Mothering without a Mom

I had spent the last few days contemplating on writing about this. A topic I rarely find easy to share about. I didn’t want to time it where it was close to Mother’s Day and ruin it for anyone else.

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“I know this may not be the same story for everyone but it is something I struggle with every Mother’s Day.”

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As a child, I spent a lot of time with extended families who babysat me for my Dad. Aunts, friends, and neighbours. I spent much of my childhood having to move around and never really being in one place. I was raised by my aunt (my dad’s sister-in-law), from the age of three to nine. She did end up leaving to come to Canada when I was seven. Her oldest son who was left behind, his wife and their baby would end up taking over. It would be another two years before I would leave to Canada. I was nine years old.

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What I have learned from studying in the field of education with children is that, the first six years of a child’s life is the most critical for parents to invest the time in. It’s so important for their development, and what that time contributes to who they’re becoming.

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I remember as a child thinking my aunt was my mom. I fought for her attention, fought with my cousins that I was no different from them. I did things to gain her love. I wanted to be hers, and I wanted to be claimed, someones. When she left, I was devastated. Like a piece of my soul chipped at, for losing someone closest to a mom. I was so excited to see her again when I came to Canada, but her view of me would change. There would be a wall between us, that separated me from her. She had her own family, I wasn’t hers. I couldn’t have her. A few years down the line, that broken line would have her betray me. I trusted her, I thought she cared about me, and she would out me like a bad story. The part of me who loved her is now gone. It still makes me sad.

Don’t go chasing something that was never meant to be yours.

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I would later on try to build bonds with my dad’s women friends, the moms of my friends, and every other moms I would later on meet. The heartbreak it came with, was so overwhelming. To constantly fail at being someones. I tried so hard to be wanted. I just wanted what everyone had. I wanted that nurturing love, that love that’s there when your world is crumbling down, when your heart is hurting so bad, that love that comes so unconditionally because, YOU ARE HERS.

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All my failures at finding HER in others, eventually made me feel numb. I stopped looking. I stopped wanting that. I stopped caring. It would eventually sit in the back burner where a ton of my experiences have been sitting and burning away.

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JUST LET GO…

Here I am, a mother of three. The most wonderful accomplishment in my life. The chance I never got to have for me, but now I’m giving to my three beautiful children. Every mother’s day, my heart hurts. It hurts for what I can’t fully celebrate. A day I don’t really care for. But also a day that brings me so much pride. I am a Mother!

Apollo

Artemis

Cassiopeia

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Ryan Jon’s Mother’s Day Message

Wherever you are…

“Time has passed. I’ve mourn your loss. I wonder at times, if you’re okay. If you’re still alive. If you ever thought of me. The most painful thing for me is being angry with you. It affects me at any given moment. I wonder how it would have been if you were here. Do I have siblings? I would love that. Did you ever come looking for me? Did I mean much to you, even after you left? If you could have the chance to see me now, would you? Why did you give me away? Why didn’t you fight for me? Why wasn’t I enough? Does your heart hurt the way mine does, because we share one. If you could see me now, would you be proud? You’re a grandmother to three beautiful babies. I am everything, you never was. Sure you struggled. Sure you were alone. Why did he leave you? Does he even know about me? I don’t know anything about this part of me. I wish you had left me with something. I wish you had fought harder. I wish that the time I lost, is a struggle you battle each and every day. I am broken, I am hurt. I needed you. I wanted you. I just needed you to look back. This is something I will forever carry in my heart. As time lapse, I hope for one thing only, to let go of you and stop the heartbreak.
— Happy Mother’s Day, from the daughter you never had.–“

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HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL OF YOU!

To all the moms out there who grind each and every day for their little loved ones, to the ones who have lost theirs, to the ones who are trying to have just one, to the ones who had no choice but to give theirs up, to ones doing it all alone, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU. You are most loved, no matter what!

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Apollo, Artemis & Cassiopeia

“I’m not always the mom you want me to be. But I will always be the mom, you need. I won’t always do things right, I won’t always give you everything you want. But I will always be here by your side, to hold your hand through anything and everything. I will always love you from the depths of my soul. For all the moments you feel defeated, know I am always cheering you on. I will always help you get up again. I will do things you won’t always understand, but know that in everything I do..I do it because I love you. I hope nothing but for you guys to grow up to be kind people. To love one another through everything and be there for each other, always. I pray for you that your life be full and blessed. I pray that your heart achieves all the things you want in this world. Even when time has gone, remember always that Mom loves you forever.”

♥

MM, out!

It’s really Late

I find myself most nights unable to sleep. Sleep in peace. Have peace in my mind and my heart. So much things linger in my head, as if everything is just floating in the air and I’m finding ways to relate to all of it.

I hate how my mind makes me feel. As if I’m on some constant race to figure all the meaning of life. I can put meaning to a lot of things, rarely it being true or right.

I lay there, and wonder. 

After twenty-seven years, I would hope I’m over all the sad thoughts that are so mediocre about being an adoptee. After so many years, I thought I’ve mastered not feeling, thinking, or wondering about where I began. But the truth is, as often, as I find these thoughts in the back burner, they linger, annoyingly, finding themselves tag along to “wishful wants” I see on the daily.

The truth is, the pain still sticks. The pain still catches on. The pain still wonders. 

