Love always, Elizabeth

Dear Mom,

One of my first memories of you takes place in the parking lot of the third preschool I attended in fewer than two years.  The ring finger on my right hand is bleeding and the rest of my hand throbs with pain.  I had not gotten into the car correctly and your anger, disappointment, and frustration were expressed with the intentional and repeated slamming of my hand in the door.  It was not until my finger got caught in the locking mechanism and you saw the blood running down my arm that you stopped, realizing perhaps, you may have gone a bit too far.  Before you deny that this happened, know that the scar on my finger is still there and hasn’t faded much with time.  It is obvious even from a bit of a distance, much like the scars from the other things you did, and did not, do still are.  

It has been decades since you looked away and did nothing the summer I came home from my dad’s house bleeding, blistered, and unable to speak properly because of the damage that had been done.  I spent the next year and a half in speech therapy, being made fun of at school, trying to learn how to talk correctly again.  Though you were not the one who put the razor blades in my mouth while raping and torturing me to teach me to be silent no matter how much pain I was in, you were the one who let it keep happening because you kept sending me back to him.

You don’t know this, but sometimes I still wake up bleeding from my mouth, having bit open the scars on the inside of my cheeks and lips while I slept, and although I have improved to the point that rarely does anyone notice this about me, speaking still takes its toll.  Always.

It has been twenty-eight years since that one afternoon in November when you found the bag full of baby things I had hidden under my bed.  When you asked if I knew who the father was and I told you I didn’t, you called me names I would never say out loud. Names I can’t even bring myself to write.  You didn’t ask how it happened.  You didn’t ask if I was ok.  You didn’t ask how far along I was or what I wanted to do, and you didn’t ask if I had names picked out.  You just kept screaming at me until you were done and then like so many times before, you were silent.  Just like you were silent later that spring when I didn’t have a baby.

On the off chance that you are interested, I was a little over five months pregnant when you found the bag and I did have names picked out.  I chose them based on characters in a book series I had liked reading when I was younger.  Because even then, when I was alone and getting ready to give birth, I myself was still a child.

Twenty-six years have passed since I lay on a Turkish rug in a pool of vomit, too weak to push myself up because I chose to use the little bit of strength I had left to call for you, begging you to come to me, desperate for my mother to do something, anything, to help.  You didn’t, which should not have surprised me because one night a few months earlier when I was sitting on my bed, staring into nothingness, as I did so often after my child was murdered, you also left me alone.  I had lost most of my hair, my skin had turned grey and it was covered in bruises that would not heal and cuts that would not close.  My eyes were always rimmed in red, and I was cold. Endlessly. Always. Cold.  Cold in a way I had never felt before, and cold in a way I have never felt since.  You walked by and looked at me, your lip curling with disgust, and told me if I wanted to kill myself, I should go ahead and do it, but you didn’t want to have to deal with it.  You shut the door and walked away, once again leaving me alone and silenced.

I never told you this, but as I lay there, on the rug you cared about more than me, with stomach acid burning my cheek, I realized I was truly alone in this world, that no one was ever coming for me, and that if I wanted to live I was going to have to find the strength to get up and do it on my own.  The next day I walked fourteen miles round trip to a used bookstore, bought a single book, the only one I had enough money for, and used it religiously over the next year to figure out what was wrong with me and how I could get better. 

Six years after that, I would try to talk to you about a mere fraction of what had happened during the times I was with my dad and you would respond by saying that that explained why I was so messed up and had so many problems because it certainly wasn’t your fault.  You changed the subject and we never spoke of it again, in part because a few weeks later, you placed a letter in my daughter’s diaper bag instructing me never to tell anyone what happened because it would ruin the family.  You did this knowing we were moving to Spain and would neither see nor speak to you again for months, knowing that I wouldn’t find your note until we were in the air and had no chance to respond, and knowing that you were, once again, silencing me. 

It has taken me many years to have the strength to say this, and although you tried to pretend it wasn’t so, the reality is that you damaged me.  Immensely.  I fully acknowledge that you were not the sole source of harm, and I will never blame you for things that are not yours to bear, but the fact remains that you did nothing to protect me, nothing to comfort me, and nothing to ease even a little of the pain I experienced.  I am willing to give you grace and say that perhaps you could do nothing about the things that were happening.  I am willing to assume the best, give you the benefit of the doubt, and say that like me, you too were completely powerless in the face of so much evil. 

