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Blog for April 19^th

Mom, No Regrets

      This last week I had a couple of friends lose their parents, on the same day actually.  One lost his dad and one lost her mom.  I know a little bit about the relationship of my friend and her mom, it was strained. Not an easy upbringing for her, but amazingly, due to being in recovery she has become an excellent mother and grandmother herself.  

     My other friend has also spent many years in his recovery healing and mending his relationship with his dad.  His mom left him at six months old and his dad raised him.  Of course, when addiction gets in the way, the relationship takes a dive for sure.  But he was able to mend that these past twenty-two years.

     Well, today is my mom’s birthday and as much as I miss her and really want to talk to her and hug her, I do not fool myself about the life we had.  When I start looking around at other people’s upbringings and comparing mine to theirs, I figure I come out somewhere in the middle of – ‘Not that great, but not that bad.’ 

     Although my mom had her own issues and was pretty self-centered, she also did show me love.  Well, not when she abandoned me at 12 years old, not when she’d meet another man and run off.  But when she was in one of her “settled in” modes, which was from time to time, I/we would experience glimpses of “normalcy”?  or something similar, I think.

     My friend that lost her mom last week posted a poem this morning about mother/daughter relationships, a prayer to heal difficult mother/daughter relationships.  This is where I have to tell you that I am so very grateful for my program, my recovery, my clean time.  Because during my healing and growing in recovery and working the 12 steps, I did a 4^th step on just my relationship with my mom, oh man, was it ever hard, enlightening and freeing all at the same time. 

     Then comes the 9^th step and I had to make amends to my mom, I wasn’t always a best daughter either, it is absolutely necessary to look at our part also.  (But children absolutely get a pass in abusive homes, it is not their fault, not ever.)  So, there I was, making amends and talking to my mom about it all.  We were sitting on the side of a bed in the back room.  She started crying. Oh no, God? What’s happening here?  She said things to me like “that’s the way I was raised”, “I didn’t know any better” and so on.  She told me about how her own mother treated her.  I knew my grandma and I knew she could be stern and strict. 

     At that moment, I seen my mother as a hurt and sad little girl. I seen her helplessness, and I seen her struggles.  Her need for love and acceptance, I seen her as God might see her.  A vulnerable, hurt and needy child.  It’s no wonder she kept looking for love in all the wrong places.  I really mean that, my mother married approximately 22 times and they were all alcoholics, except for maybe her first one, the love of her life that died in an accidental explosion.  

     Thank God for the twelve steps, recovery and having a loving, forgiving Higher Power.  My mother was quite a woman. She’d been fearless in her day; did things other women would balk at.  Working on the docks in war time, heavy machine operator, bus driver, waitress, in charge of the kitchen at a nuclear plant, Red Cross manager, driving cross county by herself in her 70’s.  Her resume is long and impressive. Her “I’ll do it or die trying attitude” was even more impressive.

    Smart, beautiful, talented, she could also sing beautifully.  Her black hair and green eyes were stunning with her high cheek bones, that was the Cherokee in her. 

     When I was a little girl, I use to have bad dreams that some thing bad would happen to her, I had a constant fear she would die.  Right after I got clean, my son was in counseling and he told the counselor that every time I left, he had a fear that I would die and never come back.  You see the crap we pass on to our kids.  I’m telling you people; drugs are just not worth it!

      Well, as I said, today is my mom’s birthday, my grandson and I planted three plants in her honor today, I hope they thrive and grow and bloom and become beautiful.  I want to see them everyday and think of her.  Lately, my brother has been singing a different tune about our mom.  He held a strong resentment for not being brought up in a nice, normal home by regular parents, whatever that is!

     Now, he says he’s grateful for our mom and all the things she taught us by being fearless in her time, for moving to and FRO across the country, leaving us to fend for ourselves and for the love she did share. He claims we have survival skills that not everyone gets to have.  I think there’s some truth to that, but at what price?  Hey, I’m not whining, I’m not judging, I’m just saying – this is how it was. 

   Again, my gratitude is massive for the twelve steps and a loving God, an amazing fellowship and a most wonderful husband that have all helped me grow, heal, forgive and get on with my life. Because of this, I have no regrets. My friends in recovery have no regrets and you too can live with no regrets. I was there for my mom in her last years, her last days and her last day on earth.  I miss her and love her, but I’m grateful for having had such a wonderful, beautiful, daring, strong mother!

Question of the Week:  How’s your relationship with your parents?