Kept my mind and hands busy most of the day, but tonight as the warm night winds wafted through the apartment the jumble of thoughts in my head started over flowing. I took something to help me sleep but after an hour of lying in the air conditioned bedroom I decided I had best get up. The bed seemed too crowded, my mother was taking up to much room and it is time to purge her again from my bed and head

Mother crept into my thoughts a few times whilst I was cleaning the apartment but I was able to push her out of my headspace.

I have issues with the dear woman and never got the chance to resolve them before she vanished in the world of dementia. When her mind started to go, she no longer recognized me as her daughter, although I wonder if she really did to begin with. I viewed myself as her unpaid maid service very early in my life.

Mom would always make the comment that I never cleaned thoroughly enough and was what she called a surface cleaner. Funny coming from a woman who never had time to clean because she was too busy interfering in other peoples’ lives, and she could hardly boil water.

After I was away from home and would drop in to see how she was, there would be weeks of dirty laundry covering the washing machine, the bags of garbage I had filled on a previous visit or two were still piled in the back porch all but blocking the door. Cat feces would be under bookshelves and instead of cleaning it up; she would just lay down another layer of newsprint. Mother never threw anything out, weekly scandal sheets would be scattered everywhere, some 8 years old, she would comment there might be something she had not read in them yet.

A couple of years after I had married she asked that my husband and I please move in as she had a live-in job and required someone be in the house to take care of my grandmother and youngest brother. Not to mention pay the bills, buy groceries etc. After some considerable thought, we did move in and I tore the house apart from floor to roof. Seventy-five bags of garbage lined the curb, that did not include the old insulation we remove, I had to make an appointment for the garbage company to come in and take such a large load. Twenty-five boxes of goods went to charity. We tore out the inside walls and insulated, put in new wallboard and did the same with the ceiling. We removed all the old insulation from the attic and a large number of boxes, mother’s cats had used the area as their litter box.

Mother would pop in every two weeks to visit until I found she was working not three blocks away, at which points my then husband and I moved out, taking out money with us. Mother had not needed to be a live-in as the husband and wife she was supposedly caring for were ambulatory and their own children visited often.

I permitted my mother to take advantage of me for years.

I was my father’s favorite when I was small and I do believe she never forgave me for that.

When my Dad disappeared into a bottle of alcohol, or many bottles of alcohol, I lost him and found myself to be so very alone. I was pleased to be sent away to school. I managed to get a very good education whilst my brothers did not even finish high school. I did try to keep them in school, even bribing them with the promise of a new car or motorcycle. It was after all my job to take care of them; I was made their guardian in my mother’s absence when I was 19 years old. I still have the legal document, it is about the only thing I have from my past. Well that and the issues I still carry.

I recall a time when I pleaded with my mother to take me to the doctor as my legs hurt terribly and I could not put my feet fully on the ground. She finally relented and was told my Achilles tendons were torn. Another time I was complaining of a sore stomach, she admonished me all the way to the doctor’s office and told the doctor she was sure it was just me wanting attention. I threw up on the doctor’s carpet. I truly hated summer vacations and not staying at school.

I was thrown from my horse on another occasion; I hit the ground with my head hard enough that it dented my riding helmet. I was unconscious for more than an hour, the stable owner drove me home, I was not taken to the doctor and the damage done to my neck has resulted in migraines ever since.

It is no wonder as I sit here with tears rolling down my cheeks, that I still feel unlovable and unwanted.

My treatment as a child left me never wanting to have children; they must be such a burden. It is not surprising that I panicked when I discovered I was pregnant and sought professional help. I of course had to be in the small percentage that the birth control pill did not work on. I still am an advocate for those women who want their ovaries removed before they are twenty-five. We have our reasons.

I can look back and see my mother had problems that should have been treated with something other than valium, and I have long since forgiven her. Nevertheless, for some reason I cannot get passed the neglect and the damage that was done or the sense of abandonment.

I am a strong, resilient person because of my past and learned from the mistakes my mother made. I hug people ( after asking to invade their personal space) if they appear to need comforting, I will stop and ask if I can assist any woman I see crying on the street. I listen when people need to talk and keep their confidence. While I trust no one, people can trust me. And I love with my whole heart.

The question that keeps rolling over in my mind “Why could you not just love me?”

An old physician of mine once told me “the trial and tribulations you have endured have been rewarded in gold, place in your heart by God to share with the world”.