“You should be angry. You must not be bitter. The bitter taste is like cancer. It eats in the host. It can’t do anything about the object it is dissatisfied with. So with that anger. You write. You draw. You draw. You dance. You dance. You marched. You voted. Everything you do. Everything you do. You do. Never stop talking.” ~ Maya Angelou
My mom left when I was five years old. Dad told me that it was hard to imagine when I stopped talking for a while, because I never shut up now.
Obviously, I disappeared into myself. Doctors say this is a selective betrayal. Two years later, my father’s second wife, Trish, tried to hug me, but I froze, my arms fixed to me, stiffly against her feelings.
When I grew up, I asked my dad what was going on and he said he and mom had been having problems so she went to a bird watching cruise to Seychelles. During her stopover, she meets a strong, bearded, successful world wildlife photographer in the lobby of an African hotel. Frank and Patricia fell in love and immediately left their spouse and children.
Over time, my mother became a talented photographer herself. She and Frank traveled to the mainland, taking award-winning animal photos for animals like National Geographic. Together they published the beautiful coffee table book.
In 2004, both Patricia and Frank died within one month of each other. Frank is from cancer and Patricia has a hot car accident. My sister told me that state police found blood snapshots of all five children in Patricia’s wallet. This picture is a picture of three brothers I was with my father and sister and I, who adopted the baby from two different moms after a few years of tying the tube.
“Girl,” she told my father. “I need two girls.”
A few years ago, I searched Patricia’s itu prose online. I found a blog attached to fans. At the end of her dazzling description of her famous career, Frank, who is “the mother of three boys.”
No mention of me or my sister. The person who wrote the obsess decided that we did not exist, or maybe they did not know that we exist. My sister kept in touch with Patricia and seemed OK to be in the omission. Her persistence in the photos in Patricia’s wallet proves what she thinks about us.
She told me: “Your comments on the blog are mean.”
I wrote in my blog comment: “Patricia left five children” (I am her youngest daughter): “There is everything to be respected.
After my death, I found Patricia and Frank online in a photo where Frank surrounds her arm in front of a small white tent in Africa.
Her head rested on his shoulder, smiling and contented. Her face is plump, rosy, and naturally beautiful. Her short, dark, curly hair was blown by the wind, and she was wearing a tan photo vest, khaki shorts and chunky hiking boots.
In her previous life, Patricia was a mature Audrey Hepburn. A mid-to-up, suburban New Jersey suburb in the town, complete with elegant gold dresses, black heels and pearls. In a Polaroid, my mother smiles for the camera as she bakes a paper foot crown on the perfect vacation table for her husband and five kids.
I was only two months old when my parents adopted me. I never felt upset about giving up my fertility mom (I found her in 2016 and we were very close).
I feel sad for my biological mother when I am old enough to understand the difficulties of a woman giving up her child. I know that women who give up their babies do it out of love and despair. And it may tear their hearts open forever. I knew very early on that my understanding of fertility mothers was not personal.
This is selfless.
But the mother who roams the earth with a lover, gives birth to three boys, ties a tube, and then adopts two girls to complete the scene, and don’t leave the child for selfless reasons.
They left because maternity was a mistake. Because the family feels like a prison.
Patricia once told her father about me and my middle brother’s “ugly duckling.” Mike stuttered, like me, wearing thick glasses.
When I grew up, I would drag information out of my father about Patricia. He never wanted us to know Mike, I was the person she disliked the most. We are not perfect enough.
When I was in my second year of college, I sent a text message to my mother. “I never understood why you left your family. Please help me understand.” Then I told her what happened in her life.
“It’s your father’s lifestyle,” she wrote. “Drinking and fancy parties, spending too much money. Not you. We’re always fighting. It’s not about your kids.”
Except when you leave your child yes About the children.
It was our only contact until the wedding of my twenties older brother Chris. Patricia smiled awkwardly as we walked to each other in the hotel reception hall.
We stood in front of each other, but there was no hug. She smiled, looking nervous, and told me, “Look at how beautiful you are!” For the next few hours we talked about the wedding, my work and the husband sitting next to me.
Frank sat between us at our desk. Courteous but protective. Privately, I looked so cold to my former mother. Of course, there are too many things to be taken apart, and the wedding is not this place. But Patricia acted like we were just losing contact.
A few years ago, when my husband and I were talking that day, he told me that at some point, I whispered to Frank, “Tell Patricia, I don’t want anything to do with her.” I couldn’t stand it for a second. So I was silent.
I don’t remember saying that. But I’m sure I did. Because if my mother wanted to be my life, she would say that when she received a letter from me during college.
In 1998, when I became a mom, Patricia was dissatisfied and I managed to bury most of it in revenge.
I was afraid that my mother would leave her child. My daughter is so introverted and overwhelmingly angry, bubbles up for my own mother.
