Mommy Dearest
February 11, 2008
When I am very sick or at my wit’s end, I curl up in a ball in my bed and cry. When I do not know my left from my right or up from down, I want nothing more than to just be alone. But I cry out for my mommy. I want my mommy I say over and over again.
I was adopted shortly before my third birthday. My sister and I both to the same family. My adoptive mother had many problems. She was not well. Subsequently, she would beat us and degrade us like no mother should. My sister has a different memory of our childhood, but that is for another post. I wanted nothing more than a normal family. I wanted a mother and father who loved me. I wanted a mother who did not make fun of me, but rather hugged me, kissed me, and told me that she loved me.
I was a normal teenager. While I had excellent grades, I talked back and disobeyed my parents. I however did not smoke or do drugs like my sisters did. But still I could not get this woman to love me. In one of our many fights, I asked her what it was that I was doing wrong. She told me quite simply that I was breathing. You’re breathing.
My mother used to say that once we grew up, we would not take care of her; we would forget about her. Truth be told, I still loved my mother very much. I had always thought about how I would take care of her when she would have no one like my grandmother. I had always tried as a kid and a teen to make my mother feel better. I knew she had issues with her weight that did not make her feel good about herself so i tried to get her thinking about other things or thinking that it was ok to get that Frosty from Wendy’s because it was something us kids wanted. I tried to make things right for her. I failed.
I got sent back into the system…no…scratch that…I asked to be sent back into the system. My mother had hit me with a glass coffee pot cutting the top of my head, and it scared me. I had ran out of the house so high on adrenaline that I did not even notice the oncoming car that almost hit me as I crossed the street to my friend’s house. My mother had come and got me assuring the friend’s mother that she would take me to the hospital. Instead, she took me home and cleaned me up as best she could. She was not going to take me to the hospital. If not for my friend’s mother calling the cops, I would not have gone. The idea that she could do that made me think she could do worse. Because the violence was only escalating. I was scared. I asked them to take me away from her. I was tired of the abuse. I hated that they would not take my sister with me, but I still say I would make the same choice today. I wanted to kill myself so many times in that house. I did not hate me or who I was; I just hated my life. Getting out freed me.
Yet still, when I am at my weakest moments or very sick, I call out for my mommy. I want my mommy. Only my mommy can make me feel better. Not that she was that type…just I want my mommy.
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