“I crawled up in a flower when this one was being written. It was safe there, and I wasn't ready to let this one in too deep. It was already too close.” - Tori Amos [from Under the Pink songbook]

I always post about my dad. And if you've read this blog long enough - or even a few of my last Love Thursday posts - you'll know that in my eyes, he pretty much hung the moon and the stars.

When I checked my email the other day, I had one from a random visitor to my blog and the following question:

Because! But that would be the easy answer, right?

I have avoided really talking about her at all on the blog because I can't find anything good to say about her. I suppose, if this is going to be the true definition of a "personal blog", I'd best open that vault and let forth The Story. The trouble is, I'm just not all the sure where to begin?

As many of you know, I'm adopted. My parents tried for seven years to conceive a child on their own, it didn't happen, so they started the adoption process at some point during that time. When my mother and father adopted me, they brought me back to a little farm miles from anywhere. It was just the three of us. I remember many good things about this time in my life - nothing bad, just being a kid and having a lot of fun.

(In fact, one of my fondest memories of this time is stumbling behind my mother in the vegetable garden. She had given me a bonnet like she had on, and given me an old ice cream bucket. She was picking the green beans ahead of me, and every now and then, I'd find a few on my own. Of course, she'd left them for me to find.)

My mom always said later on that the 'reason' she had such a hard time in later years was due to the 'constant needs' of my younger brother. We adopted him in 1980. He came into our home after we had moved from the homestead to the new home on the hill. He was later diagnosed with Sensory Integration Dysfunction. My brother required a lot of special needs schools, albeit maybe completely unnecessary in retrospect, but that post is for another time.

Regardless, the wheels came off the cart at some point, but I'm not privvy to that time. I do remember, though, an occasion more recent that will give you an example:

While I was sitting in the living room chair, nine-months-pregnant and unable to move, my mother was cleaning my kitchen. I remarked that my husband had been wondering why I didn't get 'the clean and organized gift' from her, and she said, "Cleaning like this is a sickness!! .... At least you can HAVE biological children, HDW".

My mom had a lot of trouble with anyone who was able to have a biological child. She was very resentful and angry of almost everyone she knew who could. I remember once saying, "But Mom - God DID give you children, just not through the traditional method!". She was disgusted that I'd say this, and I was horrified she still hadn't embraced us as her own (or it felt that way) years later.

There was a period of abuse - physical, verbal and emotional - that lasted for, roughly, fifteen years, give or take. And in the family I grew up in/with, this just wasn't talked about. No one would have believed the wife of the School Board President who sat on church boards and community boards would ever raise a hand to her child.

But she did. A lot.

When I was eight-years-old, my mother sucker punched me down the stairs, knocking me out. She told me she was upset I hadn't cleaned my room. When my dad got home, my mother told me that she told my dad I 'fell'. I didn't know this story until the night before my wedding. She chose to confess it then.

When I was seventeen, I borrowed a necklace from her that I shouldn't have borrowed. I was getting ready for work, she confronted me about the necklace, which I admitted taking and apologized for. She made me get into the car, drove me down our country road, had me stand barefoot in a patch of stickers, and punched me in the mouth. She split my lip wide open. And because I was dating someone from the proverbial "wrong side of the tracks", she let everyone believe it was him. And I was too scared to tell anyone differently.

My dad had died in February of 1995. She told me that I had killed my father. I had broken his heart, she said, my Senior Year in high school, and had caused his heart to give out and die on us. I believed her. And then she told the same line to my baby brother, and I got pissed.

Around July of 1995, I was outside in the front yard messing around with my younger brother. It was a hot afternoon. He was finally talking again (he had been at the house the night my dad died, had attempted CPR, and after dad died, he clammed up) and I was finally finding something funny again.

That afternoon, I was putting the stickers on my car for the new registration, and my brother and I were laughing hysterically about something. My mom came blasting out of the house, yelling that I wasn't putting the stickers on fast enough. She grabbed the green garden hose and began whipping my back. My little (bigger than us) brother grabbed her by the wrist, threw her up against a brick wall and told her 'never touch my sissy again'.

And she didn't touch me again.

She tried hitting my brother, years later, while he was holding his infant son. He grabbed her hand, squeezed, and broke the littlest bone in her pinky finger. Of course, my mother told everyone my brother had abused her. And because they knew no differently, they believed her - and it mattered not what I said or he said.

