A Letter to My Mother: Letters from Daughters Full of Love, Hope, Despair, Regret, and Forgiveness

by Charmaine Sheeler

Overview

Regardless of the circumstances of each individual's life, every life begins with a mother. Throughout your life, you may have many different relationships with your mother-or perhaps you may have none at all. For the most part, it's safe to say that all of us have questions or perhaps just something important we'd like to say to our mothers.

In A Letter to My Mother: Letters from Daughters Full of Love, Hope, Despair, Regret, and Forgiveness, women from various backgrounds and regions of the United States each write deep, heartfelt letters to their mothers. Each letter is a real, personal attempt at resolution between the roles of mother and daughter.

In this collection of heart-to-heart communications-meant to inspire the reader to address his or her own unspoken words-the authors raise a number of points, issues, and praise with respect to their relationships with their mothers. From positive friendships to bitter abandonment, each woman bares her heart completely in her own letter to her mother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475970753
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	02/14/2013
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.26(d)

Read an Excerpt

A Letter to My Mother

Letters from Daughters Full of Love, Hope, Despair, Regret, and Forgiveness

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By Charmaine Sheeler

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Charmaine Sheeler
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-7075-3

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Chapter One

Chimére

If it weren't for the ever-present text messages, I could pretend you don't exist. That's the only way in which we've communicated for the last three months. There is a slight tug at my conscience only because of those silly titles that will forever bond us. I am your daughter. You are my mother. I should be calling you at least three times a day to make sure you're doing well. You should be able to set your watch by the actual time of day I call just to say, "I love you." You should expect a quick call to check your clothing size so I can randomly pick up a special gift for you. In a perfect world, sending you a text message would be a last resort when my phone simply won't work on the subway or a plane.

But I don't need another reminder of the fact that this isn't a perfect world. For if it was, I would not feel this pang of guilt for not communicating with you as often as I think I should. I'm not too busy taking care of my own children; I'm not too tired from a long day's work; and yes, my phone is working better than it ever has. I'm almost glad you stopped calling me. I'm hoping the text messages will soon come to an end. I want to live in a world where people don't feel this insatiable need to ask if I have or haven't spoken to you. I wish I could stop myself from telling people, "Oh, she's fine," when I have no clue how you're doing—unless we count those few text messages you send informing me of your aching knee or of the latest book you bought written by Marvin Gaye's sister. And truthfully, I don't even know if I really care.

I'm sure I won't receive the 'Perfect Daughter of the Year Award.' There won't be any articles in our local papers profiling our great relationship. There are no photographs of us together that chronicle my changing hairstyles or your wrinkled smile. The last time we hugged was during the Christmas holiday. Someone recently invited me out for Mother's Day, and I actually contemplated going. Then it hit me: on this day, which is carved out for the mothers who make the world go round, I should at least consider spending time with you.

I keep trying to make my head, heart, soul, and spirit align when it comes to you. I have tried to will all four to work well together so we can have the perfect relationship, or at least the kind I can be proud of. But each time I think I can pick up the phone to call you or even drop by, I remember something repulsive you've said or how much you irritate me, and I quickly press the end button on my phone and shake thoughts of you away.

My brain screams that I should just make peace with you. You're the only mother I have. Unless some freaky switcheroo occurred at my birth, I am almost sure you're my biological mother. We have the same eye shape, and when we smile, our cheekbones try to reach the sky. My legs are long, just like yours, and our voices sound alike when we speak. Just because we are genetically related, I should want to love you. Yes, I know life can be hard, but loving you should be easy. It's only right that I acknowledge your role as my mother. You gave birth to me, for God's sake. You could have died having me and the least I could do is respond to those text messages or call you every now and again. Compared to the horror stories about mothers drowning their children in large bodies of water or placing toddlers in ovens to die, you are a stellar mother.

But I know better. And you do too. No physical damage exists to show the effects of our scarred relationship, but my emotional well-being is certainly bruised. The last time I checked, the only time the brain really shuts off is during sleep or death, so I think of you more than I care to only because my brain doesn't allow me to do much else when I consider what my family should be but clearly isn't.

I'm thinking of the people I love right now. Your name never appears first. I've been in some pretty intense love relationships with men that have set my heart on fire. When I love someone, you can tell. I move heaven and earth for them, or at least I sure try. My love consumes my every thought, action, and word. You knew how much I loved Kevin, my first love, because after finding secret love letters I had written to him in tenth grade, you spent hours on end telling me not to bring home a baby at sixteen. You knew I loved Aunt Tenie because even though she was seventy-five and I was thirteen, I enjoyed spending every summer with her without being forced. You even knew I loved Pastor Willie F. Wilson because when I was nine—even when you tried to block me from leaving the pew with your knee—it was his voice begging me to come to Christ that I ran to. And everyone knew I loved Earl; if it wasn't the fact that I talked about him all the time that gave away my secret, it became apparent in the twenty-five pounds I lost when he left.

