I was messing around with my old blog:
Ramblings From Basho and came across this post:
More Than A Lifetime Ago from June 9, 2008. I felt it was an appropriate tribute to the upcoming anniversary--January 10th--21 years since my mother was murdered. I read this one and was reminded of why I faithfully journal. Journaling pays homage to the person that I was. Journaling shows me how far I have come. Journaling marks my journey and allows me to travel back and remember the person that I was and allows me to be proud that I am still here; that I have survived; to note the strength the years have granted me. I can glance back at the pain and remember the wound, while touching the scar and realizing that that space is now simply numb. I am no longer that person. I am a warrior. I am a pioneer. I am a force to be reckoned with.
I am still my mother's daughter. But more importantly, I am now my own person. I am simply a person with a story. I still have some nerves exposed, but most have withered, blackened and simply ceased to be. I am a motherless daughter. I have walked this path for twenty-one years. I now assist others as they break, fall, and crash along their own path of loss. It is a loss that has its own unique pain and sorrow. It is a grief that one does not truly understand until they are engulfed in it themselves. I had no one to guide me through my loss. I discovered my path to healing through trial and error.
My only knowledge of being motherless was written in the past of what our mother suffered through by losing her own mother at a young age. My maternal grandmother died when I was ten months old. She was forty-one years old, my mother was twenty-four. It is unknown whether it was suicide or murder; she drove her car over a cliff in California. My own mother was murdered at the age of forty-two, when I was nineteen. Again, in California. My own path has always seemed curiously marked. This is a difficulty almost all individuals encounter as they reach the age that their same-sex parent was as the time of their death. I turned forty this past summer. The joke has always been that if I make it to forty-four, I am golden. I have never done well with imaging old age--I have no guides.
Birthdays do not trouble me as they do most people. I did not struggle with turning thirty, as everyone told me that I would. It was just another day. Surely forty would see some tears and a sorrow regarding lost youth? I watched the PFA boyfriend spiral into immense depression as his fortieth birthday drew close--surely, this birthday would see my struggling? I began practicing saying forty six months before it even occurred, just to see how it sounded. It rolls off my tongue with ease, if not pride. Birthdays do not trouble me, in that I am aging. Birthdays trouble me in that I am approaching the age of my grandmother's end. I am approaching the age of my mother's end. But I am thankfully prepared. I am aware of the "crisis" that often begins as one approaches the age and I monitor my own activities for collapse.
Twenty-one years. I barely remember having a mother. I do not remember unconditional love. I do not remember security in life. I do not remember having a back-up plan, other options or having anyone other than myself to depend on. For twenty-one years, I have been my own guide. I was forced into adulthood before my teenage years even began; at nineteen, life ensured that I was to be old before my time. This is my path. This is not a path I planned or chose. It is not a path that I can turn back upon and change course. This is the path life said that I shall take and make the best of. Who am I to argue or challenge? How would I even begin?
When I look back over the past twenty years, I look back and remember the immense grief when I found out that she was gone. I see the first year anniversary and the daily tears through not only that first year, but through the next two. During the first three years, I never thought that I would possibly move beyond the grief--I would never be happy in life again. I see the ten-year mark that was as intense as when I first lost her. I see the twenty-year anniversary, during which time I wondered who she would be if she were still here, today. I wonder who I would be? Perhaps I would have married and had children. Perhaps she would be a grandmother and her laughter would finally find our ears. I see the pains that came with all of those pieces of my life, the uniqueness each time carried, but deep pain, nonetheless. I simply have thicker callouses now.
I look back at how I felt toward her killer. I look back at the guilt that I carried. I look back through someone else's eyes. I look back and see the path to where I am today and I see the spots where I stumbled, where I broke down; but none of it seems real. Even now, this can't be real--perhaps I am still dreaming? There is no anger towards her killer. There is no pity. There is no emotion. Numb. I am floating above, looking down on a life that surely cannot be my own. How does someone survive that amount of grief? They say time heals all wounds. It does not. We simply learn to cope; to adapt. Not because we want to, but because there is no choice.
I can glance back at the pain and remember the wounds.
While touching the scar, I realize that the space is now numb.
I am no longer that person.
I am a warrior.
I am a pioneer.
I am a survivor.
I am a force to be reckoned with.
