Monday, September 29, 2014

As a mother, we often fighting between sadness and hurt.

Our children are given to us as blank pages and from the moment they are born we write on those pages. We learn very quickly that we can't always erase the hurt or the sadness, but, in the beginning we can be there to support them writing on those pages.

Often the first hurt that is written on the page of our children is their learning to walk. When they fall down and get up, bump their knees, skin their elbows we kiss the hurt and it is written on their page that mom can make it better. We then write joy and love on their pages with our support and unconditional commitment to their well being.

Then as a mom we realize that they are no longer our baby and sadness sets in as the cuddles get further apart the falling down becomes failed relationships, the bruised knee turns into bruised feelings and the skinned knees becomes those things that moms can't kiss and make better. Sadness is written on their pages, that mom can't fix everything.

Independence, self-reliance, new jobs, new relationships are new pages added to our childrens lives and we can only hope that we have taught them how to balance sadness and hurt with joy and love as the pages are added and they move further and further away from mom's ability to help them edit the pages of their lives.

Then as they grow, pages are added to our child's life that we know nothing about. Events, episodes, connections that happen away from mom's view. Pages are written that include hurt, sadness, anger, failure, disappointment, bad decisions that mom knows nothing about. Those things that everyone experiences in the process of growing up. Pages that are hidden from mom's reading, because they would cause so much hurt and sadness if they were exposed and opened for us to read.

This week some pages in the life of one of my children has been exposed. It makes we weep with sadness and opens a hurt that I don't know how to heal. It has broken me in a way I can not fathom. The pain from seeing these pages is so deep and is such an open wound that the sadness feels as if it has invaded the inner part of my soul.

I have read some of the hidden pages of my other children and been pleased, excited, sad, and hurt, But, this time the pain is something I can't explain. The hurt has penetrated my whole being. I feel stuck in a place that I can't find the way out of.

I have pulled on a mask different from the one I, usually, wear. You may not be able to see the hurt or the pain, but it is there written on the pages of my life in a way that they can't ever be erased. How can a mother help a child that has written pages of destruction, lies, hurt and anger. fear and self-destruction.

I may have known that some of these pages existed, but I was either unable or unwilling to read them. I knew that this child was in pain. But I had no clue as to how bad it was. I had quit trying to read the pages of this child as they had grown. Was it because I had pulled and way and refused to read the pages of this child or because the child had pulled away and closed the book so that I could not read them. I don't know perhaps, both of us are to blame.

Jpward 9/29/14

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