What came to me yesterday was the moment in the diner this summer, when I saw my mother for the first time after a 5-year separation, and how my body responded. How before I could put on my social cloak, I was riveted in fear.
My body had reacted perfectly and yet I didn’t have all the puzzle pieces, but now I do.
The reason I feared her isn’t because of what she would do to me, but what she had been unable to do in my past.
How she was unable to get me/us away from a pedophile, that in fact she did the opposite, she tried to make their union normal, while he abused us.
How she forgave his sins, and rallied harder to make their marriage work, to keep him so we had a father. She put all her efforts in keeping something that wasn’t true. She focused harder on him, and never once treated our wounds.
As a child you see how invisible you are, how unhearing she is, how unresponsive to your pain.
I now feel better about the way I feared her, for at the time it almost felt like I had self empowerment leakage, where even as a 51 year old woman, my 80 year old mother could send me into a fit of terror.
My body recalls her and responds in its truth.
I love my body and its meters.
And how true to form she has remained after all these years.
What stands out the most of the days, weeks, months after my father being arrested for molesting his granddaughter, is the absence of my mother.
She actually was sequestered and not taking our calls. She went on vacation to Australia and Hawaii, she stayed in the warm climate for months, and only arrived here around the time my father was driven home in chains.
I do not recall one action that would bring comfort to a child who was abused by that man, not one. She was so busy caring for her needs and his, that she overlooked the dozens of girls, by this time, who stood around with their underwear down, bottoms exposed, abuse clearly showing, and did what she needed to do.
When I sat in her home, four months after the fact, I saw her shed tears about what was going to happen to her, I saw her strength arise in defense of him and her religion, I saw her blank and defensive when I confronted her on her actions as a mother.
Not a tear fell as I told her about my experience with her husband, it was like the doors were all closed, I was talking to nothing.
Isn’t it incredible yet again, that we can fear actions of nothing.
Nothing. To do nothing is extremely painful to endure.
My mother sent cards and made personal visits to all the girls she knew who had been molested by her husband, neighbor girls, but she did not give me her daughter the same courtesy. She apologized in a letter saying how sorry she was, that she didn’t believe this young neighbor girl and was sad that it took years to do so.
The detective handed me that letter, and I crumpled it up and threw it on the floor, like a child enraged, and I was.
My own mother at the time was sequestered and not taking my calls, was unable to hear of my childhood abuse, and she was penning letters to other hurt little girls.
How telling, how cruel, how insane…how dare she dismiss me that easily.
Again what I feared from her was nothing.
Nothing again.
I am worth nothing again.
Nothing.
What she gives me is nothing, a void. Space, silence, a void.
I just looked at the two words together. A Void.
I didn’t know that avoiding was nothing.
A void.
When you avoid someone you give them nothing and doing nothing creates a void
A void isn’t love, it is space, silent, open, and alone.
Imagine feeling this energy from a mother while you have wounds from your father?
Instead of being able to find comfort and shelter, we encounter a void, space, emptiness, where no one is coming, nothing will happen…
A void is who my mother is to me.
Running from my father I fell into a void.
It is no wonder my mind couldn’t comprehend or compute, there was no safety anywhere.
Who is there to catch you when you fall?
My last line in my letter to Mr. Detective man was, “Every little girl should matter to someone.”
I M Perfect lady 