A Mother's Day Lament...........

I know it's Mother's Day and many people will sing the virtues of their mothers. How I envy those people. How I envy my sister-in-law who is so ill but has a mother ever by her side and helping her in every way.

Throughout my life I have had inner conflict. Being taught by society and by church school that I should honor, obey and have my mother on a pedestal. Her mother has her on one. Throughout life I have always felt unsupported, a second class person compared to my brothers, and unworthy of any of my parents financial support which my brother's freely received. I do not blame my brothers. It is not their fault. It is the fault of my parents. My mother played a game which I only recently came to understand. It's pitting all of her children against each other. Recently she did another one of these acts. When I inquired about it from a sister-in-law she told me that my mother had told her that she couldn't come to her house after her surgery because her daughters were so jealous of her. This was almost laughable because my mother never came to my house and helped me when I had cancer or open heart surgery. Now she chooses to put that blame on her daughters as opposed to being honest and saying "I don't want to help you." She has never said that to me either. She just let me get out of her car after my radiation treatments, carrying my then three year old son and drove off leaving me there to be deathly ill for the next many hours alone with a toddler. She wouldn't take me for those treatments unless I gave her money for gas and treated her for food. At the time I was barely making ends meet. I am hoping writing about this will free me from some of the pain I have carried for years over this. It took me awhile to understand that this was not my fault.
I wanted it to be my fault because that meant I didn't have an uncaring mother. When my mother was recently ill I did a lot to help her. It doesn't matter what I ever do. It will never be reciprocated.

So today when I think of mothers I feel cheated. That is the honest truth. Yesterday I went out to my mailbox and there was a beautiful card with some money in it from my mother-in-law.
I am not a mother of her grandchildren. It was a motherly gesture that touched my heart.
I will never forget watching her with her daughter last weekend. I went through that with my son some many years ago. I am happy to say that I am not the type of mother that my mother has been to me. I have made sacrifices for my child and never regretted it. I cannot control who my mother was, only what kind of mother I am.

To all the mothers who made their children (biological or otherwise) or granchildren feel loved or cared for I salute you. Happy Mother's Day.