I chose this topic today in honor of my Mother, Connie Lee, who has been gone since 1967 from this earth. I'm writing about Mom and life without her in the hopes that it will help others out there who have encountered the same issues as I have. I run several Yahoo Groups discussion lists for Mother Loss since 1998. My Mother, Connie Lee, is the reason 'why'. I want to offer hope, comfort, empathy and understanding to others who have dealt with the loss of their Moms so that they know they are not alone in the many issues, experiences and feelings that they undergo.
Mom: She passed away when I was five years old from injuries she sustained when she was in a car wreck. She left behind three little kids, I was the eldest. Mom was a month shy of her 23rd birthday. She had left my abusive father after five years of marriage and the day she was in the car wreck she was due in court to divorce him. He got the news at the courthouse. She lived 14 hours after the wreck. When I say my father was abusive, I mean, he had gone so far as to put her in the hospital with a broken arm before. He beat her when she was pregnant with me. I heard these things as I got older from other relatives and friends of the family. He really thought he could hide that past from his children after she died by cutting us off from information but it didnt work.
It was very hard growing up without her. Sure, my Dad remarried a scant four months after her death and 'provided' what he considered to be a fascimile replacement. (she came complete with two kids of her own) and then they had a son together one year later. She never replaced my Mom, she was a cold fish woman who didnt have understanding, empathy or compassion for the three little kids she had taken up in a package deal when she married my Dad. (who were only five, three and two). They were married for 17 years. My father gave this step mother my own mothers wedding ring to wear and she wore it until they divorced. I didnt get my mothers wedding ring until I was 24 years old at the birth of my third child, my only daughter. That ring is with me now until I die. Its all I have of my Mom other than a few photos and some costume jewelry and a few scant fleeting memories that a five year old holds on to of her mother.
In any case, we were raised in a household pretty much devoid of real love. The adults simply went through the motions on a daily basis. As children, we bonded together, full blood siblings to step and all to our half brother. We tried to protect one another. It was the adults that were nuts.
I never forgot my Mom, as hard as my Dad and step mother tried to make her memory go away. They packed up her pictures, got rid of her belongings and kept most of her relatives, OUR relatives away from us so that we could not know about her.
Teenage years were very tough without a Mom to talk to, certainly I could not talk to my step mother about any of the normal girl things one needs to talk to a Mom about. I was very isolated in my concerns and had to read books to find out information. I became an avid reader. My step mother hated it because she was really not very intelligent and didnt like to read. Every time I came back from the library she would go over my books, reading the backs of them to see if they were 'appropriate' and if the word 'love' or some other word she didnt approve of was there, she made me march back to the library and take back the book. (we are talking the 70's here). I learned to get books that didnt have jackets and relied upon the head librarian to help direct me to good books as I began reading at an adult level way beyond what a lot of kids were doing. The library was my santuary.
The Step mother used her religion to try to control us for a period of time. My Dad, an abusive, alcoholic let her use her religion and force us to go to those meetings etc, because it allowed him to keep us all in control while it allowed him to do what he wanted to do, as he was not in it. In our teenage years we rebelled highly and they gave up trying to force it. It was frustrating to us to watch the step mother lead one life when she was at her religious meetings and another when she was with Dad. It was like leading a double life constantly. As children, it put us in the untenable position of being outsiders no matter how it got sliced. We werent good enough for the church crowd kids even though we were forced to go and werent allowed to have worldly friends because it was against the religion. It really isolated us.
But getting back to my Mom.
The way we were raised we were not allowed to grieve. My Dad didnt let us go to the funeral for Mom nor did he allow for counseling or explaination of death, grieving etc.
We were told to 'dry it up'. Crying was something my father detested. He wanted us 'tough'.
I sobbed into my pillow when I was alone. I wanted my Mom. I couldnt stand my step mother and really began to detest both my father and my step mother.
I left home at just turned 17 and got married, had my first son, quit school in my junior year to escape the bad home life. Ten years of that marriage, three children born to it and it became abusive after six years or so. We were divorced.
Grieving for my Mother hit me into my thirties. Depression and anxiety. I didnt really understand. I have suffered from severe migraines ever since I was 22 years old. (strikingly the age my Mom died at). Two of my three children also suffer from migraines.
In any case, one day when I was in a bookstore with my husband, (a favorite thing for us to do), perusing the bookshelfs. I was in the self help section and there on the shelf was a book whose title blazed out at me "Motherless Daughters: A legacy of Loss by Hope Edelman".
I felt the breathe drain out of me...omg..