My love is pure, raw, and real. It stretches past faults, mistakes, lies, and flaws. As a young woman not yet hardened by too many life experiences, my love is intoxicating and infectious. But you wouldn't know this, because for the last twenty-five years, you haven't experienced the purity of my love. I think of the few times I've heard myself tell you I love you, and I'm not sure I meant it. Perhaps I was saying it because I do really want to love you. What daughter doesn't genuinely want to love her mother? In those moments, I believed that saying the words would cause my heart to cover my pain with love. That must be how men feel when they say those words to a woman they know they can never love. Maybe if they say it enough, they will start to believe their own lies. Like theirs, my words feel hollow and untrue. I've had my heart broken by men who lie about their love for sport, so I have a hard time believing that when it comes to you, I can be that shallow. But as I think about, I have a hard time believing you've always been that shallow.

God's view of how I choose to handle our broken relationship scares me the most. As a Christian, I've read the Ten Commandments so many times that I can recite them forward and backward. One of them clearly tells me to honor my mother and father. While my father didn't log in enough parenting hours to get my esteemed honor, you've had a chance to earn it. And you've failed miserably. Somehow I don't believe God is taking my side on this one; no matter how many times I tell Him how much you've disappointed me, He still keeps urging me to reach out to you. But I am like the rebellious teenager; I hear Him loud and clear, yet I refuse to obey. While Jesus courageously forgave those who betrayed Him, shamefully, I cannot do the same. Only God knows I want to forgive you, and I know I've tried. The exhaustion of trying seems to have caught up with me. Ma, I just don't feel like trying anymore.

You have not been a good mother to me. There, I've said it. If I weren't so embarrassed about the backlash I would face, I'd purchase billboard space to let everyone know. If more people knew what a mediocre mom looked like, it would give women more incentive to think before they bring innocent children into the world. Maybe the reason I still don't have kids is because I've spent enough time babysitting you to know that my tolerance level is not high enough. Or maybe it's because I never want my children to feel abandoned or betrayed because I chose a man or money over them.

I feel responsible to you because of our assigned roles; I'm supposed to owe you something, anything, as repayment for your sacrifice to me. But since our roles are never really clear, I am usually confused. And they have never been clear. I've been your mother in thought and deed so much that I have a tough time reverting back to being your daughter. I don't remember what that feels like. Being your daughter is something I've never really been good at. I can sing, write, and speak pretty well, yet treating you like my mother proves the most challenging.

It's hard for me to forget handing over paychecks to you to help pay rent or phone bills before the age of eighteen. Money that I should have spent buying CDs, getting manicures, and buying the trendiest jeans, I gave to you, hoping you would buy food for Terrance and me. Well, Terrance was the one I was always worried about. He was a growing boy then, and I could survive off the greasy leftovers at Pizza Hut, where I worked after school. You always told me that when I started paying bills in your house, then I could do what I wanted. Funny enough, as the mother in our house in those days, I don't recall living as carefree a life as you promised. I remember feeling stressed, depressed, angry, and neglected. Do you remember seeing me this way? Or were you so consumed with your own life that you forgot about raising a daughter?

You lost her when you were about nineteen. I get it. You were her baby. Her Mutt. I've heard the stories time and time again. Six of you, and she loved you best. She gave you everything you wanted, rarely refusing you. And as you barely crossed the threshold of adulthood, she left you alone to fend for yourself. Cancer ravished her body, hair, and ability to speak. I've heard about how you sat by her bedside in the hospital for days at a time, sometimes forgetting to bathe. I also know that when she was permitted to come home to complete the process of dying, you bathed her and treated her like the baby you didn't yet have. Some people say that when she took her last breath, you screamed for her not to leave you alone and you wouldn't let your siblings take her body away from you until you grew tired of crying.

Even when I've asked questions about Frances Eloise Smith, I hear the twinge of sadness in your voice and see the memories in your eyes. I'll be thirty soon, so that means you lost her about thirty-five years ago. I can't imagine what that has been like for you. I can't imagine losing a mother. Moreover, I can't imagine loving you as much as you loved my grandmother. Somehow I can't help but think that losing her stunted your growth. She couldn't help grow you up, as I am sure she intended. Life met with death is funny like that. Yes, you've matured in some ways: you had two children, maintained several jobs, and are arguably functioning as a fifty-four-year-old woman. It can sometimes be so easy to do. But when I see you or hear your words, I often see and hear a hurting nineteen-year-old stuck in a painful-to-watch time warp.

I look at you and try to make myself be the bigger person. I tell myself a little joke to keep from remembering all the times I've had to be just so big just to keep from strangling you. The joke is if I don't start running again, I just may literally become the bigger between the two of us. But there is some illogical, insane gnawing in me that makes me want to try one more time, say one more nice thing, be this sweet daughter I never learned to be just so I can say I've done the impossible. Failure doesn't scare me because I've done it enough to know how it works by now. (Talk to my last boyfriend and he'll give you the scoop, Ma, I promise.)

