My mother got baptized three months after I did. In 1986 she was disfellowshipped. She left my father and remarried without proving that my father had broken their vows. Of course, for a few years before that, she slowly fell out of the truth. It isn't falling. I think it should be called sliding out of the truth.
I do not have a picture of her on my computer to post. She is beautiful. She was in the Miss New Mexico pageant in 1958 and was a runner-up. She was six feet tall and had blonde hair, green eyes. When I was about 11 she got sick (gall bladder) and lost a lot of weight and then she was a knock out again.
She got reinstated in 2007 just before we moved from Arkansas to Pennsylvania. My former mother-in-law had grandchildren from her daughter, and she had very little interest in my daughters. All I can say is my children did not win the grandmother lottery.
The last time I spoke to her on the phone was while we were in Reading for the DC in 2010. So after a year, I thought I should check on her. Every time we interact I am crushed. But I have this long history of trying.
Her phone was no longer in service. Nor was her cell phone working. I got a little uptight and googled the obituary page for her local newspaper. She was not there, for which I am thankful.
I'm pretty sure my brother would not bother to tell me if that happened.
So I sent my mother a card like a doofus. I sent her a picture of Carly and Kimberly at the DC. I told her I had not been able to contact her.
She didn't reply right away. Nearly a month later I got a generic card that read:
Cherri -
Got your card ~ my new cell number is 940-xxx-xxxx. I disconnected my home phone because it was just an extra expense I didn't need. Cherri the past is the past. Everybody has to answer for their own doings so I guess we all have to stand before Jehovah for what we do. I'm sorry we can't get along. Maybe someday we can. We just don't see eye to eye on things. Let's just leave it at that. I am happy for you on your plans to possibly go to Saipan in 2013. Hope it all works out for you. I am glad the girls are well ~ just know Cherri that I do love you very much.
Mom
She's right that we don't see eye to eye. When I was a baby, she went back to work and left me with my father. He was a raving alcoholic. She told me stories when I was older how she would come home and I'd have diaper rash from being in a crappy diaper in my crib for five or six hours while my father was passed out on the couch. When I got older, I could climb out of the crib, and she said I would drink his beer, his coffee, whatever was left laying around because I was hungry and thirsty. Her most horrifying story is coming home and the man is passed out as usual and I have pulled my little red wagon up to the stove to reach the pot that is burning up with what might be chicken noodle soup left in the pan and she yells at me, "Baby no!" and I turn quickly to look at her and unbalance in the wagon and fall down. I cry.
She is so relieved she didn't show up a split second later when I would have pulled the pan down into my face.
Thanks Dad. All through my childhood I thought what a dog my father was for this. Then I had my own two little girls, and I could barely leave them with anybody. I was a total control freak on the girls because of these stories. I did not want the cycle to continue. But I would look at my babies and think how did my mother continue to go to work everyday leaving me in that situation?
She says she didn't know what else to do. And there were some days when the man didn't get drunk and I was fine when she got home. She prayed for those days, is what she told me when I was a mother myself.
So yeah, I guess we don't see eye to eye on what it means to be a mother for sure.
I don't think my eye is a standard to go by. I think everybody should be trying to see by Jehovah's standards and not what their eye tells them.
She also made me quit school my senior year. Now, I love school more than anything except Jehovah and the truth and my own two daughters. I wasn't as pretty as she was that I was going to find a man to take care of me and pay my bills. She did a lot better the second time around; I can say that much for her.
Nothing has ever been her fault. She didn't know what else to do. She did the best she could. And we are a supreme disappointment to her. I care about school and she cares about things. She bought me so many pretty clothes. I thought she loved me and that was her way to show it. I grew up and figured out she just wanted me to look good because as her daughter I represented her, was an extension of her.
Now, my daughters and I are fat. And I take full responsibility for that. All my life I've been obsessed with having a full cupboard. She told me my dad (who was awaiting disability from SSI in my infancy) had no money and we lived on water gravy and biscuits when I was little. She couldn't work and breast feed, so I went on carnation milk with vitamin drops and sometimes they couldn't afford the vitamin drops.
She wonders why I have food issues. We are such a disappointment to her. We don't see eye-to-eye and we should just leave it at that. I can't decide if that means she doesn't want any future contact with us or not.
The girls do not want.
She did give me her phone number.
I have not called. I do not think I will. I know. She is not only my mother, but my spiritual sister. Wouldn't I forgive anyone of you for hurting me? I would have to if I want Jehovah to forgive me my many trespasses.
I can do that. But I cannot go stand in line for anymore either.
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