Preface:
I would like to think that there are not many women out there who have had a mother like mine, but I am sure there are more. It is often hard to break the silence of abuse, especially when it is so severe. After I finished this poem I felt guilty – like I had done something wrong… a wonderful aspect of aging is that we begin to see through the ruses and I knew my feelings were temporary.
The Woman Who Birthed Me Was Not My Mother
Dedicated to the Abandoned Child in Myself, a child that suffered what Indigenous peoples call Susto or Soul Loss. This state occurs when abuse is so severe the soul of a baby cannot incarnate in its own body, but hovers around it in a disembodied state. The only way to heal this wound is to be embraced and loved by family…
My Mother sacrificed
her only daughter
hung her on a cross
of shame and blame.
Stole her identity.
Obliterated her feelings.
Forced her to wear Black.
Death crouched in
the shadows.
And when daughter’s
brother died
Revenge –
daughter, already
designated servant,
Silenced, Dismissed
by the Sphinx,
her sibling’s ashes
consigned
to fry.
With Father’s death
after a memorial in red
all who mourned,
daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin,
gathered together to
witness family loss.
Where were the two
grandsons her father
adored?
Daughter buried his bones
in a Cedar grove
under mounds of snow.
Beavers knew,
were witness too.
Where were two grandsons
her father adored?
When a call came
Some years later
more lies were exposed.
Her brother
had never been buried…
“Do you want his ashes”,
asked his namesake.
“Don’t expect me
to dig the hole”.
Year after year
in her dreams,
her brother wandered,
could find no place
to sleep or rest.
Mother stole daughter’s children
distorted perspective,
told more lies.
Taking them for
her own, she
kept them
in bondage through guilt.
But her money
seduced them too.
Daughter, cast out
of the circle –
survived
unspeakable grief
and isolation.
for years…
When her cousin
released her from hell
with one conversation
her father’s relatives
(the one she
had been taught
to scorn) took her in…
Folded back
into loving relationship
by family
who embraced her,
she found her home
and a baby she adored!
When a stranger
announced he’d
placed an image
of her brother
in the jaws of Whale
whose bones sang
as he surfaced
under the Moon,
she knew
a new story
was beginning
even as Daughter
became Old Woman…
Changing Woman
was Born.
_______________________________________________________
Comments:
Cousin: “We’re family”!
Stranger: To be at this point is a privilege, to find meaning and life in death, rebirth, to witness the beauty of the spirit world, to find the eternal moment that transcends time.
Me: Today is my mother’s birthday (12/6) and as if to reinforce the importance of publishing this piece, mama partridge came for a visit in freezing rain and snow. Since she is one of my spirit birds I knew that I was being witnessed and encouraged by nature, the mother that loves me well.
Changing Woman is the mythological Mother of all the Navajos. She was born parthogenically.
BIO
Sara is a naturalist, ethologist (a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.
feminismandreligion.com 
Heart-wrenching Sara. “Changing Woman was born” – What an image to hold onto to walk the healing path!
I’ve always thought that pain is pain and comparing our own to others in the moment doesn’t make sense. But where I do think it matters is in the healing. The older the trauma and the deeper the wound, the harder the healing path is. I so honor the path you have walked and how you have sought out your own pathway with such courage and integrity.
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Thank you Janet. Your comments are consistently deeply meaningful and your presence is palpable….Changing Woman is such a powerful figure – she reminds us the circles grow wider and wider and rebirth is part of that process that extends to the great beyond… it isa relief to be able to be so honest… and to create space for a mother’s story that was never told… she not only silenced others she silenced herself.
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Thank you for your words Sara. Really good insight that your mother not only silenced others but in doing so she silenced herself. A tragic cycle there and something for me to think about in relation to those who have silenced me through their lives.
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Oh good Janet – I love to hear that you are examining the role of silencing – the worst part of silencing is that it hooks the one silenced and leaves holes in the fabric for us to fill.
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The bravery and honesty in this post shine through like diamonds. I’m sure your note about realizing the guilt is not yours will create healing for all those who have been through similar experiences. The service you are doing by writing about both your experiences and how you have come through them is so important. Your insight that the woman who birthed you isn’t your mother is also very profound. Our real mothers are those who nurture us, and only those who nurture us, and sometimes we can even mother ourselves.
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Oh Carolyn thank you so much. Sometimes I think “oh no not another horrible family story” but then I remember what it would have meant to me to read stories like mine. It is so hard – I felt like I was so alone. Thanks be for your encouragement!
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