First of all, thank you to all of you who contacted me privately and publicly to express your sympathies and the loss of my Mother. It’s been a whirlwind of the few days for me after her passing. We had a fractious relationship from the get-go.

She almost died when I was born and I almost followed her as well into the Great Beyond (or so I have been told) For months she “worshipped me” dressing me only in white, rarely leaving my side and calling me “her little angel.”  I was born with white hair. I lost that in 2nd grade. The stories I have been told is one day, she just snapped and stopped paying attention to me and I suddenly became her worst nightmare. . She would make me a part of her rage and I was beaten, punished you name it. I have no idea what happened. Most of my childhood is a big blank even after countless counseling sessions.

In this day and age, I guess you might have diagnosed her with a mental disease, but back then, it didn’t happen. Everyone loved her (including me) but I was scared to death of her. I suppose one of us would have ended up in jail during one of those sessions- but back then domestic abuse wasn’t even a thought. Whatever happened behind closed doors at the “Love” house, stayed behind closed doors. I told my older sister last night that I found it highly ironic we carried that last name. There was little Love to be found there, at least for me. My Dad would beat me as well- One of Mother’s best friends told me once that when she was visiting she witnessed a beating by my dad. She asked him later why he beat me so hard, and his reply was “Because Mother told him to.”

Gwen (my oldest) told me last night that she remembers coming home from high school to find Mother beating me with a flyswatter. She said Mother was out of control and Gwen rushed in shrieking for Mother to stop. Beyond that, Gwen can’t remember what happened. Gwen got lucky, she got out early, She left for college on an athletic scholarship, afterwards she joined the Peace Corps, taught in Europe on a sailboat and left home never to return again. She lives a wonderful life now, has a beautiful, amazing daughter and she did not turn out to be the mother she grew up under.

We’ve emailed for the last few days and she has filled in the missing pieces for me as best she could. She said she always felt sorry for me because I got the brunt of everything. Said she felt helpless and powerless to stop it. My other sister was adored and never got touched. It was always me.

Perhaps that is why I gravitate to the abused and tormented cats around this area. Time and time again, people will tell me. “I don’t know how you do it, I couldn’t”. I do it, because it has to be done and I know that living as I did when I was a kid, I have that strength to take that broken soul and try to put it together again.

What I didn’t share earlier about my last conversation with my Mother is that I told her that I forgave her for all of it. For the beatings, for the harshness of my childhood, for the tears and the pain. I told her “I forgive you, I know Dad  is waiting for that final skate and I know it will be joyous.” My one thought at the time was please don’t go without telling me why you hated me so much. But that opportunity was gone. She had lost the ability to talk the day before. All I heard was her harsh irregular breathing and my heart wept that she was so in pain..

She had been hanging on for so long, existing on drops of water only. I started to wonder what she was waiting for – we had all done our final visits by ourselves not together- even my niece who is teaching in Korea came in. Why was she still here?

Then I got to remembering that when I had that last disastrous visit with her, in her lucid moments she would say things about how “good of a mother” she was to all of us. I would swallow the response I wanted to make and just agree- “Yes Mother, you did your best.” So I called her- (it has taken me years to find forgiveness) I  could only do it through God. If I lived selfishly or foolishly, I would have taken that anger to my grave.

I wrote her a letter the other day, and when this storm clears, I will take a bunch of helium balloons (it’s a long letter!) LOL and I will release it to the skies. Then, I know, I will truly be free. My tormenter she is gone never to cause pain to me again and I can finally find my center and get on with my life.