This week and weekend was founder's day. I love this time of the year, it is the perfect reason to get out of our locked away-ness and socialize. Being able to wacipi is definitely helpful too!
I only went on friday and sunday. But both days were amazing. I saw so many people I love and on both days I met two different women who knew my mom. Personally, closely.
One told me that she was really good friends with her, and she knew her because she hung out wiht her in winner. The other one knew her because she is related to us via marriage.
Tehy both told me they loved her. The lady I spoke with today said mom was a champion jingle dress dancer. I knew she was a champion dancer, but I didnt know in what catagory. The lady today said that she danced the old style. For the first time in a long time, hearing about her didn't make me burst into tears, it didnt make that hole inside me twinge with sorrow and pain. The lady today asked about me, I told her that I miss my mom very much, but I know that everything I do, is to make her proud; it's what guides me.
As the days and hours have worn on, I feel it, the longing, it's the same longing to belong to someone. It's not as strong these days, but I still see mothers and daughters together, and it hurts a bit. I'll never have that. I don't feel like I have that. I have lots of women who love me, but none that I feel are like a motherly love, none that I can feel secure in, to rest my head on. It's the same feeling/thought I'd get when I'd watch my friends with their moms growing up. Knowing that you can be loved by a "replacement" mom, but knowing too that it isn't secure, because you aren't "really" theirs.
I said that to the woman I met on friday. The thing about being ripped away from your mother and not getting to see her again, alive, is that you can't trust others to care for you. You can't settle in, knowing that someone will be there, if you need them. I dont know. Maybe its just me. I have spent years crying myself to sleep, or alone in the dark crying, knowing that there is no woman out there who I could call up; not without feeling awkward, or justifying my call. Writing this now, makes me cry. It's my bruised soul that never fully goes away. I spent years trying to find a replacement, for that hole that she occupied, even in her absence; the closest I came was Auntie. She loved me unconditionally, mothered me, looked out and cared for me better than any other woman from the time I was taken from my mother. She loved and cared for me from the time I got back to South Dakota until the day she died. Her death about tore me apart. It was after her death that the hole returned, the feeling of being an orphan, the feeling that I was alone in this big world. Oh I've had lots of women who see the orphan in me, want to take care of me, but I'm not sure I let them. Some of them have told me, they have not let themselves.
It's a harsh thing to be torn from your mother too soon. My mother wasn't perfect, but she loved me, she loved me completely and I knew she loved me. I was 18 months when I was taken, we were together long enough to form that cruical bond and knowing I was loved by my mother is what I know got me through the hell I lived through when I was adopted. Even at that young age, it allowed me to know, the pain being inflicted on me was only temporary; I had a real mother out there who loved and wanted me. Bad thing was, she left before I could get back.
The quickest way to kill a woman or a child, is to separate them.
But as each sun rises, I'm still motherless. You can't raise the dead, and spirits only get you so far. Some days are harder than others. On those days I turn to my art, I work it out in painting or sculpture or writing. As a result, I have a ton of "mother" poems. And I focus on the fact that I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful perfect daughter who know she is loved, knows she is safe and thinks the world is perfect. I pray to God everyday, nothing mars her world. I know that my daughter and I have, and will have what I didn't; each other for as long as we are allowed. It makes me desperate to find her others who will love and support her god forbid anything happen. I dont want her to EVER feel lonely or orphaned in this world, because that makes for long, cold, lonely nights.
As far as my mom goes, I don't know if the pain will ever go away. It is a hole, I don't think will ever close. But I live every day knowing that what I can do, is make her proud. Do everything to make her know that those few months we had together, made me the amazing person I am. And she still gets credit for it, she was my beginning. I will always love her.