In my mind, the tremor of maybe works in the grooves of my mind: maybe if I try hard enough, it will make you love me the way you should—the way your mom loved you. How is it that she seemed to love you like a big, warm sweater on a winter's somber morning, yet the love you've attempted to give me is nothing more than wrinkled rags with holes and stains? Is this your best effort? Could you not muster enough strength and courage to love me better than that? Is your definition of love seeing how far I will go to prove my love for you? Maybe that's it. And if so, I totally get it. I think. But are mothers really supposed to be these weak creatures who are incapable of finding some type of maternal strength to stand on? If I get any bigger in my trying, Shaquille and I will be neck and neck. I could use a few more inches of height, but I'm not sure it's ever been my wish to be that huge. But what is a woman to do? I'm just not the type of woman who can idly sit and do nothing, even if you deserve the nothing I won't do.

I know people who've been abandoned by their mothers by way of unadulterated abandonment, drugs, or alcohol. These examples of motherhood I've seen up close and personally. To the untrained eye, I look blessed; at least I knew where you were and are most of the time. I've never seen you take a toke of a cigarette or a blunt, and the only drink you'll have on rare occasions is a nice, cold Smirnoff Ice, and even that has to be flavored beyond oblivion.

So I'm lucky, right? What if I told you I think those others were even luckier? At least their mothers were usually out of mind and sight; they didn't taunt them with their presence. There is nothing more disturbing than sharing space with a mother whose eyes you can't read and whose love you can't find. A crack-head mother, in all of her selfish glory, is too busy looking for her next high or excuse to care about the well-being of her child. She can't fathom a world outside of her drug-induced comas, but she knows enough about her failures (and appearance) to maintain an unhealthy distance between her and her offspring.

But there were days when I was a girl when you were too tired, sad, or unavailable to just throw a pile of love on me. And you were there in my face, day after day, scowling at me to perform this chore or to 'be' this way. Looking in your eyes held nothing promising or rewarding that made me want to stay up under you after high school or return to live with you when times got extremely tough. You cooked dinners, you helped us with homework, and you even braided my hair, but there was a glare of fog around you that kept you from me. Maybe you should have just stayed away. Then I would really have an excuse to be the bad-assed daughter I could be. Yeah, if you had physically abandoned me, I could blame some of my greatest faults on you. Seeing you is a reminder of how much I can't erase the presence of this need I have to be loved by a mother I sometimes hate.

There is still a place in my heart open to receiving your love, just as I'm sure there are countless other children who feel the same. While I am growing in the strength that God and I have crafted, there is still a yearning weakness that troubles me: I long for your love. No excuses, apologies, or hindrances. There, I've let the cat out of the bag. I crave your attention, acceptance, and care even though I've learned to exist without it. Or maybe I have just been holding my breath and waiting for you to give me something you simply cannot because you and I are not the same. And this is where I've gotten stuck on plateaus where there is just my love and me: I forget to remember that everyone simply doesn't offer love in the same capacity as me. Even you, my mother.

Your daughter,

Chimére

Conversation with Chimére ...

Why did you want to be part of the project and write the letter, and what did you get out of it?

My friend Charmaine helped rescue me from a dangerous place and person: myself. When our friendship began to take shape, I was exiting a relationship that turned sour, and I simply did not possess the strength, courage, or wisdom to move forward. Charmaine saw me through some of my life's roughest moment: the twenty-five-pound weight loss, erratic behavior associated with heartbreak, and my obsession with winning someone back who had no desire to be reclaimed. Having someone view me in this light while still believing I had the potential to survive and succeed was endearing.

One can't help but share other aspects of life while muddling through the rubble of lost love, and I am no different. Charmaine and I have talked too much not to discuss my childhood and my strange relationship with my mother. When she presented me with this idea, I trusted that she would take care of what I revealed, as she has with everything else I've entrusted to her within our friendship over the last six years. I also believe that a woman can suffer more loss at the hands of a troubled relationship with her mother than a romantic association. This was my attempt to shed light on this from my perspective. I needed to share what I haven't been able to articulate with one of my dearest friends—on paper.

I like my emotions like I like my television: in real-time. Writing this letter to my mom forced me to place no barriers between what I've felt for quite some time about my mother and me. With no one (even me) breathing down my neck, forcing me to be the perfect daughter or woman, this letter lifted the burden I have placed on myself for not feeling the normal euphoria and love toward my mother. In that moment, I was many things: the scared five-year-old girl, the self-assured adult, and the confused daughter. This letter gave me no hiding places and no room to be inauthentic or swayed by trying to say or do the right thing. It put me in the spotlight with my mother, even in her absence, at center stage. I even felt like I was wrestling with my mother or at least the words she would use in her defense of my rawest emotions. For me, there was no winner or loser; there was simply me owning my truth—in real-time.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A Letter to My Mother by Charmaine Sheeler Copyright © 2013 by Charmaine Sheeler. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Dedication....................vii
Acknowledgments....................ix
Preface....................xi
Introduction....................xiii
Quotes....................xvii
About the Author....................xix
Definitions....................xxi
1 Chimére....................1
2 Caren J. Gray....................13
3 Vickie....................19
4 Lynette A. McMillen....................25
5 Sue Hammond....................31
6 Your Second Daughter....................43
7 Betty....................47
8 D....................55
9 Charmaine....................61
Poems....................69
Afterword....................73
What's the Story on Some of the Writers?....................75
Bibliography....................81