family life reminded me of a camp of mutilated and injured soldiers from some obsolete war, indescribable in its agony.\u00a0 All the figures were shadowy and disoriented, as if only half alive and that half living in a well of misery.\u00a0 We moved in and out of our days appearing to wait for some catastrophic happening, all of us knowing that once it did, we were ill prepared to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in times of anguish, the wounded family seems unable to bond together and fight the battle from within.\u00a0 Lost and desolate, we carry our pain, a load that grows with each passing day, until it becomes more burdensome than our lives can handle.<\/em><\/p>\n

Through the years I drew strength from the memory of what my mother had whispered as she rocked me. It was not until we moved from Nebraska to the Los Angeles area that I found evidence contrary to my belief that my mother loved me. I had just turned eighteen, anorexic and insecure, a prisoner of my parent\u2019s continual restrictions and strong arm control: no makeup, no college, no friends, no phone calls, no driver\u2019s license, they chose my job and I was to turn the money over to them. One day I protested vehemently and in response my father beat me with a belt so severely that it almost killed me. I can still hear my mother\u2019s voice screaming over and over, \u201cHit her again, hit her again!\u201d before I passed out. A few days later I ran away from home.<\/p>\n

I learned to attach myself to older women who became substitute mothers. But it was never the same. I wanted my real mother. A hidden part of me, armed with that poignant memory, was certain that she had never ceased to love me. It wasn\u2019t until I was at the end of my recovery and visiting with a neighbor who lived across the street from our house in that small farming community where my sexual abuse began, that I found out the truth.<\/p>\n

My friend was talking about my mother. I was only half listening. Hoping to emerge stronger, hoping to have arrived at the end of my recovery, I had just gone into that bedroom for the first time since we had lived there. The memories had spilled out, leaving me badly shaken. My friend was talking about my mother, saying, \u201cYour mother always tried to make everyone in town think that you had a happy Catholic family. But I never believed it. Something always seemed dark about that house. She used to tell me you were no good and unclean, that you lied and were lazy or anything negative she could say about you. I couldn\u2019t understand why someone would feel that way about their own daughter. And I knew you were none of those things. You were just the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now I knew for certain. My mother hadn\u2019t loved me; she had hated me. The shock reverberated all the way to my soul. I burst out with the truth of what had happened in that Red House with a willow in the front yard that swayed like a ballerina and the magical flower garden. My friend was shocked and told me she wished I\u2019d have come to her for help. We spent a long time talking before I took my leave but not without hugging her and thanking her for having been a substitute mother, caring for me as if I were her own.<\/p>\n

She was the first of a long line of those surrogate mothers who befriended me through the years. They will never know how much I loved and appreciated them. Perhaps you too have a mother who didn\u2019t love you, one who hated you. Perhaps you have a story similar to mine. We always craved a loving mother and as time went on realized that we had to be our own mother. Friends who nurtured and supported us became our mothers. If you are one of the fortunate ones who had a loving and devoted mother I am so happy for you. As I said in the early part of my book REPAIR Your Life, my four children have been the greatest joy I have ever known. It is difficult for me to imagine a mother who didn\u2019t love her children.<\/p>\n

We were not meant to be orphans, not even semi-orphans.\u00a0 The loss of a parent, either emotionally or physically, cripples us as it follows all of our lives, its sorrow lingering in an abandoned closet in our mind, one we want never to open<\/em><\/p>\n

Please email your comments to margie@thelamplighters.org.
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