Faith, As A Mustard Seed

If you had asked me when I was 16 who I loved most in the world, I would have said nothing. I would have repelled immediately from the question, like a dog who had been kicked too many times. I would have thought you were an idiot for thinking love existed.

I am 24 now. These things have changed for me. I have learned that love does exist, that it does give as well as receive. I have learned the valuable lesson of unconditional love, something only a mom could provide, something only a child could take for granted. This monumental achievement did not occur by accident. I did not suddenly awake and realize that my past wounds were self inflicted. I did not have the clarity that the choices open to me were many. I thought love was something that only deluded people had the luxury of believing. I thought there was no sense in pretending I could belong to anyone or anything.

If you’re wondering how it is that I came to this epiphany, let me explain the concept of my history. Let me indulge in you, the reader’s, sympathy. My story is lengthy, my words desperate to grasp the pain that has plagued my family, generation after generation. My mother is the daughter of a schizophrenic zealot who terrorized her as a child. I am the daughter of a psychopath who functioned through fear and torture. This story is not a pleasant walk down memory lane. It is a treacherous climb, with many twists and turns. It sometimes scalds and it sometimes burns. My family lineage is only discussed in whispered reproach. The women only surviving through wit and steel. None of the men so far have shown an ounce of courage, none of them have even the barest notion of what it takes to heal, what it takes to conceive. They are footnotes to the mother I had to grieve. I ask for your patience and understanding as this path is a complicated exploration into what I deem a breaking of cycles, a reminder of dreams.

I will take you to the place it began. It was hot where I grew up, it was sweltering. I remember the cement peeling. This place was inhospitable in nature and also in people. I was not cut from the same cloth and my mother hated the bullies that tore at me. She was all fierce, all fiery. She had dark eyes, she had a sneering nose. My mother was all strength when it came to protecting her children. This served her well for a while, but it would not last. It was lit too quick and went just as fast. I do not hold it against her, she had a terrifying past. She could not hug me, not really. She kept me at a distance, she was wary. The man who lurked in her bed is not someone I will ever call dad again. He preyed on her strengths, which were many. He threatened to continue hurting me if she ever got scared enough to run. She didn’t leave my side but it came at a great cost. I cannot measure the toll. I cannot compare the effects terror has on the soul. My mother was a lion but father was the poacher who threatened to cut off my head. In this twisted exchange of marriage I only saw rage. My mother kept in a cage, kept to herself. She was careful to keep him happy, she was careful to make us leave the house. She ran the errands, she was the perfect spouse. This fear led to a decline in her mental stability. She could no longer focus, she could no longer talk to anyone but herself. She wore ill fitting clothes and tried to purge her demons away. She was bulimic, she was frayed. She kept a prayer journal with the words “Lord make this ok.” She never escaped, she never laughed with her whole face. She was transported in a disassociated place. The older I became, the worse it got. The more attention my body held for older men, the more her frown lines deepened. My father became more emboldened. He started taking me to places without her, he started making suggestions that she couldn’t fathom. This is a dark, scary place to be in. Both mother and daughter hopeless to flee in. I tried many times but I couldn’t leave her alone with him. We were trapped, we were home.

The revelation of my womanly independence did not come until I accepted a new boyfriend. This catapulted the fear my mother experienced into overdrive. She started staying up all night, she started yelling every day about why I would need birth control. I know my mother saw me as young and precious. It broke her heart to watch as I morphed into another generation of self imposed servitude. My only regret is the next part, the part that I think back to and wonder what would have happened if I had stayed, if I had watched over her.

Have you ever been to Las Vegas? It is a place of certified sin, carnal pleasure. It is a place I lost my mother forever. By this time she didn’t go outside anymore, she barely combed her hair anymore. She lost the wind that had carried her into this portion of life, not that it had been much of her life at all. She was relegated to living with this stranger who had been abusing her for almost 30 years. She was dried up, she couldn’t cry tears. This woman who used to speak with such fire had nothing to say. One day she called to see if I was ok. One day she asked me if I was safe. I didn’t understand at the time that this was her last goodbye. I didn’t understand at the time that the voice over the phone, so small, so soft, would be gone swiftly as if the Earth had snatched her out of thin air. I look back and think maybe if I had said I wanted her with me, maybe if I had said thank you for all those years she kept him out of my bed, I wonder if she would be here instead. This was the lesson it took me years to understand. This woman who I always wanted unconditional love from was fighting the devil instead. She fought so hard and for so long and she did it for me. All this pain, this torture had been done for me.

So as it is said hindsight is 20/20. I almost followed in her footsteps, I almost held myself back to keep her memory intact. I felt like this world took and took and never gave. It wasn’t until I spoke to God and heard her name. It wasn’t until I saw her in the leaves of fall, in the grasses tall. It wasn’t until I realized she is finally safe, she is finally free. She is my protector, she watches over me. I did a lot to try to dismember myself in the hope that I could disappear. I did a lot to try to pretend that losing her wasn’t the most painful thing I had ever endured. I had to watch it slowly, I had to flee eventually. It was this regret that I punished myself with all those years. The regret that I couldn’t save her from all those tears. I see now that my mother laid down her life to protect me. She never abandoned me even when given the opportunity. Now I have a duty to make good on the promises that were missed by my mother and my mother’s mother. I learned the wisdom of self preservation. I learned to trust my guided intuition. I learned that I deserve the world and that my ancestors paid for it in blood. I learned that despite her loss I am still carried by her presence. Even in the darkness, the tiniest light shone to show me the way. I pulled at the stones threatening to bury me. I disposed of the men who threatened to murder me. I wrapped myself in my mother’s warm embrace and now I look onto the world with a hopeful face. If I had been prompted to write about my mother when I was 16, I would have few words to fill the empty page. Thankfully, since then this has changed. I see her everywhere. I know now that it’s ok to not live in fear. My mother is always near. If that’s not a boss move, I don’t really know what is.

I know by telling this story it is something to keep her in memory. I know that even when the past feels so dark, it is up to women to lift each other up. We must proceed together in order to raise another generation up. Through my experiences, I have the opportunity to show women that it is not the past that defines us, but the present moment that we live in. My children will have more hope in their hearts than my grandmothers could ever have dreamed of and it is all due to the brave soul that I know as Mom.