This line from Titanic has never ran more true than it did today. I lent my mom the books A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, and A Man Named Dave. For those of you who aren't familiar with this series, it's an autobiographical story cut into three novels (a fourth was released later) about a boy who was severely abused by his horrible mother, and how he went through life dealing with that and trying to survive. My mom blew through the first two, and is now about to finish the third; I'm fairly certain she started them this week. She came in to talk to me today about them and was expressing her disappointment for the main character in the novel, the author, who talked about acting like a child around his mother even as an adult, especially when she would continue to berate him. She was upset that he didn't stand up for himself. I tried to explain my take on it- that he suffered so much as a child it's possible the fear he had then would always come back to haunt him while in his mother's presence. What she told me after that, only one other living person on this planet knows, and it broke my heart in two.
I was never super close with my grandparents, her mom and dad. They were older, we didn't see them that often as my brother and I got older, and we just weren't that close. From what I can remember of them, my grandma was a tiny woman, who was always yelling at my grandpa, leaving him mean notes and just generally being unpleasant to him. She was always nice to me and to the rest of my family, at least when she knew who we were (she had developed Alzheimer's, and died this past November). What I was unaware of, was that my mom suffered the same verbal abuse when she was growing up, and worse than that, my grandmother beat her. She would hit her with yard sticks, with metal fly swatters, and tear her down with her words. My mom told me she could remember her and her father bearing the brunt of all the abuse, while my uncle was a golden child who could do no wrong. Then, my mom decided she was done. She took a yard stick, my grandmothers weapon of choice at the time, broke it across her knee, and threw it at her mom. When she was finally old enough and able to support herself financially, she moved out of her house, saying "it was the happiest day of my life." My mom told me that she vowed to never treat her kids like that, that she would never put them through the pain my grandmother put her through. And she didn't; my mom is the most loving human on the planet, and she puts my brother and I before anyone else. I could not have ever asked for a better mom, a better best friend.
What am I taking away from this? Aside from the fact that my mom confided in me something my dad doesn't even know, I have realized my mom has an unimaginable strength- a strength I could only hope to try to measure up to. That as a little girl, she was able to stand up for herself- she fought back, because she knew she had it in her. I always said my mom was my role model, and now I know that's not just because she is an amazing mom, but because she is an amazing person. As she was walking out of my room after telling me all this, she told me "Never let anyone walk all over you. Never." I think after hearing this, there's no way in hell I ever will.
I love you with all my heart mommy.
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