Mother's Day or Something Like That....

I can't remember when or how Mother's Day became such a heartbreaking and sad holiday for me but it was sometime during my childhood. I honestly don't remember any Mother's Days celebrated with Jo Beth. I was 9 when she died and I have very early memories but none of anything I ever did for her for Mother's Day. I am sure that her lack of care or concern for me added to the feelings that I never thought of Jo Beth as my mother. I had been told all my life by her mother, my Gran, that I needed to be thankful that I was adopted by such loving and caring parents. She would tell me I could have spent my entire life in Foster care and I needed to be grateful. Really? Who says those words to a child? All I knew is that when Jo Beth died, I was free! I was free from bondage and free from abuse. After finding my adoption records, I now know that Jo Beth never wanted or bonded with me. The report stated that Jo Beth was extremely self centered and introverted. They did not think that she was capable of loving anyone other than herself. This is never qualities that a mother can have an be a good mother. I can honestly say today that I don't feel bad when I say that Jo Beth was never my mother and I am thankful that she died and was no longer in my life.

Then came my step mother, Norma. I thought at first that she was the mother "I had always dreamed of." Boy was I ever wrong. For the second time, I was placed into the care of another woman who never wanted me. All she ever wanted was a daughter that would be her slave; to clean the messes she would leave behind and never be a self thinker. I look back and realize I was a modern day Cinderella. Each night Norma would fix crappy meals for our family of 5, everyone would eat and all the dishes were left for me to clean the next day after school. I was to come home and get the kitchen cleaned each day before Norma got home from work. Then, on the weekends I was required to vacuum and dust the house while her two sons did nothing. One was seven years older than me and one was three years younger than me. This was truly a Cinderella story. I had ratty clothes and shoes and the house was a mess as the three of them were horders. As I grew into a teenager our relationship went from bad to worse. It was my Daddy and me against Norma and her two sons. We were five people living under one roof but we barely spoke to each other.

Then one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my life was finding my birth mother, Jane. Wow, what a special kind of psycho is she. I was the product of a two and a half year long affair she had with a married man even though she lied to me and told me she only knew him for about 6 weeks. She knew he was married and had kids even though she lied to me and told me she didn't know. My birth father's wife got pregnant again, so Jane got pregnant with me to trick him into leaving his wife and marrying her. When her plan backfired she dumped me. I was now the baby she no longer wanted. She never saw me and signed over her rights the moment I was born. Jane made choices and honestly I am glad I was not raised by such a cold-hearted, deceptive woman. She never ever mentioned me again. She never told her husband, whom she married when she was 3 months pregnant a little over a year after my birth. Imagine this poor man's shock when he comes in and finds her crying one day with my letter in front of her. For 29 years, I had been the secret she had forgotten about. I tried to have a relationship but I was a huge reminder of her lies and decent and she could never have a relationship with me. I did try once again when Heather had cancer but....my mother, who carried me in her body and gave birth to me, could not put she selfish heart aside and reach out and be a human being. Jane sent me a generic sympathy card, then she and her five children managed to make a whopping $25.00 donation in honor of Heather. Really?? Keep your money and buy food. What an insult. Jane to my sisters is the perfect saint of a mother and they say that she loved her kids and grandkids with her life. Really? You watched how she treated me, her first born child and her granddaughter, and you can still say that.

I recently found out that Jane was in the hospital battling for her life. She is currently in a nursing/rehabilitation facility. I of course got no call or word from her family that anything was wrong with her. Did on her near death bed, she think about me? Did she want to say anything to me? Did I cross her mind at all? Or was I the child that she never wanted and never loved and never really gave a second thought too! My question still remains how can a mother love 5 of her children but not the 6th? As a mother who had my beloved daughter die, I would give my life to have another moment with Heather. But then again, I was her Momy.

I can only remember one Mother's Day that I was glad to be celebrating and that was 2008. This was the Mother's Day about a month after Heather was diagnosed with cancer. We had no idea if she was in remission not but for that moment I was ever so thankful that she was here and alive and with me. Her gift to me that year was a pair of teardrop shaped peridot earrings. She picked these for two reasons; one was that was her Grandma Coombe's birthstone and it was the color of Lymphoma. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that was her last Mother's Day. It makes me wonder if she knew. Did she know her time was short? Mother's Day, 2009, was 20 days after Heather died. Wow really? I wasn't even out of extreme shock and I went right into Mother's Day.

Please don't tell me I am strong or brave. I am not strong or brave, I am surviving. I wasn't given a choice. Cancer invaded and didn't ask me. Heather died and didn't ask me. I got a life makeover without my consent. I am forced to live without my child I don't have a choice. I am surviving.

Please don't tell me Heather is "always with me." Actually my child is never with me anymore. I can't visit her. I can't hear her phone call or receive her text messages. I can't ever get another gift from her for my birthday or Mother's Day. I won't get flowers from her anymore and she won't bring me another caffeine free diet coke from Circle K. I always carry her with me. I will picture her face and her smile, but no, she isn't here. She isn't married and living in Disneyland. She is dead and she is gone.

Please don't tell me Heather is in a better place. Yes, she had cancer and the last 33 days of her life she was suffering. I know she isn't suffering anymore, but I can't visit her. I can't call her. I have no new memories made with her and there are no new photos. She is missing, gone, away from every single family event that happens now. She is permanently gone for the rest of my life and that hurts, It hurts big time!

To everyone who had a great mom, or even an average mom; count yourself blessed. This is a treasure that some never know. I have never ever known the love of a mother. I know the love as a mother to her child, but I have never had a mother's love. I don't have a mother to hold me when I cry and grieve the death of Heather. I have no mother to share her bond with me as her child as I journey without my daughter and her granddaughter. Being a mother to Jenn, Heather and Wendy, I cannot imagine allowing my daughter to grieve the death of her child alone. The saddest words my daughter ever told me was she prayed she didn't grow up to be like me-a grieving mother. Think about that statement for a moment...my daughters don't want to have one of their children die and be a grieving mother. I don't blame them as I never ever ever ever ever ever want Jenn and Wendy to be like me, their mother.