Hindsight

It wasn’t until her passing and my confronting how unskilled I too had sometimes been as a mother that I began to understand the gravity of her capacity to meet my unrealistic expectations for parenting. Truth is in hindsight, I now realize that she truly was giving all that she had, yet time and time again maybe not with my words, but with my body language I casted her best as not being good enough. It’s painful to think that oftentimes I was too self-centered to really express to her compassion. I wonder what must have gone through her mind each time I would coward away in shame too afraid to admit that my mother wasn’t the most articulate. You see, my entire life I’d had the awareness that she couldn’t read, and at times I wanted to teach her especially since I am so gifted with words, and yet my gifted self could never or was it that I would never, put the same expectation of perfection on myself that I’d been demanding of her?

I am not saying that my anger towards her was unwarranted, because in a lot of ways it was however, the audacity of me unrelentingly asking for the same grace from my children that I withheld from her is both incriminating and convicting. 

The painful truth is nothing has been more eye opening than having to come to grips with the fact that my mother is no longer living, thus the “mother-daughter relationship” I tricked myself into believing that I needed will never be, because I wasted so much time being angry, As well as the fact that the very ones I rejected her for have since proven the conditionality of their devotion towards me. Maybe it wasn't so easy, but based on my perspective it took very little effort for them to transition to living their life absent my presence. You see, when people pleasing dominates your behavior you become increasingly likely to contort to a version of yourself that lacks authenticity, and because their acceptance was conditional in the first place, walking away from you proves not to be so difficult. In all honesty, time had already revealed to me that I was disposable to them, but my desperation to fit the social mold of normalcy was the foundation of me settling for their crumbs and denying the full capacity of my very own mother. I hindsight, her mothering—good, bad and indifferent—was everything I needed!

There are so many big events that have happened and will happen in my life and the lives of her legacy that we won’t be able to share with her in the flesh, and yet I find great joy knowing that she was able to bear witness to the opening scenes of my self-love journey. I am ever so grateful to God that my mother was able to witness my evolution of going from self-hate to self-love… 

I hope I made her proud!