A Child's Guilt: I Almost Made My Mother Die!

After losing my mother in 2020, I find myself thinking about her, much more than I did when she was alive. That might sound like a bad thing, but in my case, it's really not.

That's because when my mother was alive, it was too hard not to remember all the terrible things from my childhood and the resentments that I still held onto.

Many painful memories, I even wrote about, as a form of healing. But now that she's gone, for some reason, the resentment seems to be gone as well. I really wish I had more positive memories of her, but unfortunately, most of them are pretty bad.

For example, the one that surfaced in my mind and prompted me to write the following story a few months ago.

A child's guilt

It’s about the time I was twelve years-old and I was so angry at my mother, I prayed that she would die. Not wished that she would die, I said I prayed she would die. The next day she overdosed and was on death’s door.

Before I tell you the story, consider these thought-provoking points about typical and not so typical relationships with parents.

Notice what a Forbes article had to say about dysfunctional families less than two years ago.

“…according to recent statistics, 70%-80% of Americans consider their families dysfunctional. If you’re in the minority, you might find it hard to imagine not having an emotional connection to family members.”

Relationships with Parents

So the experts even agree that most people have struggles when it comes to relationships with their parents; meaning, a certain level of dysfunction is not only acceptable, but expected. Families on that level are usually pretty cut and dry. Your mother makes you crazy; so what, you bitch about it, you love her anyway, and you manage to move on. Hate never truly enters the picture, not really.

But children from abusive, and/or neglectful homes don’t always have such cut and dry feelings when they grow up, no matter how much older they get. The struggles they have had to overcome can make it near impossible to let go of negative feelings.

The inability to let go of the hurtful past can actually cause feelings of guilt that only intensifies the problem. Being able to ever achieve self-love can be hard as hell under these type of conditions.

Attempting to behave and feel like normal people do about their mothers is impossible, when your relationship with your own mother has basically been a living hell.

Extreme Circumstances May Exist

Once again, this is not to say that some of you readers don’t have parents who drive you bat shit crazy! (mothers in particular, because that’s the focus in this story). However, what I’m talking about is a whole other level of dysfunction.

The kind of dysfunction in my family is evident in my heartfelt story about guilt and sharing family secrets. It suffices to say, some mother child relationships are more complicated than you can imagine.

As you read what happened to me when I was twelve-years-old and wished my mother dead, you might get a better understanding about my jumble of confusing thoughts and emotions.

Here is my story of where hate, love, and guilt all find a way of colliding.

Embarrassment Leads to Anger

The day before I almost made my mother die (or at least that’s how I saw it in my 12-year-old mind), my mother made me hate her, again. Silently hating her in my mind wasn’t unusual for me to do, nor was my wishing her dead. She was often mean, regularly abusive, mostly neglectful, and sometimes just a plain old witch; and let’s face it, I was twelve.

There was no way in hell I could get away with the typical crap that mouthy adolescent girls get away with (now or back then). My mother already beat us on a regular basis for far less than mouthing off. But none-the-less, I’m sure I was no angel.

On the day before things erupted, my mother had angered me. It wasn’t even for the latest barrage of verbal and physical abuse, but mainly for embarrassing me and making me feel worse than crap.

She had come home late in the afternoon, and caught me outside when I wasn’t supposed to be. Even though she’d been gone since the day before, her popping up like that was unexpected.

My younger sister had actually been outside also, but I’m the only one that got caught. “Get your ass in the house! I told you not to come outside! I’m about to beat your ass! Get your nappy headed ass in the house!”

It was always so unreasonable of her to expect us to stay in the house all the time, especially since it was nearing the end of the summer. My mother would disappear for days. She’d make us stay in the house so nosey neighbors wouldn’t know we were home unsupervised.

My older sister who normally stayed and cared for us, had started going off to stay with friends because she could barely deal with my mother anymore. When my elder sister (five years my senior) wasn’t there, being the next oldest girl, I was the woman of the house.

It just so happens; the spectacle my mother made was witnessed by my friend who lived in the apartment next door. She was sitting outside on the porch with me, along with her brother and a friend of his.

All of us were in the same age group, so naturally I was totally mortified to be belittled and embarrassed that way in front of my peers, especially when everyone including my so called friend laughed at the remarks.

