warning: the journal entry below is of a (long) sensitive adult nature, i am sharing a part of myself as a way to purge something deep inside of my being. not for pity or sorrow, but for discovery.
tomorrow is mother's day.
17 years ago my mom died of pneumonia on mother's day. may 11th was the date that year, but it was a mother's day, my mother's day. since then, it has never really been the same...
i was the only one of 4 children my mother raised from birth. all but 2 of us had different fathers. she raised me alone until i was 4, then married an abusive, alcoholic man named bart. he had 2 kids, an adult daughter and a son 6 years older than i. he painted and detailed private jets for a living. we were considered upper middle class. my older brother came to live with us when i was 5. he was 7 years my senior. his father had raised him after my mom and he had split up. i was of course an anti-social child.
i was 6 when we moved to "odd acres". a sprawling 49 acre hobby farm in mustang, oklahoma. previously it had been owned by a signmaker who had created 2 enormous steel and fiberglass arrows for an oklahoma state fair in the late 50's, it was then owned by my stepfather's employer. when i was a child those arrows remained. one lay in the field overgrown by grass, one stood tall and proud at the end of our quarter mile driveway. inhabited by a family of white owls and often the target of drunken, teenage kids wanting to scale the 50 ft oddity. i still remember the "cow grate" and steel pipe gate at the end of the drive that became my childhood bus stop. i also clearly remember the day my step brother and i found the car of kids at the bottom of the drive. the 13 year old girl had been huffing paint and glue all night with two 17 year old boys. she was in a catatonic state. i remember the ambulance coming. i was 8 yrs old, 1976 was the year....
my mother taught me to fish
my mother taught me to camp
my mother taught me to shoot a gun
my mother taught me to drive
my mother taught me to work on the car
my mother taught me to garden
my mother taught me to ride a horse
my mother taught me to live life
but...
my mother also taught me to let men walk on my bones and to compromise my integrity
my mother taught me to self deprecate and deny myself
my mother taught me to be afraid to be alone...
i used to think my mother never taught me how to love myself, because she didn't know how to love herself. yet i think by watching her, in the end she did teach me how to love myself.
no matter what, in all your shame and all your glory...i love and miss you mom.
happy mother's day
tomorrow is mother's day.
17 years ago my mom died of pneumonia on mother's day. may 11th was the date that year, but it was a mother's day, my mother's day. since then, it has never really been the same...
i was the only one of 4 children my mother raised from birth. all but 2 of us had different fathers. she raised me alone until i was 4, then married an abusive, alcoholic man named bart. he had 2 kids, an adult daughter and a son 6 years older than i. he painted and detailed private jets for a living. we were considered upper middle class. my older brother came to live with us when i was 5. he was 7 years my senior. his father had raised him after my mom and he had split up. i was of course an anti-social child.
i was 6 when we moved to "odd acres". a sprawling 49 acre hobby farm in mustang, oklahoma. previously it had been owned by a signmaker who had created 2 enormous steel and fiberglass arrows for an oklahoma state fair in the late 50's, it was then owned by my stepfather's employer. when i was a child those arrows remained. one lay in the field overgrown by grass, one stood tall and proud at the end of our quarter mile driveway. inhabited by a family of white owls and often the target of drunken, teenage kids wanting to scale the 50 ft oddity. i still remember the "cow grate" and steel pipe gate at the end of the drive that became my childhood bus stop. i also clearly remember the day my step brother and i found the car of kids at the bottom of the drive. the 13 year old girl had been huffing paint and glue all night with two 17 year old boys. she was in a catatonic state. i remember the ambulance coming. i was 8 yrs old, 1976 was the year....
my mother taught me to fish
my mother taught me to camp
my mother taught me to shoot a gun
my mother taught me to drive
my mother taught me to work on the car
my mother taught me to garden
my mother taught me to ride a horse
my mother taught me to live life
but...
my mother also taught me to let men walk on my bones and to compromise my integrity
my mother taught me to self deprecate and deny myself
my mother taught me to be afraid to be alone...
i used to think my mother never taught me how to love myself, because she didn't know how to love herself. yet i think by watching her, in the end she did teach me how to love myself.
no matter what, in all your shame and all your glory...i love and miss you mom.
happy mother's day
VIEW 17 of 17 COMMENTS
May 08, 2004 08:49 PM
*hug*
you're beautiful.
...very true, and you bring beauty with you.