Dear Mum,
When I was fourteen, I wrote an anonymous letter to my best friend of the time. It was a cry for help. It begged her to be kinder to both her and her friends. To appreciate them better. It accused her of not only bleeding all over her friends, but stabbing her friends in the process. She handed it in to the level coordinator, and together they tried to find the writer. They poured over other students’ writing styles, asked us all who could’ve written such a horrible, cruel letter?
A week passed and no one turned up. The coordinator apologized to my friend, said that she had tried, and to take comfort that she had friends who loved her. The girl nodded and shrugged, returning to her friends – to me. My friend said, “it doesn’t matter. I know you all love me.”
And I remember the coordinator’s eyes. Clever, considering eyes. She reminded me of a kind, grey elephant. Seemingly gentle until she reminded you of her power and size.
I knew I was caught.
The coordinator later called me into her office, lined with bibles and folders. She looked at me with something akin to pity and said, “only someone who loved her could write something like this. You’ve been screaming in your head the whole time.”
Of course she was right. I had hoped that if I wounded my friend just enough that she would reset the bone.
But my friend didn’t, and she wouldn’t… and I lost her off the other side of the tracks three years later. Broken bird syndrome only cripples you as well.
Mum. I’m telling you this because you’re bleeding out. You’re chipped and broken. You are a scratched CD jumping through songs. But the same things come out. The same sadness, the same anger, the same fear. You are pooling blood on the floor, and I don’t know how much more is left in you.
Your children cannot help. We want to. At one time or another we have all reached out. And every time you bite and scratch and scream. You have been held together with duct tape for so long. You need to let go, mum. You need to recognize you aren’t always right. You are full of insight you never use on yourself. You are a fortune cookie crumbling around your words of wisdom.
You don’t have to hold so much inside you. Because the older you get the more it seeps out. I know therapy seems useless to you. I know you think, “none of them get me.” But how can they when you wrap your bindings around yourself? You’re suffocating, mum.
And we’re watching you dangle. Hanging yourself one self-fulfilling prophecy at a time.
But I can’t say anything. Last time I tried you blew up in front of the grandchildren. No one likes that. I never want your grandchildren to doubt their worth to you. You are so absolute. There never seems to be a line to walk with you. Only absolute statements. But now I wonder, perhaps black and white thinking stops you thinking at all. Especially the thoughts that are wrapped around your throat.
I’m sorry for what happened to you, mum. I’m sorry that your childhood was horrid. I’m sorry you’ve been an adult from such a young age. I’m sorry dad did what he did. I’m sorry you got so lost in raising children that you never came up for air.
But you’re suffocating mum.
Everytime we try and help you thrash in the water.
So.
We are doomed to watch.
Watch as you get older and weaker. Watch as the memories fill you up awake or not. Watch as the once hopeful, smiling mother we all love is swallowed in despair.
“No one should bury their child.”
But no one talks about watching your parent slowly brick themselves up inside the timestream. One trauma filled brick at a time.
I love you, Moeder.
But I’m scared of, and for you.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
