Mother

Do we ever fully recover from a mother's ongoing denial and rejection?  Do we ever get to a place where we can just let it go?

“Without you near me I'm like air.  I am nothing without you.”

My six year old said these words to me tonight, trying to convince me to lie next to her until she falls asleep.

Her words startled me.

Not just because of their profundity, coming from the mouth of a six year old, but because she knows and can express just how dependent she is on me. 

How dependent we all once were on our mothers, as young children, for our very existence.

We are made of mother.

physically and emotionally, she is our creator, our life force, and our life source.  We simply could not have been born, and could not exist today without her.

I haven't seen my mother in over sixteen years. My mother was in Israel recently for a wedding.  Over the past ten or so years I invited her to see me, and to meet her grandchildren three times, and each time she declined.  She said; 'We cause each other too much pain.'  Once her response was; 'I will wait and see you when Mashiach comes.

My aunt, my mother's sister, came to see us last week, and I asked her to invite my mother to come along. 

She didn't pass on the message, and my mother didn't contact me.

 As humans we regularly try to avoid that which is too painful to contemplate.  I suppose for my mother I am just that. 

Too painful to contemplate.

As an adult, I accept her decision, painful as it is.  I knew where she was staying, and I could have gone to see her myself, but I wasn't invited, and I didn't want to invite rejection face to face.

As an adult, I know my limitations.

I am also torn about my mother meeting my children.  How can they possibly feel about a grandmother who seems not to love them, or care one iota about their existence?  Why offer them a face to go with the rejection?

I know and trust that if I am supposed to see my mother again in this lifetime, I will. I know It can't be forced.

I pray that if and when that happens, it will be healing for both of us.

But...

To the child inside me, my mother's rejections hurt and shock deeply.

A part of me doubts I can, or ever did exist without her validation and love. As a child, she couldn't and didn't protect me.  She couldn't see that I was hurt, or know that I was being molested by her father, -my grandfather, and by my father, -her husband;  the two people she trusted and depended on the most.

 My inner child just doesn't get it.  Why didn't she see me?  Why didn't she protect me? Did I ever really exist?  She is my mother, for God sake, why doesn't she want to see me?  

I am a mother, and I just can not relate.  If my child was serving time in prison for murder, I don't think it would stop me from wanting to see him. My child is my child no matter what.  

  And I am not a murderer.

 As adults, we transfer our feelings of dependency to God.  ...We are like air without You.  We are nothing without You...   As adults, we know and realize that although we need God to exist, we can, and do exist without mother. 

As children we do not.