i carried this for years.
"You seemed very curious as a newborn Boop. It seemed as if you were absorbing EVERYTHING. You had a very intense and piercing gaze, but not in a bad way. You were a happy baby, always smiling. You were also a trick baby (not the pimp, prostitute type of trick) but the kind of baby that was so easy that it tricked you into thinking that yep, I could do it again. Lol" - Kimberly Banks (My Mom)
Feeling motherless had become embedded in the fabric of who I was for so long. I truly believed I was unworthy of a mother's love. I taught myself that if a mother didn't want her child then the child was not enough. I truly believed that. I spent years feeling unsafe, unloved, and neglected but something in me couldn't pull away from the hope that one day I would be able to ask my mom "When did you realize that you couldn't take care of me?".
Asking the hard questions was something I prayed about. I wanted the courage to ask, to mend a strained relationship, to accept what the truth was even if I didn't like the way it made me feel. Through therapy and my own spiritual journey I found myself doing the unraveling of what happens to a motherless child. When I got to the core, there she was, me, 7 years old holding on to an oversize Tigger shirt and a stuffed pig that smelled like my mother. She was unsafe. unloved, and neglected and she carried that with her in those items.
As I talked to her I found out that she didn't hate her mother, no, she loved her mother more than anything else. She had questions that needed answers and she was waiting for me to ask them. She was waiting for me to release all of the assumptions and get the facts.
Last year I got to ask my mom those questions. I asked her about her childhood, her adult life, and the question that haunted me everyday --- why couldn't you keep me? I learned that she, in her late 20s, felt helpless and lost. I could tell she had been working on herself because her responses were clear and genuine. We talked for hours.
As the conversation pressed on I realized something. I never looked at my mother as another woman -- always as this goddess like person who denied me their love. I never thought fully about her own life traumas or her own mental health battles. I was a child and the thought of going to school and having people ask where my mom was haunted me. Mother's Day made me sick and I hated holidays. As I got older I swore off all children in hopes that I wouldn't be like her.
I was a child but now I am a woman. I am a woman who is in her late 20s dealing with things that have sent me over the edge. Things that have made me question my own existence. I can feel my mother's trauma and pain through my own. I can finally relate.
My mother, although absent for most of childhood, has always loved me. No matter how mad I get through this process of creating our own relationship --- she still loves me. She encourages me and reminds me of who I am -- every single time we speak. She makes me laugh. She makes me remember what it felt like to lie in her arms even when we are miles apart. I haven't hugged my mother or seen her in 5 years but I can remember her scent. Being able to just call her about anything has changed my entire life and I will be able to hug her again, very soon.
Family hasn't always been the kindest to me but I value the relationships I am building with them now. I am rewriting our history one relationship at a time. I am the missing piece that will complete this puzzle.
I was told once by a good friend that I am here to break my family curses. I am here to wash away my families shame. I am here to heal and save my family and that starts with my mother.