I imagine my five-year-old daughter coming home from kindergarten. Get off the car and run and hug her father. I imagined her giggle and hugged her vinyl blue lead lunch box. My husband handed her a snack and a juice box in the kitchen. I imagined he scalping her up and sitting on the sofa next to him. My daughter’s feet are happy.
“Where is Mom?” she asked as her juice box and blueberry eyes shining.
“Dear, dad needs to tell you something. Mom is um, she’s gone, she’s not back. It’s not your fault, dear, really, no. You didn’t do it Anything Wrong. But mom and mom are confused, even if she really loves you. ”
A few years ago, I decided that when someone hurts us, I couldn’t do anything with my mother therapist and clergy advice.
“Forgive me. This is no What they do is OK. It’s about letting go of anger and resentment. When you do this, you feel better. Stop giving you the power of pain. ”
But my abandoned five-year-old child refused to forgive my mother. I can, but I won’t. Not because I was angry. I’m not. Because of tolerance, but it seems (diary, prayer, letters I never sent to Patricia), it feels unwise.
“I forgive you” feels like a lie.
My hurt and anger towards my mother has changed over the years. It is not about forgiveness, but about a new understanding of only ambitious women.
Because I am that mother.
After I had a daughter, I left the workforce and was a professional professional, ambitious, but I often told every day during pregnancy: “Once I saw that baby, I had nothing, I mean there is nothing Otherwise it will be very important. ”
After three months of maternity leave, I worked part-time. Six months later, I left forever.
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and was fixed by chronic body aches and brain fog. I was in conflict with my babysitter, but most of the time I left because I “should” be at home. My husband never put pressure on me. I put pressure on me. The judged parents are useless.
In my mother’s day (1950s), women graduated and they got married and had children. They never talked about their needs. There is no confession from the mother group. Ambition and identity crisis are not things. taboo.
Women attract anxiety and exhaustion with martini and val (“Mom’s little helper”). Smile. nod. suffer.
It was not until the 1990s that books had developed maternity and contradictory emotions. About loving your children, but hate x, y, z. Suddenly, the floodgates opened and the mother became primitive and honest. (Remember this book Three Martini Dance Date? )
I struggled with being bored for gratitude. Desire to be outside of mother. Of course I love my daughter. I underwent surgery and a few months of infertility procedures to catch her.
My kids are everything to me, but not everything for I. When I became a parent, a small part of me understood why my mother left.
There, accepting my mixed emotions relieved my pain and anger.
Unlike my mother, I have a thriving career and have been in my own identity for over twenty years. But Patricia goes from college to marriage to maternity. She skipped herself and it turns out that she wanted to be. You can roam the world freely without being burdened by family life.
I realized that if my mother stayed, she would resent her children and the life she called for. Her resentment may be more destructive than abandonment.
Nevertheless, forgiveness is not always the answer. Saying “I forgive you” must feel sincere. It has to come from where it is truly released. Willing to see the harm and accept its mistakes, then completely let it go. Enter the ether currency and wash it from our hearts and minds.
My perception of mothers is now less villainous, and more women should never give society the pressure to have children. After she got married, even if he told her over and over again, none of them were financially prepared.
Ironically, after her death, she left a large sum of money to plan for her family. She knows. Mother is not suitable for everyone.
Forgiveness is subtle, but throughout the age, its power of transformation has been taught as magical. “Forgive me, let go, you will be free.” And, this is the truth.
But for me, I attribute my five-year-old self to not completely forgive my mother. What I call mild non-forgiveness.
Most of my destructive bitterness is gone. But, if I tell the truth, still some anger is still sitting inside me. Because I think It’s there. Protected. justice. But it’s no longer boiling. Anger is wrapped in necessary truth. My mother is selfish. My mom caused real harm.
I want to stick with some anger feeling like I choose to be a champion of my five-year-old self. But for the most part, I think it’s to avoid the difficult emotions of pain and rejection. And because I let go of all my anger, it feels fake.
For me, being true sometimes means acceptance all The anger disappeared. It doesn’t matter. (In fact, according to psychologist Jade Wu, allowing anger instead of suppressing it is actually good for our health as long as we don’t act actively.)
After my mother gave up on her family, she left five broken kids, all of which were emotionally scarred. Scars appearing in devastating ways. Addiction, cruelty, despair, loneliness, low self-esteem, hoarding, attachment problems.
I know that in the end my mother needs freedom. This kind of stay will cause more harm than good. But when care is too difficult, the child is not a puppy to surrender.
My mother was going to find happiness, which brought terrible consequences to my mother. Irresible damage. I saw it. I felt it. Trust is destroyed. Therefore, I can never completely forgive.
“I pray that you’re cured from things that no one apologizes.” ~Nakeia Homer
About Laura Owens
Laura G. Owens is a Florida writer fascinated by human behavior. HR focuses on social comments and personal papers with honesty. She has fifteen years of experience and has written about natural health in body and mind. blog: human nature Huffington Post
