The Holidays And My Mom

 The holidays always bring up feelings that I had as a child. I didn't have a Mom at home. She left when I was 18 months old. She would come and go, but she couldn't stay,  because daddy beat the crap out of her. She would have been a statistic if she had stayed. 

I didn't have understanding of that as a child. I just felt abandoned. 

I didn't have a parent to tell about school.  No milk and cookies waiting for me. No one to talk with about my period at 10. I sat in the bathroom alone, waiting to die. 

Daddy came home later,  but I never said anything to him. I stopped bleeding and figured I was going to live. 

The next year we had health class and I learned what was happening to me. I stopped using torn up rags and asked daddy for kotex money. He was silent but handed me the money. 

I was mortified the first time I bought them. The store owner handed me a paper bag and I put the pads in it. He looked inside the bag, took the money and that 1st hurdle was done.

So many times I wanted a Mom. I couldn’t share my boyfriends, my first baby or my divorces. 

The abandonment manifested in me pushing people away. I left before they could. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it brought a lot of pain. 

I never got to talk with my mother about any of it. I received a telegram when I was on Okinawa that she had died on Jan, 20, 1978.  I was days away from 25 and couldn't cry. 

She was 53 and her drinking had finally saved her from her life. 

I think I look like her. 

I miss you, Mom