Broken Bonds
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Broken Bonds
She hadn’t believed the bonds of love between daughters and their mothers could break; that a daughter’s love for a caring selfless mother could be destroyed by the influence of their father, stepmother and grammy; but it happened. Like branches in full Autumn glory bent low with the accumulation of heavy snow, some snapped back upright shaking snow off their colorful leaves like confetti, but others cracked from the weight of it all and broke; fully severed from the tree.
Looking back, it was like a cancer that comes gradually and silently, until one day you are faced with damage to your being and a life-threatening illness. Barry, who’s depression and seething hatred had dominated their marriage once threatened “I’m gonna make sure these kids know exactly what I think of you and by the time they are teenagers they will hate you too”. She pitied him for being a hater ut didn’t believe he had the power to make his threat come true, or that her children would hate her. She chose to focus on the power of love instead to overcome all evil, and she kept moving forward.
She’d embraced motherhood from the start with every ounce of her being. She founded mothers groups and playgroups. She took her kids to beaches, parks, apple and pumpkin farms. Being divorced did not change her passion for parenting. She saved her pennies for vacations and road trips. She hosted craft parties, birthday parties and sleepovers. She bought them computers, electronics, phones, and party dresses. She made sure they had good relationships with doctors, teachers, administrators, guidance staff and other adults. She was involved in their schools like other caring patents, and was a milk n cookies mom with home cooked meals every night. She provided a loving home filled with laughter where their friends were always welcome and many happy times were had. She took them to church and instilled values of hard work and academic, providing a secure home life that allowed them to develop into honor students and mature individuals with part-time jobs throughout High school and into college. She even helped them shop for their stepmother and stepsiblings at Holiday time and brought them to visit Barry’s mother and grandmother to keep family values a priority.
Over the years her friends had observed that whenever the kids returned from a weekend with their dad, they were angry, conflicted, and distant. While married, Barry did things like mock 3 year old Tommy for crying on her shoulder, “Ohhh the baby has to run to his Mommy? Look at the sissy; the Mama’s boy”. This refrain resurfaced again when 5 year old Sally called from a weekend visit to Barry’s to tell her mom she lost her first tooth. “Oooohh look at the BABY who has to call her MOMMY…” There are many other ways he made it painful, even shameful for them to love their mother, care about her, or want to buy her birthday or Mother’s Day gifts. After she discovered that Barry had been driving the little girls around in the trunk of his Jeep so that he could fit all the stepchildren instead of taking two cars, he forbid them from telling her about their time spent with him, saying “It’s none of HER business what you do when you are visiting me” and he forbade them from bringing any of their birthday or Christmas gifts to their home with her. No wonder the kids were angry, conflicted and distant when they returned home after weekends with their dad. In a slow insidious way, they were made to feel she was insignificant, and worse, they began to adopt his hatred as their own without justification. When they became adolescents and begin to naturally individuate they added their anger to the scaffolding prepared for them and were told “You only have to put up with your mother until you are 18. Then you can leave her for good.” Like the discovery that all the stepsiblings had been sexually molested, it took a while for her to know the truth about the campaign against her.
“Grammy HATES you!” they told her once with slight sympathy and confusion, but as the years went by they began to parrot the abusive accusations she’d heard from Barry during their marriage. They called her a “psycho” (one of his favorites), sociopathic, abusive, addicted, and said she never should have had children. They said that 18 years with her was long enough, just like their father. That’s how Sally put it in a note she found on the floor of her empty bedroom. She’d also schemed that “when both of us are gone, then everyone will know it’s YOU that has a problem. With BOTH daughters leaving you, no one will believe that you are normal! Have fun with that”. It was exactly the kind of rhetoric she’d heard from their father in his threat about making the kids hate her one day. They have also written off their brother and other extended family members who do not align with them in hatred, thereby missing out on not only great maternal love and caring, but the love of their brother and many aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Somehow, she musters the strength to have joy daily, despite the chasm that exists in her family. She has an uncanny ability to smile at the future and not be stuck in brokenness and despair and brings joy where she goes often catalyzing the good in others. Truth is a choice. She knows her daughters have not chosen to see or know the truth yet and that it may never happen; truth will be a painful and difficult choice for them. But her life is good and she surrounded herself with friends and loved ones like hot chocolate and warm blankets. She has have learned the secrets of forgiveness and pushing past broken pieces of life. But PAS is real and will haunt her forever.
