My mother has been gone for almost four years now, but on occasion she still finds ways to haunt me.  Last night it was through my dreams.  It was one of those dreams where you wake up feeling the anger and sadness as though it was actually happening.  And unfortunately, it led to some lovely (sarcastic) flashbacks which just intensified the feelings. I have told very few people this story, but I believe it was a pivotal event in my life, a time when my life could have gone in a completely different direction.

I have to tell this from my point of view because I really never understood exactly where she was coming from or what would set her off.  So she may have thought she had very valid reasons for what she did that night, I don’t know.  Something else may have happened that evening that wasn’t even related to me and I was just available to take it out on.  It happened very late one night when I came in a little late from a date.  I was 19 years old and in college but still living at home because I wasn’t allowed to move out.   There were other dates where I had arrived home much later and there was no reaction,  so I had no way to prepare for what was to come.

I walked through the front door into the living room and it was like she was from the couch to the door in an instant.  I don’t know if she heard me coming and was waiting or if she just moved that fast, but the next thing I know is that she’s beating me on the head with her fists.  Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been hit in the head before, but each hit vibrates through the bones in your face and through your teeth.  It’s percussive and all you can hear is this deep pounding in your ears and you feel like your face is going to fall apart.   I’m really not sure how long she did it, but the longer she did, the angrier I became.  And the anger became a rage that I had never exhibited in front of her.  She could obviously see it on my face and in my body language because she took one step back, looked me in the eye and said “Go ahead.  Hit me.”

It was a dare and she said it with a sneer on her face.  And I wanted to.  I can’t tell you how much I wanted to.  In that split second I could picture myself shoving her against the wall like she had done to me and just hitting her until the sneer disappeared.  But I couldn’t.  I don’t know if it was fear, conditioning brought on from a lifetime of this or if something or Someone stopped me.  I wanted to kill her.  I wanted her to go away and leave me alone.  Looking back on it, I know my dad was asleep in the very next room from where this was happening.  Where was he?  Why didn’t he come out and stop this?  I’ll never know that either.  I left the room, going down the hall to my room and used pillows as punching bags until the rage left and the tears began.

I’ve often wondered about that night.  What if I had hit her?.  Would she have hit me back?  Would it have been the excuse she needed to really unleash on me?  Would I have hurt her enough to stop her from hurting me again?  Could it have stopped the mental and emotional abuse that continued for the next thirty years?  I don’t know.  I do know that I carried that rage with me, inside of me, for many, many years.  Self destructive rage that would raise its ugly head in reaction sometimes to the most ridiculous things.  Always a “controlled” rage, however.  I tore up paper, threw things that wouldn’t break, punched pillows until I would cry again, then stuff it down until the next crazy thing would set it off.

When you are hurt, physically, mentally, and emotionally by the person who is supposed to love you most, it messes you up.  You end up not trusting anyone.  I guess she loved me in her own way, maybe the only way she knew how.  The things she told me about being raised by her mother made it sound like she toned things down for me.  Is that a reason to forgive?  Maybe, but never forget.  Especially when she keeps appearing in your dreams.

The last five years of her life, I made no contact and it was the healthiest thing I had ever done.  People who have never been through this kind of thing have a hard time understanding it, but I have friends who know exactly what I’m talking about.  When she requested to see us before she died, I did it out of respect for the fact that she was my Mother.  Not mom or mommy, but Mother.  There was some hope of forgiveness and reconciliation on my part.  Silly me.  On the last night we were there, with crazy eyes and that same ugly sneer I remembered from so long ago, she lit into me like when I was a kid.  You could tell she didn’t like that she wasn’t getting a reaction, so she ramped it up a bit.  Told me that my dad loved his granddaughters more than he ever loved me and that I was a disappointment.  I knew then that the hope was gone.  She still wanted to hurt me, for whatever reason. I told her goodbye, told her I loved her and called the nurse in to take care of her pain meds.  And that was it.

Until the very end of her life, I managed not to ever tell her what I really thought, never really stood up for myself.  And you know, in a way, I’m glad because I can now live guilt free.  I tried my best.  And I never hit her.