We knew the truth.

I hated what she said more than what she did with her fist, and those are the things that have stuck with me for much longer. When someone hurts you with words, they sting, they stick, they stay. These things get filed away and not forgotten. It is very hard to forgive someone who lashes out at you with their tongue. Emotional abuse is a rotten cycle, and it has to be stopped. It breaks a person's spirit, and if you love someone, shouldn't that be a driving force not to?

When we were set to deliver our son, my husband invited my mother into the birthing room. I was not at all happy about that. There wasn't a person I could have been less close to than her. When I was engaged, she wasn't the first person I wanted to call. When my heart was broken, I wouldn't think of calling her first to talk. The nights I missed my dad, I picked up the phone to call my best friend in eastern Colorado. But as usual, she swooped in, acted, and did everything right while I had my son. Promising endlessly how she'd really help us out and be there for us in the months and years to come.

My husband believed her. I didn't believe her anymore. I almost felt bad for him. He would tell me I was exaggerating my stories about her and she couldn't be 'that bad'. I started to wonder if I was losing my mind, if I'd really misunderstood her actions all these years after all.

A few months into my son's life, there were going to be two days where my husband would be operating for 8-10 hours each day, and wouldn't be able to help me at night. I broke down, and I called my mother to see if she could come up and stay with me. The deal was that she would stay up with him during the day, and I would sleep. That way, during night time shifts, I'd be much more present in mind to assist my child at, say, two a.m. I needed her for two days, this was all.

My mother said she would. I was beginning to think the ship was turning around, and there was hope for my relationship with my mother after all. Maybe my husband was right! I started thinking of my friends who had this type of relationship with their mom, something I'd always envied, and maybe after all, it would be me, too.

The morning of, she called and said she'd forgotten she had a Bible study meeting and a personal trainer appointment. She'd have to cancel.

And I lost my shit. I screamed at her. I told her how selfish she was. She called me names. I told her to stay out of my life forever. I told her I could forgive her someday, but not anytime very soon. And I hung up.

Forgive her for what? For that. And for throwing a hot bowl of chili at me in a restaurant because I disagreed with her, and making me walk miles back to her house in a part of the city I didn't know. For calling me a whore. For telling me I was really jealous of her because she was asked to sing at a wedding and I wasn't (when instead, I was upset she had belittled me in front of my aunt). And consequently, for hitting me repeatedly on the head with a wooden hair brush because she was yelling and I couldn't stop crying. For making my baby brother go to military school when he should have stayed home and been loved by his family. For insisting that I was "finally fatter than her" and "how nice that feels" when I was pregnant. And about a million other completely inappropriate things.

I have talked to her on the phone once since ending my relationship with her three years ago. It was to tell her that a family friend had killed himself. We (our friend's daughter) didn't want her to find out by way of the answering machine when she got home.

I have not felt badly at all about my decision to not include her in my life. I don't miss her. I don't really have any anger left towards her. It's pure disappointment and pity now. And sadness, a lot of that. I have also had a remarkable amount of support from my family, as well. Most agree that I made the right decision. One aunt has stopped talking to her, as well. She made that decision long before I did.

One therapist said, "You will grow tired one day of throwing your bucket in that well and expecting to get water. You'll learn, with her, you're only going to get dust every time and you'll eventually quit". And she was right. I quit because I had to take care of myself. I had to protect myself and more importantly my child.

I work every day at being the better parent. I have a hard time when my husband swats my son on the rump for doing something wrong. I cringe. When anyone raises their voice at me, I'm dissolved into tears. It's amazing what behavior patterns are repeated through the years, but it's also more important to note they don't have to be repeated at all.

Just because your parent acted one way doesn't mean that's your role in life, too. I learned that when you yell and tell someone you think they're fat, you get your way. But those words would never leave my mouth. I can't imagine treating anyone else that way. I don't fight dirty, but to a fault, I don't like to right at all.

And regarding forgiveness, I have forgiven her. But I believe forgiveness doesn't mean you allow that behavior to continue in your life. It doesn't mean you allow to continue being hurt. And after all of this time, I don't think I deserved anymore.

And I haven't allowed the behavior to continue.

It doesn't mean I shut everyone out who upsets me, contrary to popular belief. But it means there are limits to what a person can take, and I've taken enough.