Rage Within

    Why?  Six months old and shoved off on my aunt and my grandmother while you played.  A fine example set by the oldest daughter.  Other than being born, what could I had possibly done to make you throw me away so carelessly?  My aunt, still a teenager, saddled with a crying infant during a time that should have been carefree and fun.  My grandmother, a stern, no nonsense woman would throw water in my face everytime I cried and leave me miserably alone in a dimly lit bedroom so I wouldn't be in the way.  How I cried for you, my tiny heart broken.

    Why?  Four years old, sent to live with strangers; foster homes that gave me no happiness or comfort, only physical, sexual, and mental abuse.  Four years, I went from one set of strangers to another, never staying long in one place.  Did you ever check on me?  How well I remember the first night at the group home, standing in a crib, terrorized and traumatized, crying my heart out for a woman called mother.  Did you know of the beatings I took, skin ripped away with thorn branches, blood streaming down my tiny legs, my screaming cries filling the air and no one there to comfort me.  Where were you?  Why didn't you care?

    Why did you get me back?  I spent most of my young days in an apartment while you would go from one bar to another for days at a time.  Nine years old with no babysitter and barely any food, I was left to tend to myself.  Often I would go to a friend's house for food, companionship, just to have someone to talk with.  You either never noticed or just didn't care.  Home sick with no one to care for me, I would call the one person who did care, my aunt, who could only give suggestions, since she now had a family of her own.  I was so confused.  I didn't know we were different from other families. It never made me wonder why.  All I knew was not to tell anyone; I knew I would be taken away.

    Why did I have to be the parent?  Why did our roles reverse?  I never asked to grow up so fast, to leave behind what was brutally called a childhood.  How I cursed you in my darkest hours.  Your drinking always came first, leaving me your custodian, cleaning up behind you, making you put on your discarded clothes, fighting off your one-night stands, making excuses when the cops came knocking on the door, pull you out from under the bed when you tried to hide from some monster only you saw, the times when the police or your prostitute friend would come to the door, telling me of another car accident you had driving home from some bar.  So many times, my heart bled, I would scream at the injustice.  But it fell on deaf ears.  Too tired some mornings to take myself to school, I shrugged it off as part of my "job".  People can be so callous, especially as their younger selves.  Classmates can be hurtful when they don't full understand.  I blamed it all on you, acting out in class, leaving school early.  Rage and frustration made me "mouth off", leading to bruises I couldn't hide.

         Always drunk, I needed you so much but you needed me more.  Someone to throw things at, I was your only target.  I got  "I love you" when you had been drinking for a few days straight.  Then back to the hitting, cursing, and verbal abuse would start again.  Why?  What did I ever do but love you unconditionally, even protected you the day I had to go see the school psychologist, who was asking me repeatedly if there was anything going on at home.  I cleaned up the messes when you couldn't make it to the bathroom and used the garbage can, only to tip it and youself over. How long I kept your secrets, ones that if revealed would tear me away from you again.

    I never could tell the truth from the lies, sometimes honestly not wanting to know.  All the time, protecting you, watching over you, when it should have been reversed.  Did I make you stay away?  Did you want a boy instead?  Why, mom, why?  You were always full of advice for me in your alcoholic haze that you would never do yourself.  You read every self-help book you could find.  I never understood why you never even tried to do better for you, or us.  Did you ever know how much I still loved you?  Did you even want me to love you?

    I know now some people just aren't meant to be parents, maybe that's why you weren't there when I was raped as a child and later as a teenager.  All types of abuse and you turned the other way.  Why?  Why couldn't you protect me?  Why did you just leave me to suffer in damnable silence?  Inside I would rage and scream for the injustice, and still could not love you less.  The unconditional love of a child kept its hold on me.  Maybe that's why I rage and can find no closure.

         Even when you died of cancer, years later when I was then a parent, I felt complete and utter loss.  How I wept and rage against the cruelty of life to take you away.  Faithful to the end, I kept my love for you inside.  Could you see me from where you were?  Could you see the bitter, flesh rending pain my heart had to endure?  Did you even care?

Now, years later, in my forties, I look upon that time in sadness and weep silently in my heart.  Though I still rage at what I went through, I tell myself that it made me stronger and showed me what not to do with my child, how to avoid repeating the life we both led.

I love you, mom, for all your faults were life lessons to me.  I am still trying to forgive and maybe at the end of my days, I will finally be able to forgive.