Hi guys! Welcome back to another post! This post is long overdue and the need to express how I feel is also, long overdue. As you can see from the topic, this post might be triggering for some people. So, if you are triggered by death/ or the loss of a loved one, this post might not be the one for you.
So, let's begin! As a kid, I'd always hear stories about how troubled my mother was, without getting into details, I was told from various people that she was consistently abused. They would often add that she was a sweet and loving girl that was heavily naïve. My mother died, no, she was murdered in 1996. The story that I was told was that she was attacked by two men, one person stated that the murder weapon that was used was a borrowed knife from one of the neighbours, they were told that he needed the knife to peel an orange, shortly after, neighbours recalled hearing her crying out for her heart. I was told that they took her body to have it disposed of. My uncle told me that he came by to visit and saw me sitting in the room alone, playing with her blood, when asked where she was, I pointed in the direction of the men who took her body. At that time I was only a year old and three months, I remember being told that I should be grateful that I wasn't able to speak then because that could've also been the day that I died with her. To be completely honest, since my blog is about honesty, I often wished that I did. There are times I'd think about how it must have been for her, knowing that she's gonna die and that we'd never see each other again, I can't help but think how hard she must have fought. Then, I'd also think about how her body was tossed away like a piece of trash, uncared for. By the time her body was found, it was too late, it had already rotted and "it was too late for a funeral".
When my uncle found me, he took me to my great grandmother's house where she raised me for fifteen wonderful years. Although you can never replace a mother's love, I believe that I got as close to it as one could get. I never once doubted that I was loved but that even the love of the world's most incredible woman wasn't enough. Navigating how I felt as a child was exceptionally hard, I was gifted the name "dead lef" by a family friend and each time I heard those words, I'd feel rage coupled with shame because I couldn't understand why anyone would do that to a child. I mentioned in a previous post that I'd lie a lot about my childhood out of sheer embarrassment and I guess attention. I remember going through my grandmother belongings and finding a picture of a really beautiful woman, so I pretended that the really beautiful woman that was obviously not related to me, was my mother. I took that picture to school bragging to all my friends that she was my mother and for years I kept that picture. The book I kept the picture in, accidentally got burnt and I remembered feeling so heartbroken because the image of the person that I pretended was my mother was now gone, I felt like I lost her twice. I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel rage or jealousy watching my peers, even though not always picture-perfect, have a relationship with their mothers. Every parent-teacher meeting, I'd feel embarrassed because everyone would be sitting with their parents and I'd be sitting alone or with my great-grandmother who tried her best to be present in everything I do.
My great grandmother once told me that she thought I was embarrassed of her because I'd lie or simply hide at my report day when my peers were walking with their mothers, side by side, holding hands. Truth is, I wasn't ashamed of her, I was ashamed of myself. I felt inferior, I felt ostracized even though it was not intentionally done. For years, Celine Dion's "Mama" was a huge trigger to me, my classmate sang to me and I rested my head on my desk and started crying uncontrollably because even though the song is beautiful, I know I'd never be able to relate to those words. I had and still have many ways of coping, one of them being denial, convincing myself that because a funeral didn't happen that she didn't die and that she'd find me but that was proven to be untrue every Mother's Day.
It doesn't get easier in adulthood, as soon as I feel that I'm learning to live with the fact that she's gone, something triggers me and I'd be on google again, going through newspaper archives trying to find a picture of her, to see if we resemble each other. I often jokingly say that I'm not real but some days I really do feel like I'm not present, my entire existence feels like a puzzle piece that is taking a long time to join. I have a lot of unanswered questions and feelings, some I'm certain that I'd never get an answer to. You could say that me posting how I feel on the World Wide Web about my mother is a coping mechanism. Is it working? Well, the verdict is still out on that. If you read this post, please don't pity me. If you're still healing from the loss of a parent or a loved one, I hope you find some sort of peace. I don't know if we will ever truly heal from those pains, I think we just find better ways to deal with it and I hope we all do. I know this post took a turn down sad-ville but that's a reflection of life, we all have sad days. As I get ready to end this post, please remember to be kind and understanding to everyone that you encounter. Stay safe and see you next time!
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