What It's Really Like To Be A Motherless Mother

Today I had a counseling appointment, along with a good cry, as Mother's Day is quickly approaching. I've always struggled with this day, even before my mom died. I only ever remember spending one Mother's Day with her. This year just feels a little more isolating and unpredictable with this whole quarantine going on as well as with being a single mom once again with only one of my kids living at home with me. During my appointment I talked about my struggles surrounding Mother's Day and mentioned this article I read about five years ago titled, “What it’s like to be a motherless mother”. Year after year this article comes to my mind, I've never been able to shake how it made me feel, especially as Mother's Day approaches. It was a testimony of a woman who lost her mom when she was thirty two with three children. It briefly describes some of her grief and struggles after her mother’s loss, shares brief snippets of her journal, things her kids said about wishing their grandmother could be a part of their activities and how she wrote a book based on her experience. In no way do I negate anyone else’s loss, grief, or pain associated with missing their loved ones but that is what it is, missing what they once had. I have no doubt that this woman’s testimony and words of wisdom are and can greatly impact and inspire others in their grief, there is so much validity to what she shares but I can tell you that this article does not properly depict what it is like to be a motherless mother. It would be more properly titled, “What it is like to be a mother after you lose your own mother” or “What no one tells you about parenting after losing your mom."

I know what it’s like to be a motherless mother and I can tell you that it has nothing to do with fondly recalling the days of baking cookies together and wishing your kids would have been able to meet her. 

My mom abandoned me for a life of wealth, drugs, and notoriety before I even had any tangible memories of living with her. She kidnapped me once as a young child for an unknown length of time, with all the trauma I’ve experienced, my early years still blur together. She did have me for visits in the summertime which consisted of leaving me alone with housekeepers, neighbors, and with co-pilots from her private airline that she operated with my former step father, the one who used to beat me black, blue, and bloody. I don’t have any memories of my mother behaving in a nurturing manner toward me but I have plenty of memories of her screaming at me, breaking my stuff, setting me on fire, killing my cat, and sleeping with guys my age including one of my boyfriends. I also have memories of her introducing me to drugs and bringing me to a tattoo parlor at the ripe age of fourteen to get my first tattoo. I remember hearing of her picture being on the front page of the newspaper when she was arrested for a drive by shooting as well as being brought up on charges of soliciting capital murder. There was also the time when I sat in a police car with her for several hours after a swat team raid took place on our home, I thought it was a rival gang breaking in to kill us and was grateful once I realized it was just the police. One time she sent me to school with a knife to protect myself in the event of retaliation from the gang attack she arranged over spring break against the girl who had been harassing me, the attack resulted in this girl’s teeth being knocked out with the end of a pool stick and I was terrified to go back to school and face her. The knife fell out of my pocket at lunch when I grabbed some change for the vending machine and someone snitched on me. I sat in a holding cell at the police station for hours while the cops paraded past me like a caged animal. "We’ve got DEBORAH’S DAUGHTER! It’s really her, she looks just like her." I was their prize for the day. 

That was life with my mom. Aside from the neglect and violence filled summer visits, the amount of time I recall living with her was split into two periods, 9 months during 8^thgrade and the 17 months before she died. 

With so many undesirable memories to choose from, the one that made the longest lasting impression was when I walked into her bathroom to find her under the still water in her tub, pulling her lifeless body out of the water and feeling her cold stiff body in my arms as she remained in the same shape due to rigor mortis and reading her emotionless note, the one I still have memorized to this day, that confirmed she was dead by her own choosing. I was pregnant with my first child at the time. My very first Mother’s Day as a mom was my very first without my mom being alive. There would be no ‘three generations’ pictures to take and swoon over. I am a motherless mother.

 

The very last picture we ever took together. 

I entered motherhood with no example to base my own parenting on while also being shell shocked and traumatized. It didn’t stop there either as the morning after I gave birth, just six months after her death, I was confronted by child protective services in attempts to take my newborn daughter away. Why? Because one of the very last things my mom consciously did before ending her own life was call the hospital and CPS and gave them my due date, and told them that she was concerned that I would be an unfit parent and a danger to my child. She was wrong and I think I have turned out to be a pretty awesome mom after all! My kids have never made a comment about wishing that grandma could see them ride their bike or wishing that she could be at their birthday parties, no, they have no concept of grandma. There has never been a time when my kids have said, “will you tell me the story again about the time that you and grandma ___” as my mother didn’t leave me many positive or healthy memories to share with them. I really had nothing to miss, in fact as guilty as it makes me feel some days, I am only the woman that I am today because my mother is no longer here to control me with her unhealthy, co-dependent, and dangerous way of living.

Some days I forget how angry I am until I read an article like the above listed. On one hand I so badly want someone to relate to, I want to know that someone else understands what I carry deep inside. Most people who have been through what I have, just with my mother alone, don’t go on to live a functioning healthy lifestyle, they simply repeat the cycle, live their life in defeat, or spend the rest of their life running from reality. Yet on the other hand I am so grateful that more people don’t understand as it means that they have been spared the chaos, trauma, and pain associated with truly being a motherless mother. I have had to learn all I know about being a parent from outside observation rather than a loving example. I have had to fillet my heart open time and time again asking God to remove the tendencies to act out as my own mother did. Instinctively, I am NOT maternal, I am NOT nurturing, I am NOT gentle, I am NOT patient but in times past I have been very quick to yell and throw things. While I have drastically improved over the years, these have all been attributes that I have studied and learned by watching how my friends interact with their kids. I dove head first into this whole mothering business unplanned, unprepared, and without a straw to grasp as far as being a mom was concerned. Why? Because I am a motherless mother. I didn’t have a mom. I had a woman who pushed me from her body, resented her role, taught me how to live a corrupt lifestyle, and showed me exactly what not to do and that is all I have had to go on, simply trying not to do what she did and trying to do more of what she didn’t, all while hoping and praying it works so that the cycle can be broken for the betterment of my children’s future. Being a mother is something I will never regret, I love my babies and I am so proud of the incredible people they have grown to be, in-spite of my shortcomings of being a motherless mother.

So, there you have it, my version of what it looks like to be a motherless mother. For those missing their moms this Mother’s Day, my heart truly aches for you. My intent with this post is not to diminish or minimize your pain, it’s just my reality and with some prompting from my counselor it was time to share it. I heal through writing and sometimes these things creep back up and need to be dealt with in a healthy way. We can all learn from each other and my hope is that those who read this will learn empathy, compassion, and be more willing to accept the call to mother the motherless mothers around them the way that some of my dearest friends have done for me. You all know who you are and I’m forever grateful for your efforts to not just fill the shoes my mom left empty, but to toss those suckers in the trash and put some fancy heels in their place and teach me to rock them! I think my mom would be very proud of who I have become in her absence! 

I forgive you mom and I pray that you are finally experiencing the peace you lacked here on earth!