Yet even if you truly could stop none of it, even if our escape was impossible, you could have decided not to abandon me.  You did not have to leave me to walk that wilderness alone, you did not have to look away while I was in pain, and you did not have to silence me so that you could pretend it wasn’t happening.  The choice to do these things, and the choice to relinquish all but the most basic responsibilities of keeping me mostly alive, was yours and yours alone. You, and only you, bear the fault, and the responsibility for that decision. 

It would be easy to write this off as bad luck on my part and explain it away as the behavior of someone so emotionally stunted that they were completely incapable of parenting.  Except that’s not true because you cared for your other daughter.  She ate dinner at the table with you, not alone on the floor in another room like I usually did.  She didn’t have to sleep outside when you didn’t want her around, because you always wanted her around.  She didn’t struggle with school like me.  She didn’t cry like I did.  She wasn’t angry like I was.  She wasn’t constantly sick.  She didn’t have nightmares.  She was the easy child---a fact you reminded me of often when you would tell me you didn’t want me and wished I had never been born.  

Though I cannot undo my existence, and therefore could not give you everything you said you always wanted, I was able to give you at least some of it on the day I walked away from you and made my exit from your life as calmly, gently, and kindly as I could. The first few years without you I cried every day—on my way to work, during Friday night services whenever the rabbi mentioned parents, on holidays when so many others were calling their mothers for a recipe or advice on managing in-laws, and when I would trace the scar on the inside of my right ring finger, its raised borders reminding me of a moment, however awful, when we were together.  

As time went on, the pain and shame I felt for leaving you became something to which I grew accustomed; something I learned how to carry.  The intensity of your loss has lessened over the years, but not a single day has gone by without you on my mind.  Not a single day has passed without the dull ache of grief.  I still feel your absence.  Endlessly.  Always.

It was not until this past summer, a little over twelve years since the last time we spoke, that you came back into my life by way of an email from your brother.  He told me you were dying and urged me to reestablish contact in case the worst were to happen sooner rather than later.  Knowing he has a flare for the dramatic and that his interpretation of situations is not always the most accurate, I waited a day to consider the implications of a response.

Ultimately, I decided to err on the side of what I hope was kindness. I responded to him, saying that although I didn’t know how to get in touch with you if he knew how and he thought it would be to your benefit, he was welcome to let you know that I love you, that I think of you all the time, and that I wish you nothing but love, peace, joy, and all good things. Always.

He responded, giving me your phone number, copying you in the process so you would see my words and know that you are loved and that you are forgiven.  I waited another day, unsure of whether you would want to hear from me, not wanting to cause you pain if my sudden, unexpected presence would open old wounds, especially if you were in as vulnerable of a state as he suggested. 

I weighed all of this carefully and decided, once again, to err on the side of what I hope was kindness.  I texted you and told you much the same as I had in the email—that I love you, that I think of you often, and that I wish you love, peace, joy, and every other good in life.  I don’t know if you got either or both of my messages because once again, I was met with your silence. 

As I write this in a café somewhere along the French and German border with tears running down my cheeks, I don’t know whether you are alive any longer.  I don’t know what life was like for you in the years since I left and I don’t know if I hurt you when I did.  I don’t know if you ever think of me.  I don’t know if you ever loved me. I don’t know if you were ever proud of me.  And I don’t know if there was ever a moment, just one single moment when you actually wanted me.  I accept that I will likely never know these things and that so much between us will be left unresolved.

What I do know is that I stand by what may have been my last words to you.  I know that I wish you love, peace, joy, and all of the amazing things this life has to offer.  I know that I am thankful for the incredible gifts you have given me and the lessons you allowed me to learn.  I know that I love you. Endlessly.Always.

Because you didn’t want me around, I know what the earth smells like at night and what dew looks like on blades of grass as the sun rises. Because you turned away when I was in pain, I have been comforted by the vastness of the universe, by the extraordinary beauty of the stars as they pass through the night sky, and by the life that surrounds us. Always.

Because of your silence, I have learned that no matter what someone does or does not do to me, no matter what they say or do not say to me, I have the capacity to forgive, I am capable of choosing love, and that when I am presented with these opportunities, I will do both. Always.

Because you abandoned me during the worst moments of my life, I have learned that even in my weakest hours, and on the darkest nights, I have the strength to push myself up out of the mess, and I will find a way to live another day. Always.

Because you didn’t love me, I have learned that as painful and difficult as it might be, I can walk away from other people who do not love me and walk toward those who do. Always.

Though our paths may never cross again, I will carry you with me in the scar on my finger, in the lessons I learned, and in all the opportunities you continue to give me to grow. You will be a part of me. Endlessly. Always.

For all of this, and for so much more that I have left unsaid here, I will be grateful.  

Love always,

Elizabeth