Mothering, Forgiveness, and Thankfulness

As much as I want to be a parent, I am inherently frightened by the enormity of the responsibility. My parents married exceedingly young (they were only 17 and 18 respectively) and had me two months before my mother turned 20). As they were merely children themselves when they got married, it was no surprise that their union dissolved when I was just an infant. I have no memories at all of my parents together. My mother never treated me as a "child", and when other children were first printing out letters in crayon, she had already taught me to write in cursive. When others were struggling to count to ten, by the first day of kindergarden, I could easily go beyond 1,000. She taught me at least a new word every day from the dictionary, and we did puzzles together in our one room apartment. My mother has only a high school education, but she instilled in me the desire to learn more - to experiment, to strive to be the best. She was funny, beautiful and vibrant.

And then, she began unravelling. Slowly - as if a part of her soul had been snagged, and then more quickly and violently. At about age two my father remarried. My mother was desperately afraid that he would get custody of me (as she was a single parent) so she married - literally within a week - to her boyfriend at the time. It was not a good move on her part. She was so afraid of losing me that she did the only thing that she thought would save "us". To be honest, it was really the beginning of the end. They fought - horribly. I remember after my brother Michael was born, my stepfather beating her in the face, holding her down and spraying windex in her eyes. I remember cowering over my baby brother protecting him from the shards of glass that exploded off the wall when he threw an ashtray at her. I remember him sugaring her gas tank, breaking into the apartment when we moved out. I remember him kicking in our apartment door and taking my brother (then age 3 or so) away. We were watching Circus of the Stars, and it was so cold that night. We were curled up on the couch beneath a scratchy blue blanket with satin edging.

My mother was struggling to support us, and I know two children on her minimum wage salary must have made it nearly impossible to make ends meet. During their divorce, when he requested custody - she was penniless. She was working two jobs and to be honest, I think in a way she was just too tired to fight anymore. My brother never really knew his mother. He didn't know how funny she could be... how the sun made her skin the color of bronze. He didn't know how comforting it was to curl into her arms - or how green her thumb was - she could make anything grow. He didn't know how creative she was, how much she loved to read. He didn't know how much she loved spicy food. He didn't know how tender she was - or what a skilled artist she was. He just didn't know her at all.

But, after about third grade I didn't really know her anymore myself. She remarried (round three if you're counting). She met him at work, and was forced to resign her job because of a nepotism policy. Her marriage lasted only a few months before he started hitting her. She was madly in love with him, and stayed - hoping that he would love her the way she loved him. I remember coming home from my dad's house one Sunday and all the furniture in the house was gone. He had gotten drunk and literally smashed it all to pieces with an aluminum bat. When he was done with the furniture, he turned to her and used the bat on her face shattering her cheekbone, and then he broke her arm. They never told me what happened. She lied and said they had decided to sell the furniture. The furniture we had just gotten not a month or two before. There were still shards of glass from the curio cabinets sunk deep into the plush carpet. I knew. The entire side of her face was black. I knew she didn't just fall. If there's one thing I didn't get from my mother it is my klutziness.

Her husband started having an affair with another woman - with the same name as my mother. He broke her down, and made her believe she was worthless. He flaunted the affair. He pointed out her failings. He made fun of her in public. In order to deal with the broken bones [literally] she turned to other outlets for her pain. She started having an affair with alcohol.

I would find empty vodka bottles hidden in my closet amongst my sweaters. He moved out, and she moved on to prescription painkillers and alcohol together. Then it got worse. She started blacking out. We had to move out of our house and were forced to jump around from apt. to apt. I became the parent. I walked to the store and bought groceries. I walked to school. I think we lived on cheetos, pickles and bologna for about a month one time. I did the laundry. I wrote the checks for the rent (I didn't realize you had to have money in the bank for them to clear). I forged her name on my report cards. She was usually drunk by 10:30 in the morning. If she didn't drink she would have horrible seizures and hallucinate.

My father tried to get custody of me. I was afraid to go live with him, afraid of what would happen if she didn't have anyone to take care of her. She checked into detox. We had to go to family meetings and the therapist told me it was my fault. Me. The chubby little ten year old. It was my fault.

