Memories of my mother come up, especially when Mother's Day rolls around. She died 28 days short of her 41st birthday when I was 21.
I had a lot of issues concerning our relationship, and it wasn't until several years in recovery, that I came to realize she had fibromyalgia too.
I had to change my attitude and look at life with new perspective. The biggest thing was, how could she teach me what she had never been taught herself.
I talked to my sponsor after a few years in recovery and told him that I thought I was going crazy, because I found myself, calling her and saying, "Mommy!" He said, "Perhaps now you have forgiven her." I didn't know that forgiveness was needed because most of my memories were buried deep and there were things I didn't want to remember.
I remember my brother being killed. I remember saying, "Dougie, come out of the way." I remember the guilt when my mother told me that I went up to my uncle and said, "Daddy Bun, why did you kill my Dougie." I heard my mother say, "Thank God I have Margaret." I was very hurt, I thought, what am I chopped liver. I was three, my brother two, and my sister was only 6 weeks old. I didn't realize that a new born baby would help her to deal with her pain, and that she had to deal with the baby, and she couldn't bury herself in her grief.
My mother used food to deal with her feelings concerning my Dad's alcoholism and carousing. She was warned about her eating and the need to lose wait, because they said she would not leave the hospital if she came back. Six weeks later she came back, and never made it home.
So much pain that had to be brought out to the light, so that I could heal. I couldn't make a direct amend to my mother, but I did manage to journal, do a meditation, talk to her, and make things right. It was sad, "I remember after one of my escapades saying, "It is a good thing my mother can't see me (denial), she wouldn't be just rolling over in her grave, she would be in perpetual motion." A sure sign of a very sick mind and how the substance we use, can really change us into something we thought we would never become, losing our values and principles along the wayside.
Happy Mother's Day.
