PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

=I'd been listening to the radio throughout the night and day, a radio still on loan to me by my girlfriend's eldest son; yet it couldn't calm my thoughts.  I had been tossing and turning all night long, unable to find rest, not that that's been unusual for me lately, since everything in my life within the last four years has gone wall-to-wall crappy.  Whatever has gone right has been overshadowed by betrayal, lies and my daily struggle to regain my health.  

It's been hard enough trying to stand up  after my last leg was ruthlessly and unceremoniously sawed off by "just another businessman"--a doctor that I had considered my friend for many years, whom I had discovered wherein his loyalties lie.  It was creepy enough that he put his hand on my right knee in a very unprofessional manner, an impulsive act he had never resorted to all this time; but when he used a bogus reason to dismiss me--I call it being left for dead, that unwarranted strike from him basically threw me to the floor, with no strength to reach for the ropes and pull myself back up into the boxing ring.  Actually, the  blow dealt to me by that horrid turn-coat was like kissing the express train; but I've kissed a few express trains on this ball of shit and have gotten back up. Then Life completely lowers its standards by recruiting a chair-wielding hoodlum from the nosebleed section to stomp upon me and pummel my skeletal structure remorselessly with iron, thus turning a boxing match into a graceless, wrestling pigpen.  

That "hoodlum" was my 23-year-old daughter; she then took that metal chair, melted it and forged it into a sword,which she then proceeded to run through me, piercing my heart. This is what has plagued me above all.

Let someone say that any 23-year-old at all is either responsible or respectful, and I will prove them wrong.

After a 19 year absence from the presence of my little tiger, I hunted her up on an internet social network and was surprised to find her.  This first occurred in approximately late March of this year.  I didn't know how she would react, but I remember fashioning  a keepsake--a small, varnished hand-made wood box with my picture from 1990 and a letter burnt at the edges to make it antique, both enclosed in that box.  In that letter, I genuinely explained how much I loved her and why I had to give her up and that hopefully she would someday understand.  I pretty much figured that, even after four years of raising her, I would never see her again.  

I used those mementos as a fail-safe means of assuring her that I was indeed her mother, along with various birth certificate details etched into my brain--details she would not forget, provided she still had that box. And she did indeed have that box..  I meticulously included all details into my very first email to my one and only princess; I left nothing to chance.
Her first message was overwhelmingly positive:  She had been looking for me for a long time and was dying to meet me.  I couldn't hold back the tears of joy for days, for this was not a reaction I expected from her.  I expected her to not wish to see me ever again.  For me this meant that I was about to embark on a new journey in my life, and perhaps even fill in the gaps with my child of the "old journey" that started on February 18, 1986.

I couldn't wait to tell my friend about this latest discovery of mine.  But her words were far more realistic than I was prepared for.  She told me to expect her to be angry.  She was in fact trying to tell me something much harsher.  My friend was trying to tell me that my only child just might reject me.  

For awhile we kept emailing each other back and forth.  Suddenly the world was a grand place filled to the brim with auspicious opportunities for reuniting people and their hopes and dreams.  In one email my tiger child, now a grown woman (one could debate that) was even trying to set up a lunch date with me.  We were finally making plans to reunite.  It seemed that things were going good between us and, once again, I would hold my only child in my arms.  I was finally going to reap the benefits of sacrificing our relationship so many years ago.

This was all very good.  Too good, for the "mood" she was in was going to last for about two more weeks.

My daughter was in the middle of wading through her  schedule trying to work in a lunch date with me, when red flags--not even yellow flags, but red ones started waving themselves in front of me. I may not have raised my child for the last nineteen years, but I knew her still--better than even she knew herself.  I had done her natal chart once upon a time, then more recently; her chart told me that she had a problem expressing her innermost thoughts clearly.  So it was time to ask her how she really felt--about the last nineteen years, about me.  

Ah yes:  Another one of those "be careful of that for which you ask" moments.  I hate it when they happen. "Oh Frances Ann, you're just being paranoid,"  I told myself.  I was certain that this negativity was all in my head.  Then came her reply, which went something like this:

"I've thought about what you said....I'm not comfortable with you calling yourself Mom.....you may have given birth to me, but you didn't raise me for the last nineteen years......."if/when I decide to see you, I'll just email you....."

