Dear Mom:
Although you've been gone nearly 18 years, I don't miss you and I have no doubt when you left this world you felt little more than contempt for me.
I never once saw you laugh and I rarely saw you smile. You never told me you loved me. You never held me or touched me in any way whatsoever after I turned 5. Before then however, you touched me quite a lot. I always wondered if you truly forgot, you were never very stable mentally, or if the forgetfulness was an act. But I can forgive this, and have.
You were not the worst monster in my life. Your husband and father saw to that. Remember when I was 3 and you stood in the doorway leading to your father's bedroom? Remember how I begged and pleaded for you to help me as your father raped me? What I'll remember most is the expessionless mask of a face and those cold, dark eyes unfeeling like doll's eyes just staring at me. Then you turned and walked away, leaving me with your father. But I can forgive this, and have.
I lived with the other monster. Remember how you cleaned me up once? What I'll remember most from that experience is how you slapped me and told me to act like a man when I complained what your husband did to me hurt. Remember when I told you about your husband and you hit me so hard you broke my nose? Remember when you took me to your twin sister's father in law, Dr. Kerr to "help" me? What I'll remember from that visit is how kind he was to me, and how he looked down his nose, over his reading glasses and told you that he better not see me again for the same reason. But I can forgive this, and have.
There are so many nightmarish memories I would have wanted to ask you about, to confirm whether they are real or not. But you wouldn't do even that for me, did you? Instead you liked to play with my mind, often telling me one thing and then later denying it and telling me how stupid I was, or how bad my memory was. I graduated with honors, straight A's and never had to study and yet you still felt the need to constantly tell me how stupid, or even better, how ugly I was. But I can forgive this, and have.
I have two children. They never knew you, nor will they ever know what I know. Sometimes, when they were little, I used to watch them while they slept. I could come into their room without them waking up tense and afraid. My life that could have been, and wasn't. 40 years later, I still wake up instantly when someone comes into my bedroom. When I think of you now I feel nothing but cold inside. There is a perpetual feeling of ice cold, in the shape of an adult hand, on my chest. I don't like to be touched, and I have trouble looking someone in the eye. These things, my emotional scars, I cannot forgive. At least not yet. Maybe one day.
I've thought sometimes what happened to you after your death. Despite everything, I cannot hate you. I hope wherever you are, and whatever happened, you were treated to more compassion and mercy than you showed me.
Chris