In all my days, I had never met anyone who had ever been through childhood mother loss. Everyone had moms growing up. I was the isolated one, the unusual one. But everyone assumed we had a Mom because we had the step mother and trust me, she didnt ever take the place of my mom. I picked up this book and started to flip through it and read the stories of mother loss. Suddenly I felt an overwhelming panic settle on me of grief. I was totally unprepared for it. Here I was in the middle of a bookstore for goodness sakes and I was crying and losing it. I felt an overwhelming desire to get out of that store. I knew something was going on emotionally that I had not ever dealt with before.
I have a wonderful husband, and thankfully when I found him he got me out of there and I explained what was going on he was very comforting.
A few weeks later I went to the library and got that book. I tried to read it, but every time I did I got so emotional I had to put it down. I tried this for a month.
Finally I had to take the book back. I never got it read totally. It is ironic that I never even thought as I was growing up that anyone else was going through what I was going through. I was raised in a very small town in Southern Indiana. We walked to school and everybody knew everybody else and their business. We just didnt know anybody else who had gone through the loss of the Mother. Divorces, yes. But not motherloss.
Here I was at the realization for the first time in my life .....that I was not alone. That very realization was a comfort to me.
I thought about how I could find other women/girls who had or were going through this. I wanted to connect, to be able to talk about the experiences life had put me through, put them through.
It was then I thought of the Internet and I had already had one discussion list that I was running for yorkie owners. (we have three). So I began the first Motherless list which was for women/girls only (back when onelist and then egroups before yahoogroups had control) and that list blossomed into several other lists for motherloss, motherless2 a list for women/girls who have lost their moms in the past two years who are more raw to the emotion of loss, motherless3 a discussion list for women/girls who have lost their moms to abandonment, adoption, estrangement (through religion or other issues and moms can be alive or passed for this list), motherlesscoed, a list for men and women, motherless4 which is my baby a list for women/girls who lost their moms when they were children or teens, and a peer list for twentysomethings and under to discuss motherloss with each other called motherless5. Recently I just started Motherless6 after many requests from men to join the motherless lists who wish to help their children after the loss of their wives.
These discussion lists began their life with that first list in 1998 and have been going strong ever since offering a supportive environment to those who have experienced motherloss.
This I have done in honor of my Mom, Connie Lee ...may flights of angels sing her to her rest.
I love and miss you always Mom~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mom: She passed away when I was five years old from injuries she sustained when she was in a car wreck. She left behind three little kids, I was the eldest. Mom was a month shy of her 23rd birthday. She had left my abusive father after five years of marriage and the day she was in the car wreck she was due in court to divorce him. He got the news at the courthouse. She lived 14 hours after the wreck. When I say my father was abusive, I mean, he had gone so far as to put her in the hospital with a broken arm before. He beat her when she was pregnant with me. I heard these things as I got older from other relatives and friends of the family. He really thought he could hide that past from his children after she died by cutting us off from information but it didnt work.
It was very hard growing up without her. Sure, my Dad remarried a scant four months after her death and 'provided' what he considered to be a fascimile replacement. (she came complete with two kids of her own) and then they had a son together one year later. She never replaced my Mom, she was a cold fish woman who didnt have understanding, empathy or compassion for the three little kids she had taken up in a package deal when she married my Dad. (who were only five, three and two). They were married for 17 years. My father gave this step mother my own mothers wedding ring to wear and she wore it until they divorced. I didnt get my mothers wedding ring until I was 24 years old at the birth of my third child, my only daughter. That ring is with me now until I die. Its all I have of my Mom other than a few photos and some costume jewelry and a few scant fleeting memories that a five year old holds on to of her mother.
In any case, we were raised in a household pretty much devoid of real love. The adults simply went through the motions on a daily basis. As children, we bonded together, full blood siblings to step and all to our half brother. We tried to protect one another. It was the adults that were nuts.
I never forgot my Mom, as hard as my Dad and step mother tried to make her memory go away. They packed up her pictures, got rid of her belongings and kept most of her relatives, OUR relatives away from us so that we could not know about her.
Teenage years were very tough without a Mom to talk to, certainly I could not talk to my step mother about any of the normal girl things one needs to talk to a Mom about. I was very isolated in my concerns and had to read books to find out information. I became an avid reader. My step mother hated it because she was really not very intelligent and didnt like to read. Every time I came back from the library she would go over my books, reading the backs of them to see if they were 'appropriate' and if the word 'love' or some other word she didnt approve of was there, she made me march back to the library and take back the book. (we are talking the 70's here). I learned to get books that didnt have jackets and relied upon the head librarian to help direct me to good books as I began reading at an adult level way beyond what a lot of kids were doing. The library was my santuary.
