What Can I Say? It Just Takes TIme.

It didn't just happen overnight.  So it stands to reason that getting 'over it' will take more than just overnight or a few days or even a few weeks.  Right?

This whole thing has been hard for me, and hard ON me. Maybe no one really understands what it has been like for me, except me.

Yes, it's my mother.  Again.  I know. You might be tired of hearing about it.  You might roll your eyes and tune me out because it is a 'here we go again' type of reaction. 

But for me, the hurt is real.  It is deep. And it will take time to heal.  Really.

Try as I may, as much as I want to, I just can't sigh and say "Ok.  I am fine now.  I am moving on.  Life is great!  I will never mention it again because I am over it.  Period.  Done. Finished."

I wish I could do that. I really do.  I wish I could just put it all out of my mind permanently and never thing about it again.

But it is hard.  It really is.

A mother is supposed to love her children.  She is supposed to care for them, to support them, to love them unconditionally, forever and ever.  But my mother wasn't like that.  

We know she didn't love us.  How?  She told us.  Maybe not in the 'I don't love you' words, but by telling us how awful we were, how stupid we were, how she never wanted us, how we lacked so many traits that would make us mature and good people.  How she didn't care if she ever saw us or talked to us.  How she always wanted to 'put us in our place' or make us pay for something that we didn't even know that we had done.  And this wasn't just as kids.  This happened to us in our adult lives, up until just a few months before she died.

So how do we shut that off and move on?  How do we close it down and now be ok?  How can we not drift to it, especially when a speaker at WOJ is talking about how we need to close the door on our past hurts and move into the present and rejoice that we are beautiful daughters of God and because God loves us, that is the most important thing (and I agree with that).   But I can't just shut down the hurt from Mom, just like that.  The bruises are still there, especially the ones from the new things that I have uncovered while cleaning out her house.

I called her to tell her that a distant relative (we think) had passed away after my cousin had contacted me about the death.  In the note I found she was upset with me because I did that.  She KNEW who was related to Dad and how dare I suggest that this person was a cousin when she had never heard of him.  That conversation then drifted to how horrible the neighbors were, how she knew that drug deals were going on in the wee hours of the morning, that there were 20 people riding in the back of a pick up and it was so noisy she couldn't get any rest, how she was afraid to walk out to the mailbox, how she had to keep the curtains drawn so they wouldn't come over and peek in the windows at her--and on and on.  So I broke into her monologue and said "Well if it is so dangerous to live there, maybe you should think about moving." In her note she was furious with me for saying that, trying to make her decisions for her.  How dare I think that just because I had a college education, that I knew everything and what gave me the right to make that decision for her!  She would show me!  She would cut me off from everything.  NO MORE CHRISTMAS CASH for me or my family!  NO MORE GIFT CARDS FOR ANYONE IN INDIANA!

Yes, I know.  She was crazy.  She was just talking.  But I found more notes that said she knew things were being stolen from the shed in the back yard and that only two relatives had the combination and she knew that we were thieves.  She was going to talk to her lawyer and have him do something about it so she wouldn't be stolen from anymore.

The notes from 1979 written across the top of her journal stating that she needed to be cautious because of her children.  They were going to destroy her. 1979.  I was trying to think of what was going on then.  That was the year Mike graduated from high school.  We had been married for three years.  The girls weren't even born yet.  And she thought we were plotting against her then.

And there was more.  More diatribes against us.  More craziness being written.  And probably more spoken to anyone who would listen.

Letters from Dad while we lived in Mt. Vernon expressing his concern about her behavior.  Responses from her to him.  Notes written by her that indicated she knew what she wanted to do but hesitated because she knew there would be consequences.  

Verbal abuse is one thing.  Physical abuse is another.  And there was that too.  Handprints left where no one could see them.  Beatings in the bathroom.  Hits across the face.  And more. Always when Dad wasn't around.  

Who cares about it now?  What does it matter today? Good questions.

But this comes from the woman who gave birth to me, the one who was my mother, the one who was supposed to love me.

She was the reason my stomach was tied up in knots every time we made the trip to Ohio for any holiday.

She was the reason I would cry from the time we pulled out of their drive until we got to at least Mansfield, sometimes as far as Upper Sandusky, and sometimes until Van Wert.

She was the reason the one request that the girls stay with them for a couple of weeks in the summer was denied.

She was the reason I dreaded picking up the phone and calling that number, just to find out if Dad was ok.  He would never answer, so I always had to go through her first, just to talk to him, and sometimes she wouldn't let me talk to him. Sometimes she wouldn't give him my messages or share anything I said (what little there was because conversations were always about her). 

Lots of memories. Lots of hurt. Lots of pain to work through.  

Lots of healing needed.

So going to WOJ this weekend helped.  I listened to the speakers talk about the positives in our lives and how faith will help us through the tough moments.  I listened to the advice to leave the past there and more to the future.  As one speaker said, twelve years of her life should not be the deciding factor for the rest of it.  One incident in childhood should not dictate the happiness or positivity in one's adult life.

But for me and my sister, it was not just 12 years.  It was not just one incident.  It started when we were young and continued until a few weeks before Mom's death.  

I listened to the songs about how we are not 'dirty' (from abuse) for we are 'clean' in the Christ.

I listen to the 10 commandments and wonder still if I have broken "Honor the father and mother" big time because I am not grieving Mom's death.  That I share the horrible things she did to Greta and me with others as I try to work through them.  

I cried during some of the messages.  I cried during several of Natalie Grant's songs.  

It will just take time.  And even though I may hear the message over and over, even though many people have told me the same things, even though I have talked about it often, I still need time to heal.  The scars are still there.  It still hurts.  

So...the next time I am sad, or if I mention Mom and my hurt about her, instead of rolling the eyes, walking away, or asking me "again?", reach out and give me a hug.  Tell me you understand.  Help me heal.  It just takes time.