Perfektly Mary

I’ve been finishing up paperwork, W-2’s, pointless OSHA tests and performing competencies, to get my nursing career back on it’s feet. After spending weeks interviewing day-cares and babysitters, I think I’ve finally found one. (More about that some other time)

Anyways, today I came home from the paper trail and the babysitter told me my birth mom had called and needs me to call ASAP. First thought….oh no, something’s wrong with Grammy.

Nope, Grammy’s just fine.

“Hey mom what’s up?”

“Mary Jeanne, I wasn’t expecting to get my heart broken. Play Date? It’s time we talk.”

I put the kids down for a nap, prayed and then prepared to call my mom back. I was terrified. My fear of confrontation and being rejected by the woman I long for most, was swelling inside me. What if she thinks I’m horrible for saying what I did? What if she denies it all? What if it doesn’t even bother her like it has me all these years?

Today, God healed a deep wound in my mom and myself.

We didn’t know where to start so she started by reading through my blog post. Line. by. line. It was surreal to hear my mom reading to me: “Even though the only time she would show me affection was after she’d beat me, I loved her and craved the moments after the storm.”.

My heart ached for her. I wanted to tell her to stop reading it, don’t say such things! But it needed to be said. We needed to heal.

I spent over an hour listening to my mom pour out her heart and relay the pain of a life devastated by alcohol. She’s been carrying around the burden of regret for so long. I walked in her shoes this afternoon and understood her torment like never before.

The custody battle started when I was 6 weeks old and ended when I was 2 1/2. During those 2 years I lived with my mom. I don’t have any memories of that time. My dad does, and I think it was far harder on him to witness the conditions I lived in with my mom than it was for me to experience them. Talking to my dad today, he told me how he didn’t understand at the time why the judge wouldn’t give him custody right away after comparing the condition of his life and my mom’s. I think I know. God knew I needed to bond with her. I needed those 2 years to form the irreplaceable bond between a mother and a child. To feel her touch, to know her voice….although I don’t remember any good memories with her, surely they must have happened. Those 2 1/2 years sowed into me a need for a mother’s love that long after I’d forgotten what it was like to be fed by her, I knew that I needed her still. I needed the love formed from that bond to later forgive. I needed that bond to keep seeking her presence in my life, even when it didn’t make sense.

She explained to me how she’d fought the best she could to get me in the custody battle. She’d sobered up, got a job at the local bar and tried to present a stable life to the court. Her lawyer told her that with the way she and my dad were fighting and given both of their circumstances, if they kept this up I would become a ward of the state. So after 2 1/2 years of battling she decided to back down and agreed that my living with my grandparents and dad would be a good environment. (And it was) After that court hearing, I went to my dad’s for the weekend and they called her Monday morning saying she didn’t need to pick me up, he had full custody. Can you imagine?

She went down fast after that.

What I remembered as abandonment, my mom remembers as sacrifice. What I remember as late night pick ups, my mom remembers as driving straight from work 2 hours to get me, with 3 babies in the back seat. In no way do I think she was/is a saint. Neither is my dad, neither am I. I just understand her more now. I’m glad she got to explain her side of things and be released from the pain of regret. We all remember things so differently.

There are 5 points of view:
1. My dad’s
2. My mom’s
3. 3-15 yr old me
4. A combination of what my dad and mom say
5. God’s.

I’m interested in truth. None of our memories are going to be accurate. Rather than trying to understand history, I’m seeking to understand reconciliation, and that is truly freeing.

She’ll never get back the years of my childhood and I’ll never have to buy my first bra again, but we get each other now.

I don’t feel the need to talk about the past anymore with her. All the other memories are just symptoms of a hurting life. I get that. I made those kind of choices too. Right after high school I was completely out of control…one night stands, waking up in houses I didn’t recognize, drunk all the time, calling in to work, missing family functions….the most important being my grandma as she was dying. I was totally self absorbed and unreliable. I made choices out of that broken life. What if I had had my kids during that time? Perhaps I would have been recreating my childhood for them. I understand now, how childhoods like mine happen.

To me, the epitome of a mother’s love has always been a woman’s chest. There’s this place deep inside me that longs to put my head on my mother’s chest, cry and be comforted. It’s so personal, so intimate. I doubt when you’re held like that you can feel anything but acceptance. I think if my mom was in town right now, she’d let me do that. Instead, I’ll rock my daughter, hold her head to my heart and sing Amazing Grace.