Preface:
He came to me in a dream and i asked him what would come of you and he said- Mother is a lost soul on a long, dark highway.. these words comfort me in that i know what i must do now..
Dear Mama-
there have been many lessons i've had to learn about the ties that bind a mother and daughter
many lessons about what sort of woman i wanted to be
living and learning from your mistakes
picking and choosing which parts i would hold on to
and what parts i wanted to release and forget.
i have to remember that this is your first time in this sort of role-
there were few cues or tips for you to grow from
your example taught you what not to be-
my example has taught me both hard and easy lessons about what to be.
i've had to learn many of those lessons from within the space of an absent mother
i've had to learn to forgive
and how to love blindly
and mostly
how to love with doubt.
for as many years as i can recall i've had to live with a love that i loosely extended towards you
never within grasp of each other
we have danced inside a tumultuous rhythm
out of step
and out of touch.
i have made decisions on how not to emulate you
and have made the best parts of you my foundation.
yet for so long i've been on my own-
learning my lessons from a forfeited presence.
Dear Mama
my biggest lesson of all has been learning to forgive you
for succumbing to merely existing rather than living.
i never learned how to accept a wasted chance-
though i have had many of my own
through it all
the one thing i've held on to
was the fact that there are lessons to be learned-
you seemed to stop listening to those lessons
or even showing up to life.
it's been many years that i have worked on forgiving you
and accepting that i can not make you care
i can not care enough for you to make you well
i am resigned, with a broken heart,
to witness your failure of believing
in yourself
or that you deserve more-
your final testament to prove that life is not worth living
is the hardest lesson to learn Mama
but as i let go of you
i grab ahold of my life and the love that i've been blessed with
and i hold it a little closer
because Mama
you taught me that.
