I think my Nmom wanted to primitively stamp me out.
But I think she couldn't help it.
And after looooooooooong years, I forgive her.
And I can love her memory.
I can see her trying. I know she tried. I know she had damage and genes and horrors that made her do this animal thing.
I know she wasn't capable of loving me like Mother Mary. She was just a confused little girl with a really sick father, raised in dire poverty, grasping for dignity and control and a better life. She got one.
She didn't OVERALL mean to hurt me. At some times, she did...
But I also heard her saying her prayers, when she was an old woman...I'd hear her as I went down the hall, I'd realize she was still just a very confused child.
She was accountable, but I don't blame her any more. I think they're different.
It's a release to let her go. Poor woman lived 98 years, and her last 14 months were more than enough punishment. I don't want to punish her, or her memory, any more.
She baked bread. She made clothes. She strove and tried and was brittle.
More to the point, she was of a generation and background that never, ever, would have considered therapy or counseling or dishonoring thy father permissible.
I am the lucky one. I grew up in a time when the world of the inner self opened up, and we were given tools to heal our hurts, and understand our pain...
She wasn't a sadist. She just turned out an N. Poor thing.
(I can also forgive her because she was nowhere nearly as bad as some of the cruel and sadistic Nmothers there are...so I'm not suggesting it for anyone else.)
love,
Hops