Mother's Day...Just Another Day

Longing for the Sun

I was 12 years old when you said goodbye
With no explanation why
You got in your car and drove away
All I could do was cry
You said you loved me, you loved my dad
But you couldn’t stick around
What does that mean? I’m confused
It must feel this way to drown
Trying so hard to get some air
Some stable ground to stand on
Fight through the waves of anger and pain
I still can’t believe you’re gone
Had you died, I could have learned
To accept being left behind
But you just left and I don’t know why
I feel I’m losing my mind
Do you even realize what you’ve left behind?
What we go through each day?
My dad’s depressed, my sister’s mad
I believe I’ve lost my way
There were no bitter words exchanged
Not even an angry glance
No clue that you would pack your things
And run at your first chance
How long were you unhappy?
What made you want to leave?
You said you loved us but still can’t stay
I don’t know what to believe
I’m afraid that I will always hurt
I’ll always be in pain
You’re gone and you can’t tell me why
Am I the one to blame?
I’m trying so hard to come to terms
With what you’ve done to me
I’m longing for the day I wake
And finally feel set free
Set free from the anger, guilt and shame
Of forcing you to run
Free from clouds of self-doubt and blame
Finally free to feel the sun

I wrote this when I was a freshman in high school. I was 14 and confused about my parents’ divorce.

I came home from school after just starting the 7th grade. My mom was on the living room floor crying. She had the cassette tapes out on the floor separated into piles. I asked her what she was doing. She told me she was sorting tapes because she was going to be packing. She was leaving the next day. When I asked how long she’d be gone, she said, “Forever, I’m leaving your dad.” My sister started yelling at her and that made me cry. She couldn’t tell us why. She just kept saying, “I love you two, and I love your dad, but I can’t stay here. I need to ‘find myself’.” Whatever that means.

Every year around this time, I get upset. Knowing Mother’s Day is coming stirs up all the feelings I tried so hard to suppress when I was younger. I buy her gifts, call her up and tell her I love her, but in the back of my mind, I have flashbacks of when she left.

I remember my dad crying in the dark. I remember him not being able to eat because of the ulcer he developed not long after she left. I remember him drinking in an attempt to drown his pain.

I remember my sister getting mad at the world. She lost her smile. She forgot how to be happy. She forgot how to be a family. Her grades stayed high, but everything else went down hill. The living room became my bedroom because she claimed she couldn’t stand the sight of me. I eventually came to accept her behavior and it stopped hurting. She eventually outgrew her bitterness and we became sisters and friends once again.

I remember myself going to school trying to pretend everything was okay. I remember standing on a stool to do laundry because, without one, I couldn’t reach the clothes at the bottom of the washer. I remember the frustration of learning to cook rice because if I didn’t cook, I didn’t eat and neither did my sister. Now that I’m grown, I don’t cook rice all that often. I don’t even cook unless I have to.

Being an adult, it really bothers me that this still hurts. How is it she was able to move on and act like nothings happened while the rest of us suffered? How do I know? Because she was gone less than a year before she became engaged. Because she has been home 3 times in the 22 years she has been away. Because she doesn’t take the time to ask me how I’m doing.

I think I finally understand why it is that I bend over backwards to help Space Cadet with her children even though I sometimes resent her irresponsibility. I don’t ever want her daughters to experience anything like what I did. I can’t keep Space Cadet’s marriage together should it fall apart, but I can make sure those girls feel loved and accepted each and every day of their lives. I can make sure that they know that, no matter what, someone cares. They matter to someone. They are important to someone.

I’ll never know why my mom left. I’ll never understand what her reasons are. Maybe I’m not supposed to. I finally admitted to someone else just the other night, that I tend to get withdrawn and somewhat depressed every Mother’s Day. Not because I don’t have a mother. Not because I hate my mother, but because I love her. She hurt me like nobody else has been able to…but I love her. She ends every conversation we have (which, sadly, are few and far between lately) with the same phrase I used to say to her when I was about 3 years old. Maybe she still thinks of me that way. Maybe she’s trying to make me think of life when I was that young. Maybe she wants me to remember when we were still a family; still happy. Who knows. All I know is I’m not very fond of Mother’s Day.