Some very bad things happened to me when I was a child. No, that’s not accurate. Some very bad things were done to me when I was a child. The majority of it, I lay at the feet of my mother. But not all of it.

From what I’ve been told, my mom wouldn’t allow me to have any contact with my biological father, Elbert, although that’s not what the court papers told her to do.

Mom never missed an opportunity to tell me what kind of awful person he was. Mamaw Goldie often told me those were mostly lies, though, and to pay it no mind.

By the time I was a teenager I decided to send Elbert a letter, mostly out of curiosity. I was nothing at all like anyone else in my family and I wanted to know who I was like. Why did I love to read? Why did I remember almost everything I read? Who did I look like?

Eventually we ended up meeting and spending some time together. Elbert had his own family by then. I didn’t fit there. There was no place for me. I was resentful of his new family. I really don’t know what I expected from him.

During this time I didn’t ask him about the early years. I never asked why he didn’t come for me or try to see me. I just left all of that neatly packed away. Our communication sort of fell off for a number of years and picked back up again several years later when I was an adult.

And finally I did ask. I couldn’t not ask. I was a mother. I’d been divorced. And nothing and no one would’ve ever kept me from my child. I had to know how he just forgot about me, his firstborn child.

He didn’t really answer me. There was something about how the courts were different back then. (But you didn’t even try!!) Ultimately he ended up apologizing and I said I forgave him.

Now, a few years later, circumstances have changed. I’m on Facebook. He’s on Facebook. I’ve seen posts from other girls thanking him for being there for them, for being like the dad they never had. And I want to ask him, “Why couldn’t you be my dad?” He makes impassioned posts about his pro-life position and how people shouldn’t have abortions and I want to scream: “Hypocrite!! You didn’t raise the baby you made!”

And if that was the worst of it, maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad. But he knew who my mother was and he still left me with her. For ten years (I was two when it started.) her third husband molested me. And that’s just the beginning.

Now my father wants my forgiveness.

I’ve always had a vast capacity for forgiveness, believing we forgive for ourselves, not for others. I do still believe that. The small child in me is hurt, though, and needs time to work through and try to understand this. I cannot forgive him today, but I am working on it.

Tonight my mother is in a hospital bed a few hundred miles away. She is in very bad shape, and the prognosis is poor. Faced with the facts, I believe it’s unlikely she’ll leave the hospital alive.

If you couldn’t tell, I have a complicated relationship with her. From the beginning she pawned me off on whichever family member would take me–usually one of her sisters–so she could go off with some man.

At a very early age I became convinced that she didn’t love me. Years later I came to realize that she loved me, in her way, but she loved herself more. That was a hard truth for a young girl, but harder still was admitting to myself that would never change.

Many of my friends and family have heard the story of her joining the carnival and abandoning me when I was twelve. What they haven’t heard is that she abandoned me over and over, sometimes to be with different men, sometimes it was booze, a lot of the time it was drugs. I didn’t know where she was or if she was coming back until she’d turn up, broke, hungover, tail between her legs.

In a way it was good when she was gone because I was safe from her. I was also safe from the men she drug in.

Anyway, ten years ago during a clean and sober moment she made a living will. In her living will she lists me as her medical surrogate–the person who should make decisions for her in the event that she cannot. I do not want to do this. I certainly do not feel as if I owe her this. She was never a mother to me. Still, I will do this for her. I will be the responsible one and I will make the hard choices.

I know she had her reasons for wanting me to be the one. I’m just not sure what they were.

Time goes so quickly. You learn you’re pregnant and it seems like you blink and you’re holding your baby. You blink again and the baby’s walking. Again, he’s starting kinder. Take a short nap, he’s in high school, getting ready to start driving . Sigh…..how did we get here, my Sweet?

After your brother, I had given up the idea of another child. But sixteen years ago on this day, here you were. And even on the difficult days (which have been few) you have been a blessing. You are the yin to your brother’s yang, day to his night, and you’ve filled our home with so much laughter and joy.

You are a natural athlete and a quick-study. You have so many options open to you. You really can do anything, and I’m excited to see where life takes you.

Though I’d be lying if I said my mother’s heart isn’t starting to get anxious about you growing up and striking out on your own. No matter how old you are, you will always be my baby. Same with your brothers. That’s just the way it works. 😉

Happy 16th birthday, Son. I love you more than you can imagine. Know that God has an amazing plan for your life, and if you pray and listen closely, He’ll make sure you’re on the right path.

Love,

Mom

I grew up poor. Really poor. At one point, my mom and I lived in a three room house with no heat and no bathroom. We seriously had to go next door to use the outhouse. The rent was one hundred dollars in real money and twenty-five dollars in food stamps.

I shared the one bedroom with my mom, unless she had “company”, which was more often than not. I remember you could see the sky through the ceiling. We’re probably lucky we didn’t freeze to death.

Anyway, back to the holidays. My mom wasn’t an alcoholic, but she drank a lot. And she rarely met a man she didn’t feel compelled to support. So when birthdays or Christmas rolled around, there was no money for presents. Shoot, there was no money for food! But there was always money for booze. And there was usually a drunken brawl. Or two.

Sometimes I would get a present, but I’d only get to keep it a couple of days. Then it would disappear back to the store it was stolen from or maybe to a pawn shop.

Of course life is different now and I’m grateful for that. I’m glad my sons will never know what it’s like to stand in line at the VFW on Christmas morning waiting for a donated cardboard checker board with plastic pieces.

They’ve never had to worry about a fistfight in the living room knocking the Christmas tree over–breaking bulbs and blowing the breaker.

These are just a few of the ghosts that live in my past. Some days it seems like a lifetime ago. Other days it was just yesterday and I’ve barely escaped. I can smell the alcohol and hear the glass breaking. It is hard, so hard, to write about this….to go back to that place and time.

I’ll leave you with these Linkin Park lyrics:

I want to heal, I want to feel,
What I thought was never real
I want to let go of the pain I felt so long (erase all the pain ’til it’s gone)
I want to heal, I want to feel
Like I’m close to something real
I want to find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

*********