I look at my children, and I see how loved they are. Someone who never truly understood what it means to love or to be there for anyone or for anyone to love them back. But my children, who, Isometimes, envy.

They’ll always be loved, needed, wanted, fought for, and be someone’s world.

xo, MM

 

 

Repost from Tumblr – December 5, 2015

no streams

Here’s my open letter to you.

“An understanding mind, may categorize the reasons you had to give me up. An understanding mind, may have been able to give you peace about the decisions you’ve made. 

Time, and time again, I wonder.

I wonder, why? I wonder, how?

I’m now a mother of two, and a third one, on the way. I wonder, if I ever felt the poverty, the unfairness of life, the unluckiness, the inabilities; even half of what you felt, would I have done the same..oh wait…

I know how it feels to struggle. To live, paycheque, to paycheque with a child. How worrying it is to not know where, or how the rent was going to be paid, or any of the bills, for that matter. I know how it feels to buy just enough for what we need because..LIFE!

Would I have given up as easily, as you did? Would I have not tried? Would I have been able to look at my child for the last time, and spend the rest of my life, however, wherever, not being able to look at my kids again?

I wonder, would I have the strength to give them up? Could I have done it?

It isn’t a matter of strong hearts, strong minds, or greediness. 

I could’t. I wouldn’t. I am greedy for it. But I would have died trying to survive, to GIVE MY CHILD a future, MYSELF. I would have died, with them in my arms. 

Maybe I’m stubborn. Maybe I’m irrational. Maybe I’m illogical. 

How could you? Why didn’t you become better, and came back for me? Why wasn’t I enough? What you thought was best for me, also left me in the long run. Are you still proud of your decision? 

The root of the anger, the root of the sadness, the root of my shortcomings, the root of things that I never came to know, and learn, is because you left. I can’t seem to shake off the feeling, the resentment..it eats at me, when the moment presents itself. When those moments arrive, I lose grip of what I’ve worked so hard to mend. All the pieces I’ve managed to glue back together, shattered again.

Now that I’m older, it haunts me more often. It breaks me, more often. It kills me, more often. While I use the happiness, of the blessings that have come from it, I still find myself lost, unable to let go.

You left me, when I couldn’t yet cry out to you. You left me when I couldn’t yet say to you, I’m worth it, just give me a chance. You left me when I couldn’t yet, tell you I can eventually help us. You just gave up.

You just left. And now I’m to just accept it?“

………..

In the late hours..

I find myself most nights unable to sleep. Sleep in peace. Have peace in my mind and my heart. So much things linger in my head, as if everything is just floating in the air and I’m finding ways to relate to all of it. 

I hate how my mind makes me feel. As if I’m on some constant race to figure all the meaning of life. I can put meaning to a lot of things, rarely it being true or right. 

I lay there, and wonder. 

After twenty-seven years, I would hope I’m over all the sad thoughts that are so mediocre about being an adoptee. After so many years, I thought I’ve mastered not feeling, thinking, or wondering about where I began. But the truth is, as often, as I find these thoughts in the back burner, they linger, annoyingly, finding themselves tag along to “wishful wants” I see on the daily. 

The truth is, the pain still sticks. The pain still catches on. The pain still wonders. 

I look at my children, and I see how loved they are. Someone who never truly understood what it means to love or to be there for anyone or for anyone to love them back. But my children, who, I sometimes, envy.

They’ll always be loved, needed, wanted, fought for, and be someone’s world.

Who’s Chasing you?

I have spent a crazy amount of time chasing after people in my lifetime. Never having the satisfaction of knowing if I’m ever enough for anyone.

The funny thing about losing people in my case is, I’m never the one who chooses to walk away. I’m always left with having to, because there’s nothing else to hold on to.

“How disappointing. I wonder what, where I went wrong in that one?”

That’s my father. He adopted me at eight months old; a private adoption. Tracking any history is a lot harder that way, or, maybe I’m just not sure how to get to it. 

For the most part of our relationship it was awkward and uncertain. I spent the first three years with him, until he moved to Canada without me for six years. In those six years, I became my own person, who saw the world as my enemy. I had no one. Lived with people who had to, because I was “family”. Imagine a child, uncertain of what it means to be loved and to countlessly rely on nobody because they just weren’t mine to rely on. I finally met up with him again, and things were surely where he left off. I didn’t know him, just photographs he’s consistently sent me to “never forget” that there’s supposed to be someone keeping time with me. He’s taught me good things, but where he lack was the nurture I have now learned being a parent, myself. 

I haven’t spoken to him in over two years. It’s been three Christmas’s without him. He’s never met Arty, and have forgotten about Apollo. 

​He posted this today, it translates:
“It hurts to think that because of that one thing that happened it can no longer be the same as before between the two of you”

I’ve called in the last two years, numerous times to reconcile what has been broken because he’s my only immediate family and the truth is, being a mother I’ve learned that love is indeed unconditional. It’s not longer the way it used to be when I was single and I was selfish and I thought that when people walk away from you, you just gotta let it be. That you’re not losing anything or anyone because it’s their right. But families come with a certain rule. A rule that  no matter what, you can’t be broken. Sometimes you can disconnect, like with many other things in life, but never with family. But in this case, when you disconnect, there’s no turning back. It’s a shame because he’s always been one to hold grudges. Time will lose, time will turn, time will come and I wont be chasing it no  more.

xoxo, MM