To My Mother

To My Mother and the Secrets You Never Knew.

Dear Mom,

Time passes like the wind. Sometimes it dances by as a gentle breeze while at other times it pounds us down as furious as the hurricanes, as unforgiving as the tornados. That was our love, through time. It started out gentle. Loving is the mother’s touch. It ends in rage, before being lifted into the light of forgiveness, fading away just as the winds do over the seas and the mountains.

The winds, such secrets they carry with them. Some are simple while others are woven with the most complicated choreography of dance. They start out small with good intentions. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, everything is possible. You can tell your child almost anything and for a time, they will believe you. Not because they must but because they want to. You are the hero. Still bound by the age of innocence, hope springs eternal. I wanted to believe you. I wanted to believe in you as much as I wanted you to believe in me. But that just wasn’t your way. I know you have your own secrets… insecurities… deceptions. I know this because one of the best lessons you ever taught me was how to hide them. How to lie, to keep truths buried in the night and to feel shame without cause.

You have watched me struggle through life, looking down your nose at me, scowling with jealously and disgust. Yes Mother, that’s right, surprise. I know. I have never told you this. I have always acted as the naïve innocent little girl, never understanding why my mother lived without regard, blinded by ignorance. I know how you have resented me from the moment you learned of my conception. I know how I have always been a constant reminder of the husband you despised to be my father. I know, how you tried to erase time, erase him, pretending he never existed. But I made that impossible for you. And for that, I would forever pay, even in subconscious ways.

Don’t get me wrong, I know you love me. I love you. You gave me many wonderful memories through the years, taught me some very important life lessons. You did the best you could. I give you respect for that. You did the best you knew how. You showed me to be strong, to always find a way, even if it wasn’t the best. You taught me how precious time is with her mother perceived through a little girl’s eyes. You gave me the joy of how wonderful love feels and how painful it is to lose it. You bestowed in me that opening my heart will always cause my deepest pain. So many lessons have come from you over the years. It has been almost a decade since we last spoke. Sometimes a barely remember you. Other times I remember you until the pain is almost unbearable, but not really.

The truth is, we both have many secrets. Some are good and some are not. Some are meant to hurt while others were created to protect. I respect that. I could give you a list of my own secrets. Some as simple as it was me who stole the liquor from your secret stash, not my brother. All the way to the complexity of why you are no longer in my life. People ask me if I miss you. I tell them I miss having a mother. I don’t miss you. I miss who I used to see you as when I was a child. When I looked up to you. When I believed you would walk through fire for me. I miss the times when I saw magic in you. When you believed in something more. I miss that woman, that warrior, that mother. SHE was my mother, not you. You killed her long ago, let others bury her, smothering her with your hate and loathing.

Yes, I have many secrets, indeed. What is my biggest secret?

Despite my forgiveness, despite moving on with my life and letting you go without any ill will, there is a deeply hidden truth. Your death would never be by my own hand but if I saw you dying in the streets, I would probably walk by without shedding a tear, more likely to help a stranger. I mourned your death many years ago. There just simply are no tears left for you.

But that is not a secret.

The pain you caused, the pain I let you bring into my heart, I could not stand. I could not bear. But I had to live, I had to move forward. I have my own daughter to love and to care for. A daughter who will never be blessed by the love of a grandmother but will also never know the rejection of her mother.

But that is not a secret.

I feel sorry for you. You have missed out on the company of some very beautiful souls. You have made your choices just as I have made mine. I am not as cold as you may think. But then, you have never really known me at all. It wasn’t easy for me to let you go. To accept how small your love really is.

But that is not a secret.

Yes, we both have many secrets, indeed. Alas, there is only one left that really matters with regards to you.

My biggest secret. The one only known between me and the Gods.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go on living without the love and presence of my own mother. I couldn’t breathe.

But I had to. I had to because I was not going to leave my daughter the way you had left me. I just couldn’t do that to her. What was the resolution? A simple one. My resolution was Magick.

I cast a spell to protect myself, a spell that could never be broken. I banished you from my heart and from my soul. I banished you from my life. You can no longer ever cause me pain. We have been cast apart, by my own free will, to forever be untouchable to one another. This was my choice, my demand. Of course, I knew there would be a price not of my choosing because balance of the Universe is essential by the way of the Universe. Even in eternity nothing is without balance.

When I gave up your pain, I gave up feeling unconditional human love as well. I guess it somehow came out subconsciously in me that if I couldn’t get it from my own mother than I would get it from no one at all. But Fate has her ways. My curse brings me several blessings. I suppose this is one of the many reasons I was blessed with a daughter of the autistic spectrum. She is a person who may receive unconditional love but can never fully feel it, understand it, or give it freely. She is not capable of such understanding. That’s okay. She got one of the good moms. A mom with patience, who grows and accepts the extraordinary conditions required to love her enough. A mother who will always be there for her. A mother who would live for her, die for her, walk through fire for her.

So now you are wondering why a daughter would be so willing to let go of her mother despite the years gone by. No matter what I tell you, you will not hear nor understand. That is okay. I accept that with open arms. But the truth is, the answer is really quite simple. When the time was right, it became a very easy decision for me, without haste. It was time.

How do I know this to be true? To be the right decision?

Because right now, as you finish this letter, you are crying and feel like you are torn apart inside even though we both know there is some relief deep within your heart.

As I finish this letter, I am smiling, and I am filled with peace and love deep within my heart. Just like you taught me, I found a way.

Blessed Be.

- Elisabeth Healy