As a child, I was always sensitive about my hair, and my mother used to hair shame me all the time. But I couldn’t believe she would say something like that in front of everyone. I had gone to such lengths to make my hair look cute before going outside, and clearly it hadn’t worked.

It didn’t help matters any either when I went in the house and my mother proceeded to curse me out and render several blows.

She was definitely in a bad mood and a drugged out frame of mind, but thankfully, other than the few whacks upside the head with the wooden back scratcher, she wasn’t in the mood for whipping me that evening.

She went in her room and eventually passed out, thanks to an ample supply of barbiturates.

It didn’t matter that the beating stopped prematurely because the damage was already done. The sound of the blows and my loud shrieks when they landed were all audible from the window. The whole building probably heard it. The boy sitting out there with my friends sure had; darn, and he was cute too.

I had never felt so embarrassed and couldn’t believe she humiliated me like that. The truth is, she’d done that and more, in front of people that didn’t matter, but I was kind of crushing on that little boy, so it only intensified the hurt, as well as the embarrassment. And like I said, I was twelve.

So that night, while I lay in bed crying and licking my wounds, first, I wished her dead. But my desire for it was more than usual. Wishing just didn’t seem to be enough, so I did something I’d never ever done before. I prayed about her, but not what I normally prayed.

I prayed to God to let her die, instead of praying to “fix” her or “make her act better” or even “stop her from taking drugs” the way I sometimes used to pray. Something dark had come over me so I prayed for something dark; then I got exactly what I prayed for.

Be Careful What You Wish

The next day, my mother woke me up early in the morning, but why, I don’t know. I was irritated because I didn’t have school and it wasn’t check day, so I didn’t need to get up and go with her to do errands. On top of that, I was super pissed, because I hadn’t forgotten or forgiven her for what she did.

I could tell from my mother’s demeanor that she had gotten up sometime during the night, and never went back to bed.

Judging from her appearance, she seemed to be coming down off the amphetamines that she had obviously taken to get her wired up. But that meant she had a mixture of both drugs in her system now; something she definitely was not supposed to do. She usually allowed some time to elapse, in between taking them.

One drug is an upper and the other one is a downer, so they shouldn’t be taken together. It’s not like they simply cancel each other out like that. My mother was formerly a registered nurse, so she knew better.

Based on past experience, I knew whichever drug was in my mother’s system right then, it was going to be an inconvenience for me, if not a problem. She called me and insisted I get out of bed.

“Get a pencil and paper. C’mon. I want you to write sumthin.” Her voice slurred and she could barely stand. She was in the doorway of her bedroom, right across from ours. I could see behind her, into her room. The current boy toy (about ten years her junior) was passed out on her bed; fully clothed, shoes and all.

I climbed out of the top bunk. That’s when I noticed my older sister had come in without me knowing it, and her and my younger sister were both sound asleep in the lower bunk.

I was happy to see my sister, who had probably returned home to check on us, and make sure we had food in the house. She still behaved like our mother, but she was only sixteen herself.

I was angry and bitter and wondered why I always had to be the one to play secretary to my mother’s madness. It wasn’t unusual for her to get me out of bed and have me “write something down” like my role in life was to be at her beck and call and take dictation.

But what could she possibly want me to write at this time of morning? All kinds of angry voices were screaming in my head.

“I hate my life! Why does she have to be like this anyway? Why God, why? I hate her!” I recalled my prayers from the previous night. Something about the light of day wouldn’t allow me to repeat them, but in my mind and my little angry, hurt, twelve-year-old heart, I refused to take them back.

By the time I found a pencil stub and something to write on, my mother was sprawled out on the living room floor. I knew immediately that something was wrong. She was on her back, and her eyes were open but rolled back in her head.

“Mama? Mama!” I screamed the words but no response. I stood staring in disbelief. I was just talking to her. How could she be laying there looking like that, with her eyes rolled back in her head?

I shook her, harder and harder. There was still no response, but I could tell she wasn’t dead, at least not yet. But every fiber in my body told me she wasn’t far off from death. I suddenly remembered my sister had come home, and ran into the room calling for her.

My older sister got up, but oddly enough, my sister, a year younger than me, never woke up during the entire ordeal. We got my mother’s boyfriend up, and a good thing too, because it took all three of us to get her into the bathroom and in a cold tub full of water.

