Moments with Mom

Mom

She told me that when she first saw me, she thought I was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She said she’d had an overwhelming feeling of love and told me that she would always love me in the first few moments she met me. She told me that she would die for me, that that’s the strong kind of love she had for me.

She made my Princess costume for Halloween, complete with glitter.

She drove me to gymnastics, and dance, and tap, and choir.

She brushed my hair, went shopping for cute clothes with me, and for shoes, too.

She made sure I got the number one item I wanted each Christmas.

I had a swing set before my family had a couch.

She taught me to sing Jesus Loves Me and to play Heart and Soul on the piano when I was three and four.

She made fried chicken better than anyone, and made it often because it was my favorite meal.

She had an awesome white jumpsuit that she wore with an orange scarf tied around her neck, big round sunglasses and a permanent in her brown hair.

We sang Neil Diamond and Lionel Ritchie songs in the car as they played on the radio.

Her nails were always neatly filed in a half moon shape and the cuticles pushed back and trimmed, as she taught me.

She wore a silver fox fur coat.

Her favorite perfume was Nina Ricci, L’Air du Temps.
She thought Magnum P.I. was hot. We watched Dallas religiously.
She sang Amazing Grace in church and other hymns at people’s weddings. Her singing voice was gorgeous.

Every Easter I had a new dress.

I always had all my school supplies, all my school clothes, and church clothes.

I got to have friends over to spend the night.

When I had my tonsils out she fed me ice cream, and made a place on the couch for me to lay so I could watch t.v.

She planted azaleas and purple ivy in our flower beds and on the side of our house, and had hanging baskets of airplane plants and ferns in front of our house.

All that time I never knew that she was popping Mommy’s little helpers. Never knew she was drinking at night.

There were moments. Signs. She would later confess to me after having about three drinks that she had done something horrible to me when I was two. I was in the tub. I defecated. She became enraged and smeared me with my own feces, telling me that I was shit.

I have no recollection of that moment. It haunted my Mom, though, and I know that I did receive the message that at my core I was bad, or that there was a huge chance that I was. The fear was always lurking underneath. Sometimes it made me panic. I know that Mom was terrified that she was evil. It’s one of the side effects of being abused. The victim, so to speak, absorbs the shame that the abuser ought to feel. Happens all the time. Hearts break every day.