Soon, my father left to start a new family. This devasted me and I feared my father didn't love me either. My tears and pleas to my mother to let me go see him caused her to create mantras such as,
"He doesn't care, Linda. You are only hurting yourself by crying over that son of a bitch."
Thankfully, my Grandpa took me under his wing and showed me love that I desperately needed.
As I grew older, I came to the realization that my mother suffered from severe mental illness and I tried to see that her illness prevented her from loving me but I could never understand why she always went out of her way to be extremely cruel to me. What was wrong with me? I must be a horrible person for my mother to hurt me.
Recently, I was forced to see that for years, my mother had been going behind my back to "work" with my ex-husband (whom hates me as much as my mother hates my father) to separate me from my children.
A few days ago, she and I talked on the phone. She became angry and irrational when I kept asking her why she would want my children to hate me and to be taken from me.
She confessed she was doing it to punish me for wanting a relationship with my father. She started rambling on about things he did that were just illusions in her mind. As she spewed anger over the phone and prayed for her lord to strike me down, I felt my heart healing. I felt blessed for the fact that I was given answers and clarity.
As I went along with my day, I was stricken with the fact that I allowed a label to pull me down for years. We tend to put labels on people and expect them to live up to that label and then when they fall short, we punish ourselves for the rejection.
It is a more fullfilling life full of love you could not imagine if we let go of the labels and embrace the love and compassion we receive that is unexpected and not obligated.
