To You Mom..

Mom,

For as long as I can remember, you have been the center of my universe. You were the person i looked up to for strength, wisdom, and understanding. You were my father and my mother for as long as i can remember. In the beginning, I was your pride and joy. I remember going to Caribbean carvnivals and festivals with you and my godmother. Showing me off and always saying how pretty I was. It was always you and I. Noone else. Then you married that man and I lost you. You had my sisters and i lost you even more. I stopped being your pride and joy. I stopped being the one you spent all your time with. I guess as a young mother you didnt know how to make time for all parties in your life. But nonetheless i still loved you the same. and i still admired you the same way i did as a child. The problems became when you became depressed. you stopped showing everyone your great smile and awesome personality. you just stiffled yourself and everyone around you. I understand you had a past from hell. But you originally never let that defeat you. Things changed between us when I was raped. I couldnt tell you because i thought you had too much on your plate. Your depression was through the roof and I couldnt tell you and break what little spirit you had left. So i didnt tell a soul. I kept it inside for years. Eventually it started to eat away at me, taking what little innocence i had left. Things changed before that though, when your husband started to abuse me. You never stopped him. Why? You allowed him to play that "daddy" role yet he didnt even deserve it. Too many times you have witnessed his mental and emotional abuse but you didnt stop it. Yes he did the same to you, but you was suppose to protect me and you didnt. Years later, I am scarred because I cant even tell myself that I am a good person. Because for so many years, I was compared to every little kid. I was made to feel that i wasnt good enough to even live. You was there when he compared me to a child that isnt even his child. You was there when he ridiculed me and embarrassed me about every little aspect of my being. For that, I am ashamed of who i am deep inside. The many years i spent being depressed was at the mercy of that man. Yet, the only reason you left him was because he cheated on you. NOT because he was abusing your first born child. I listen to you tell me how you almost died to have me, you fought my grandmother to bring me in this world, and all the things you sacrificed for me. But did you ever think that i sacrificed anything for you? I sacrificed my ability to attend a four year college because of you. i sacrificed my freedom as a teenager and spend my time trying to build you back up, and noone was there trying to build me up. i sacrificed my existence to make sure you wouldnt fall deeper into depression because me and my sisters needed a mother. I sacrificed having a normal teenage life because of you. I didnt get my learners permit or enjoy my senior year to the fullest because of things that were happening to you. I needed you to be a guide for me. to develop me into this amazing strong woman, but ive been weakened by the events of my past. I push people away because the main person i wanted in my life emotionally was nowhere to be found. Its even worse that i dont have a father. The worse thing you could have done was sending a letter to my sperm donor and having him tease me with two weeks of his presence. But that doesnt stop there. To this day, although I have forgiven you, I cant forget you not attending my high school graduation. I dont think you know how deep that pain is at the fact that you didnt attend it. Every year while in school, we would have assemblies about our achievements academically. From as long as i can remember, you didnt attend any of them. I never strived to get good grades in my younger years because when it was time for the assemblies, i knew you wouldnt be there. Do you know how hurtful it is to look in the crowd as a kid and see all the other kids parents there and yours isnt? if you dont know this by now about me, im a simply type of person. Only the little things in life matter most to me. Those kids parents had jobs too but made sure they were there to cheer their kid on. It was embarrassing when kids would ask me where my parents were at and i would have to lie and tell them that you were on your way or got lost or something. So i figured that my high school graduation would be a make up of lost times i guess. And i was disappointed yet again. with the events that took place in my high school years, i never thought i would make it across the stage. between the abuse you experienced in your relationship with that guy and me missing school because i was afraid he would come back and kill you, to the few attempts i made to committ suicide, i never thought i would have seen my high school diploma. Tears still well up in my eyes when i talk about this because it hurt me so deeply. Yes it was cool that my grandparents and aunt was there, but it meant more if you were there. you use to tell me as a teenager that i had nothing to be stressed about. little do you know i had the world to stress about. i had no father in my life, the man who tried to take his place left me abused and shattered when he was done, I was holding a deep dark secret about my rape, and my mother was depressed. i had noone there cheering me on telling me that i could do anything. all of my drill meets for ROTC, you werent there. I dont even remember you even taking a picture of me in my uniform for keepsake. the only thing you would say to me was dont turn up like you. but that was just as vague as telling me dont fall down. i have resentment towards you, however i tried my best to not let it show. i tried my best to shower you with the love i wanted from you. i tried my best to be your ears when you needed to talk, a shoulder to have when you needed to cry and a heart to love you when you needed unconditional love. i tried to give you exactly what i needed from you, in hopes you would get the hint. I felt i shouldnt have to tell my own mother, who birthed me and gave me life, what i was missing from her. but i guess i had to. this is not a letter to bash you or put you down or tell you anything hateful. but for so much of my adult life ive spent trying to impress you and not myself. i spent so much time holding on to these feelings and in fact it ate away my personality and the very spice that makes me..ME. no matter what mom, i love you. its so hard for me to now here you say you love me, because i wish i heard that more when i was a kid. i wish i heard when your husband would make me feel like dirt, that you would tell me everything would be ok and not to believe anything he said. even if you didnt believe the words that was coming out of your mouth, i wish i heard it anyways. because now when things get bad for me, all i think is negative things because thats all ive been taught. i dont want to live my life like this anymore. when you got diagnosed with breast cancer, it didnt hit me like it should have. i guess i became numb to anything that had to do with you. i know that you love me, hell you might love me more than i really do know, but i wish you showed it way before things got to this point. the mother you are to my siblings now hurts deeply because thats exactly what i wanted from you as a child, a teenager, and a young woman. what hurts now is the fact that you cant even put a little disagreement behind you between the woman i love and yourself. i know you dont accept my lifestyle but its me and its apart of me. and since the day i told you i was gay, i wanted you to understand that love has no boundaries or gender. its not inhumane to love the same sex because love has no boundaries. it can go as far as you want it to go or fall short where you want it to. genderless love is a beautiful thing and maybe one day you will understand why i am truly a lesbian. im not a lesbian because men hurt me or because i wanted your love. im a lesbian because this is something that ive felt since i was a little girl, and when i didnt act on it, i felt incomplete. me proclaiming my lesbianism has made me whole. i love you though mom, and its time to put aside the differences. life isnt promised to neither one of us and at any moment in time, we could take our last breathe. you will probably never read this letter, which im happy about, because i dont want you to hurt behind anything that i feel. because regardless, i still see you as light of my life. ive just felt hurt and disappointment but it never changed how much i love you. i take pride in being your first born and i will always love you. but today is the day i proclaim that i leave this all behind, and either i try and have a relationship with you, or i dont. but today is the day my heart is erased of hurt from you. i dont blame you because you was a young mother. a young woman who wanted love too but had a child. a young mother who wanted her childs father to be there but instead he wasnt. i understand now more than i did before. throughout all of this though, through the many tears that have fallen because of you, i am a stronger woman. even though right now i feel broken. you gave me a lesson that my siblings need. i dont fault you but it did hurt. i love you mom and im glad your breast cancer free..