We ran into a problem when it came time to get her out of her clothes. Surprisingly, the tight fitting bell bottom jeans she was wearing weren’t as difficult to get off as that darn blouse!

The blouse was a brand new black blouse with big puffy sleeves and my mother had only worn it once. Not only had she bought the blouse too small for her, but it didn’t have buttons or zippers, so you had to pull it over your head.

When my mother’s boyfriend suggested we cut the blouse off her, I flew into hysterics. “No! no! Mama will be mad! You can’t cut it. No Gary, please. Get it off some other way.”

Him and my sister eventually managed to calm me down. They gave me the task of running to the store to buy milk, to help induce vomiting. I made them swear they wouldn’t cut the blouse off while I was gone. When I left to go a block away to the liquor store, they were still wrestling with the blouse on my mother, as the water filled up in the tub.

Taking it All Back

I left out our apartment at an accelerated pace, and took the shortcut out the back of the building, and down the alley.

I flew fast as my legs would carry me, afraid that it would be too late, and mama would no longer be breathing.

I jaywalked and ran across the street in the middle of the block, completely bypassing the crosswalk at the corner. It was an early Saturday morning and no real traffic on the street yet.

I grabbed a quart of milk quickly and threw the crumpled dollar my sister had given me on the counter. Then I took off running again, not bothering to wait for a bag or my change. This time, I had to stop and wait for several cars before crossing.

I waited impatiently, hopping around as if I had to use the bathroom. I wondered what was happening. I wondered did they get the blouse off. I wondered if my mother was still alive.

I thought about how angry I had been at her the night before. Suddenly, without warning, the feelings and negative thoughts that had overwhelmed me the night before, started to creep back into my mind and spirit.

When it was clear to go across the street, I still hurried, but I didn’t run. While I walked across the street and back in the direction of the alley, for a split second, I allowed myself to entertain the thought of what it would mean if my mother died.

More foster homes, or returning to McClarren Hall if no home was available. And this time, there would never be any homecomings and reunions with mama, because there wouldn’t be any more mama.

Just having that thought form in my mind, and knowing my mother lay dying in a hard cold bathtub, was all it took to re-light the fire under my feet and make me resume my sprint back to the apartment at top speed.

Somewhere, during the course of my inner conflict and mixed feelings, I prayed again, and I told God “I take it back”. That’s the only thing I remember thinking, but I guess He knew exactly what I meant.

When I handed them the milk, my mother was still sitting in the water, wearing nothing but her underwear. She looked slightly better, but she wasn’t totally conscious, and they kept lightly slapping her on the face and doing things to shake her and try to make her come around.

As my sister and the boyfriend managed to force the milk into her, I had to leave out the bathroom. I was too distraught to deal with what was going on, especially when I saw the wet blouse laying on the floor where they discarded it. I cried when I realized they cut the blouse off her.

Nearly an hour later, once they had induced vomiting and gotten at least some of the drugs out of her system, the three of us got my mother to the bedroom, dried her off, and got her tucked into bed. The next few hours, we took turns checking on her and later, nursing her back to health.

At some point, my sister made me lay down and get some sleep. By then, my younger sister was up and had been clued in on what was happening. Since she hadn’t been awake to witness it all, it didn’t have the same impact on her. She just took the opportunity to sneak outside and play.

My sleep was restless, not just because it was daytime. Subconsciously I was still worried. When I got up, I peeked in on my mother. My sister said she was going to be fine, but she was still sleeping, but I wouldn’t believe it until I knew for sure.

It was late that night when my mother finally woke up. I had fallen asleep again, this time on the living room sofa. I heard someone go into the bathroom. The familiar sound her house shoes made, dragging on the linoleum let me know it was her. My heart smiled, as I got up to go greet her, but then it sank just as suddenly when she yelled to no one in particular.

“What the hell happened to my blouse?” She stood holding the damp blouse that someone had simply thrown back into the empty bathtub.

Instantly I got a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it was a familiar one. That’s how I knew my mother would be okay.

Making Peace

I’m older now and have made peace with most of my past. But honestly, I think I’m always going to be still “in the process of healing” but that’s okay too. I choose not to remain broken, so it’s up to me to do what it takes to fix things, and don’t allow them to be broken again.

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