Those words from my friend were now beginning to make a very loud sound--the type of sound that reverberates throughout one's poll after coming into contact with huge church tower bells.

I have never been the type of woman to bite my tongue; my speech is intensely virulent and often frightens people away--something I do not intend to change. My reply to my daughter was, needless to say a bit harsh for a woman who is really still a child, therefore unable to process all of her feelings.  My automatic reaction when hurt is to sting, and so I did.  But I suppose that asking my princess to acknowledge the four years that I did raise her was a bit much.  

I was raised to call my mother "Mom," regardless of my relationship with her.  When my only child discounted my title of "Mother"--a title which I at least partially earned, this was akin to a big, smelly thug slapping their own mother to the floor.

I remember every detail of her young life, from pregnancy onward.  I was in labor 7 1/2 hours and can still recall the name of the attending physician.  I clung to her social security card and birth certificate even while doing time on the streets; when I had no possessions of my own, I had a memory of my child.  I never called her names, never hit her.  As turbulent as my life was, I changed her diapers, fed and clothed her, cared for her when she was sick.  I can still remember those goofy sunglasses I made her wear so that I could take a picture of my little three-year-old hamming it up for the camera.  All this and many more details of my tot I can recollect.  Instead of enjoying cheerful lunchtime exchanges between my daughter and I, all I have to stare at now is an internet fuck-you gram from her.

Dare I say that this is the thanks I get?  I believe I just did.

I'd like to ask her to return my heart which she ripped out of its rightful anatomic position by reaching in between my rib cage.  I think she has it lying around in her room in the house that she still occupies along with her adoptive parents.  Or maybe she flushed it down the toilet.  Or maybe she has it nailed to her bedroom wall and is throwing darts at it--or doing something even more evil with it.  Kids her age are like that. 

Even now, at age 32, she's *still* that way.  Probably, how should I know? I haven't heard from her since then and shall never hear from her again.  I had done my best throughout the next three years to patch things up, but we kept clashing.  In 2012, the year of our final confrontation, I disagreed *vehemently* with her choice of husbands, and she and I had gone for each other's throats. But my child, true to her nature---and unlike me, the one who fights my own battles mano-a-mano-approach (FUCK *ANYONE'S* HELP BUT MY *OWN*)--enlisted the help of *another* chair-wielding hoodlum:  MY SON-IN-LAW......

OH. HONEY. NO.

The one thing a Scorpio-dominant mother will not stand for during a fight with their child is interference. Such an action is forbidden, unforgettable and unforgivable.  Unless mother and child are coming after each other with ginsu knives, you STAY THE FUCK OUT OF IT.  I gave birth to her, she's mine-not-yours, KEEP OUT.  Think of that old 1960's sitcom "Bewitched," with Elizabeth Montgomery. Samantha Stevens, Montgomery's character, had a witch mother named Endora (Agnes Moorehead).  Well..... I was and forever shall be "Endora," and my son-in-law shall forever be called "Dirrwood."

This thug approach shows what a coward my child was and *still* probably *is.*  My little Tigger  received that which she rightfully had coming. I shudder to think of allowing *anyone* to fight my battles for me; altercations I have with someone must be done in direct fashion, without anyone's help.  Needless to say,  my scathing and well-deserved retort had all the gracefulness of a sledgehammer.

2012 was our final goodbye.  Do I have regrets?  No, for I cannot bear nor forgive her above reply of "I'm not comfortable with you calling yourself Mom."  Ridiculous!  Even  if the woman is a drug addict, she has earned the right to be called MOM.  PERIOD. To deny a woman such a treasured and rightful distinction is anathema.

I am worthy enough to be called MOM.  And if you are a mother and reading this, then SO ARE YOU. You have EARNED the right to be called MOM.  BELIEVE THAT.  Don't let anyone tell you different.

But to my child, I'm nobody's mother, BULLSHIT. I will *always* be her mother.  And I will never be forgotten.  I will be with her forever.

Happy Mother's Day, to all the forgotten mothers out there.  FOREVER.

Fran Hinkle

Original post 7/10/09

Revised 5/21/2019