The Step mother used her religion to try to control us for a period of time. My Dad, an abusive, alcoholic let her use her religion and force us to go to those meetings etc, because it allowed him to keep us all in control while it allowed him to do what he wanted to do, as he was not in it. In our teenage years we rebelled highly and they gave up trying to force it. It was frustrating to us to watch the step mother lead one life when she was at her religious meetings and another when she was with Dad. It was like leading a double life constantly. As children, it put us in the untenable position of being outsiders no matter how it got sliced. We werent good enough for the church crowd kids even though we were forced to go and werent allowed to have worldly friends because it was against the religion. It really isolated us.
But getting back to my Mom.
The way we were raised we were not allowed to grieve. My Dad didnt let us go to the funeral for Mom nor did he allow for counseling or explaination of death, grieving etc.
We were told to 'dry it up'. Crying was something my father detested. He wanted us 'tough'.
I sobbed into my pillow when I was alone. I wanted my Mom. I couldnt stand my step mother and really began to detest both my father and my step mother.
I left home at just turned 17 and got married, had my first son, quit school in my junior year to escape the bad home life. Ten years of that marriage, three children born to it and it became abusive after six years or so. We were divorced.
Grieving for my Mother hit me into my thirties. Depression and anxiety. I didnt really understand. I have suffered from severe migraines ever since I was 22 years old. (strikingly the age my Mom died at). Two of my three children also suffer from migraines.
In any case, one day when I was in a bookstore with my husband, (a favorite thing for us to do), perusing the bookshelfs. I was in the self help section and there on the shelf was a book whose title blazed out at me "Motherless Daughters: A legacy of Loss by Hope Edelman".
I felt the breathe drain out of me...omg..
In all my days, I had never met anyone who had ever been through childhood mother loss. Everyone had moms growing up. I was the isolated one, the unusual one. But everyone assumed we had a Mom because we had the step mother and trust me, she didnt ever take the place of my mom. I picked up this book and started to flip through it and read the stories of mother loss. Suddenly I felt an overwhelming panic settle on me of grief. I was totally unprepared for it. Here I was in the middle of a bookstore for goodness sakes and I was crying and losing it. I felt an overwhelming desire to get out of that store. I knew something was going on emotionally that I had not ever dealt with before.
I have a wonderful husband, and thankfully when I found him he got me out of there and I explained what was going on he was very comforting.
A few weeks later I went to the library and got that book. I tried to read it, but every time I did I got so emotional I had to put it down. I tried this for a month.
Finally I had to take the book back. I never got it read totally. It is ironic that I never even thought as I was growing up that anyone else was going through what I was going through. I was raised in a very small town in Southern Indiana. We walked to school and everybody knew everybody else and their business. We just didnt know anybody else who had gone through the loss of the Mother. Divorces, yes. But not motherloss.
Here I was at the realization for the first time in my life .....that I was not alone. That very realization was a comfort to me.
I thought about how I could find other women/girls who had or were going through this. I wanted to connect, to be able to talk about the experiences life had put me through, put them through.
It was then I thought of the Internet and I had already had one discussion list that I was running for yorkie owners. (we have three). So I began the first Motherless list which was for women/girls only (back when onelist and then egroups before yahoogroups had control) and that list blossomed into several other lists for motherloss, motherless2 a list for women/girls who have lost their moms in the past two years who are more raw to the emotion of loss, motherless3 a discussion list for women/girls who have lost their moms to abandonment, adoption, estrangement (through religion or other issues and moms can be alive or passed for this list), motherlesscoed, a list for men and women, motherless4 which is my baby a list for women/girls who lost their moms when they were children or teens, and a peer list for twentysomethings and under to discuss motherloss with each other called motherless5. Recently I just started Motherless6 after many requests from men to join the motherless lists who wish to help their children after the loss of their wives.
These discussion lists began their life with that first list in 1998 and have been going strong ever since offering a supportive environment to those who have experienced motherloss.
This I have done in honor of my Mom, Connie Lee ...may flights of angels sing her to her rest.
I love and miss you always Mom~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1 comment:
Thanks for this view of your life.
Unkindness is a cancer ulcer of mankind. I think, you mastered your fate well, by helping now different humans, who grew up mother-und dearless/unkindless.
How are today your brothers and sisters?
Sorry, i hope Google-translation help me right?
All the best for you and your family!
Kind regards from Doro/Germany
Catzia@freenet.de
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