Happy Mother's Day has many different angles. I am a mother, I am estranged from a mother, and my daughter is a mother. Generations of women ahead and behind me. The past and the future connected by me.
Mother's Day looking back at my mother leaves me empty, where praise and heroic memories should be. I see the volumes of heavy obligations and escapes. Holes in her morals and values when they were needed the most. Her tapestry is weaved by her weakness, blindness and faithful love of her religion. A shroud that leaves me out.
I feel nothing to celebrate or praise.
Nothing that draws me near.
I know her fabric, for it was from there that I had to break free.
I know its weight and confinement.
I too was dead, but breathing.
Busting out of the heavy cloak of denial is what has set us apart.
I see, feel and can move independently.
My freedom and awareness dance lightly in reality.
And yet, there are strings and threads of my past.
I cannot get a different childhood and parents.
My estrangement will always set me apart.
From those whose lives are untouched by abuse and those who still hold tightly to relationships laced in abuse.
I am between both worlds.
Different.
A third path.
New
I celebrate those who are strong enough to break free of old patterns, of letting go from dysfunctional families, to be resolute in the separation.
The distance between my mother and I, is what will give my granddaughter a new legacy.
Sheryl Sandberg spoke of Post Traumatic Growth, in her book “Option B”.
“The one I will become will catch me.”
I love this.
I truly know what it is like to have to become the one to catch me.
It was to become the mother I needed to mother me.
That is post traumatic growth.
Using trauma to grow is how we change the legacy of abuse.
I celebrate the post traumatic growth Moms.
Women who have gone against the pull of family in order to create a new pattern; one free of dysfunction and abuse. Those who show great post traumatic growth! They are worth celebrating!
They stand alone, strong, brave and empowered; Badass Moms.
Who I became caught me; and with her I face a future filled with hope, love, peace and joy!
Happy Mother's Day, celebrate women who changed their families legacy; by being stronger than the circumstances of their childhoods.
Women who love themselves enough to tear their patterns apart and recreate a new shawl of love!