She got out, and I went back to live with her. She was sober maybe two or three days. We were living in a run down apartment across the street from the hospital. She started hallucinating, and woke me up in the middle of the night and threw me out of the house, locking the deadbolt behind me. I was barefoot in my nightgown, and it was starting to snow. I begged and pleaded with her to let me in. She thought I was the police -coming to arrest her. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to walk through the ghetto to find a phone and it was so icy. I fell asleep on the porch, exhausted from shaking. She let me back in the next morning. She thought God was talking to her. She drove me to school shaking so bad from d.t.s that she could barely keep in the lane and dropped me off and started driving to a mental institution. They wouldn't admit her. Over the next several months, she went back into treatment, and then out, and back in. This "program" was the most dysfunctional place she could have been. It's no wonder she didn't stop.

On her last stint in the treatment facility, she met a man there who was in trying to recover from a heavy duty narcotics addiction. They started up a flaming romatic relationship while still hospitalized. When they got out, he moved in with us. And so did another addiction - cocaine. His brother was a dealer, and soon she was selling everything we had to feed the desperate need she had for more.

Finally - I had enough. She was passed out, and I went through the house and took every vodka bottle she had and stacked them on the coffee table. They were hidden in the plants, the dishwasher, in the couch cushions, everywhere. I left a note - "this has to stop." When she finally came to, she was infuriated. She was screaming at me - and I snapped. I slapped her hard across the face. So hard that it knocked her down. I was so full of rage - her addiction had stolen my childhood. She retailiated. It's the only time in my life that my mother ever struck me. She never even spanked me as a child. My meager belongings had been packed for weeks in my closet. I told her I was moving in with my grandparents. She started throwing my boxes over the balcony into the parking lot below. She told me she didn't love me. That she never had.

I didn't talk to her for a long time. Without me to pay the bills on time, she was evicted. She lost her job, and bounced around sleeping on friend's couches, and then soon she had no one left to go to. Then she lived in her car. I didn't know if she was dead or alive. She finally cleaned up. She stopped using on my 13th birthday. She stopped drinking soon after that - and has been clean and sober ever since. Our relationship is still extremely strained. I love her - she is my mother after all. She honestly doesn't remember about three years of what we went through. I do. I remember - but I forgive her. In a lot of ways, I think it's made me stronger.

We rarely talk - at times it's just too painful for both of us, our conversations often peppered with awkward moments of silence. But I'm trying. And she's trying. It's just hard.

My mother has been sober for ten years, and given what she's gone through - to be honest, I'm not sure that I could have been that strong. She's now caring for my grandmother, also an alcoholic, and she broke down on the phone last night and told me that she was so sorry. So incredibly sorry for all she put me through. That she understood now, caring for my grandmother, how difficult it must have been for me.

We talked about my shots, about our failed dreams. About growth, and love, and forgiveness.

This morning, I had an e-mail waiting for me, and she said in part:

I am going to pray hard that your new round of shots work without causing you discomfort or worse, danger to your health. I know how desperately you must want a child to try this route again and as much as I would love to be a Grandmother, your health MUST come first. DO NOT put yourself in jeopardy for the sake of anything. You are everything to me, and no baby or anything else is worth the thought of harm coming to you. I also realize you are a grown, intellligent woman who has thought long and hard about this decision so I am, as always, in your corner and will be here in anyway for anything I can ever offer if you need me. I'm still your Mother and will always be here when needed. I love you more than I can describe and could never be prouder of you. Please be safe, happy, never give up on your true dreams and remember I love you.

She's far from perfect, but she is my mother - and I love her. I'm proud that she's tried so hard to stay sober, when it would have been so much easier not to. At times I'm still angry with her, but I'm learning to open my heart to forgiveness and let go of the hurt.

For a long time, I didn't want children. I was petrified I would make the same mistakes she did. And then I found Michael and he made me realize I had this longing ache in my heart for a child. Occasionally, I wonder if perhaps I want children to somehow make up for my own flawed childhood. I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm thankful that I believe things can be different. I'm thankful she's bee so strong. I'm thankful she and I are working to repair our relationship, and hopeful that my children will have the opportunity to see a grandmother who is the mother I remember from my early childhood. The one with the deep body shaking laugh, who can always be counted on to color and play dress up. The one that read stories and flew kites, made beautiful quilts and halloween costumes by hand, who gave fierce "horsey bites" on my knees and gentle butterfly kisses. This is the woman I want them to remember. This is the woman I want them to love.

I'm just thankful that I'm starting to get her back.

I hope that they learn to love her as much as I do.