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| Nancy & Molly on Mother's Day, 5/10/15 |
Someday I will need to write it all out - my story, our story, tragedy and triumph, cruelty and compassion, fear and forgiveness, trauma and tenderness, loss and love, and so much more. Meanwhile there was a Mother's Day celebration yesterday with most of the family, including three generations of mamas and four generations total. Including precious, beautiful 10 week old Oliver, the first great-grandchild! This was followed by our simple continued celebration today with just my mama, me, and Ron. Sometimes it is hard to find words to express the true nature of the miracles that continue to unfold, with each one held in my heart as a deeply treasured gift.
There was much of my life in which I wasn't good enough - my past was wrong, the mistakes I made were wrong, my hair was wrong, my clothes were wrong, my weight was wrong, my husband was wrong, my politics were wrong, my thoughts and feelings and needs and boundaries were wrong... everything was wrong! I couldn't get it straight or right or do enough. I was to call her "Mother", not Mom. I was to cut my hair and wear my hair pulled back and wear Grosse Pointy type clothes and be pretty but not too pretty. The list goes on. For so many years I did not know how to not take the barrage of attacks personally. So I suffered the torture and shame and self-loathing any child does of not feeling loved by one's own mother.
Years passed, and with it endless hours of therapy and books and conferences and intensives and women's circles and ceremonies and immersion in Nature and becoming a mama myself to three amazing sons and more. And then a miracle began to seep into my bones and I was awakening from the nightmare and truly began to get it that this is not about me. I was experiencing that I am lovable! And - We all are all connected and all worthy of love!
When Mom asked a year ago why we hadn't seen each other for the 14 years prior to her first breakdown and hospitalization the year before, I gently related to my mom that she had thought she didn't like a lot of things about me, like my hair or politics. And Mom shocked me to my core after her silence was followed by, "There must have been something in me that I was taking out on you."
People with my mother's mental illness are supposed to be incapable of insight. Or love.
I experienced, and tried to work on in therapy, the shame I felt that I still held out even a 1% chance that my mother could ever be anything other than toxic. Even with the reassurance that yearning for a mother's love is something so primal, so natural for us all, I still felt ashamed. I should just be over my mother and get on with my life and move fully into acceptance that I would go through my lifetime without the experience of being loved by my own mother. Yes, I absolutely was learning to love myself, to allow others to love me, and to love and feel deeply connected with others. I was integrating and experiencing in my heart that my mother's projections were not about me. And I was healing and awakening and transforming so much loss into so many blessings. Still, I could not completely shake this yearning in my deepest heart of hearts to have something, anything - even something neutral, as opposed to toxic - with my mother. Yes, there was only this teeny bit of hope left, but mostly I lived with the knowing that my mom just couldn't, she just couldn't love anyone.
Then there was the breakdown and divorce from husband #4 that began at the end of 2012. That was followed by the nearly year long and nearly $250,000 legal fight with a former step-son (of husband #3) and his wife, who fiercely tried to block my mom from leaving Michigan to spend the rest of her life here with family. (Yes, there was money involved.) Then, finally, on December 21st, 2013 Mom came home to her family for good. And effective treatment for her mental illness coupled with the immersion of family love has made possible the impossible.
Like our Mother's Day celebrations yesterday and today. There is more to celebrate today than I fathomed would ever, ever happen. And I am blown away again and again and again. Not only do I have three incredible sons - and now a beautiful grandson! - who fill my life and my heart with profound joy and gratitude and love, I now, for what feels like the first time in my life, have my mother.
Because beneath and beyond it all - beyond the most severe mental illness, beyond the trauma and terror, the abuse and addiction, the endless shame and blame, the utter cruelty that any of us is capable of when pushed beyond our limits - is love. It is the love that Pema Chödrön speaks of, the love that does not die. This, I believe, is the essence of who we all are. Even when it appears as though someone has completely left and checked out, as in 100%, there is still this beauty, this essence of the Sacred, that is there, buried under layers upon layers of wounds and betrayals and unbearable injuries to the heart and soul. The Sacred that permeates all does not die.
I have such deep compassion for all of us who have ever lived in the nightmare of illusion and separation. The terror, the agonizing loneliness, the desperation and despair of being so deeply asleep can drive anyone to cause great harm to themselves and others. My twin couldn't endure this pain and when he just couldn't find a doorway out, at age 26 John ended his life. The miracle of miracles is that my mom has found a doorway and - in this lifetime! - has been able to experience some degree of awakening from her nightmare. No, all the depression and distortions, the fears and loneliness have not just gone away. That said, my mom - my mother! - has beat all the odds and is not spending the rest of her life imprisoned in the darkness of the nightmare.
Instead, she gets to have experiences like yesterday and today in which there is some light that comes shining in and through her heart and the hearts that surround her in love. And I get to watch Mom/Nancy/Grandma/Great-Grandma light up from the inside out - along with the rest of us! - at the utter beauty of her now 10 week old great-grandson. I weep with the miracle of it all. Life is amazing!
And, at our core, we are all beautiful.
Bless all the mothers and all the children everywhere.
Today and always.
♥ Molly
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| Lilies in our backyard pond. Photo taken on Mother's Day 2015. |
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