First off this morning, Happy Belated Mother’s Day to those parents in the US. Mothers Day was celebrated Sunday, May 14, 2023. For those unfamiliar, Mother’s Day is a celebration honoring the mother of the family or individual, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.

Admission…

I do not understand nor participate as if this was anything more than a Hallmark Holiday… even though I am a mother.

As usual. If you’re sensitive, it is advised you stop here.

As a kid, Mothers Day was a thing. APK and I would help our father perform the ritualistic breakfast in bed with cards and hugs. Yay! Ironically all I can remember is the exact pitch off a sharpie black cup of Yuban as I tried not to burn myself walking up the 28 stairs. As many times as I was sentenced to an extended visit next to the timeout mirror, I had time to count them. Sometimes, she’d try to spice them up with a useless basket. By useless, sure we’d all put shit in there. I know I never hauled that awkward thing up. Plus there really wasn’t spicing up the non kid proof runner. It just needed to be gently put down..

I was the child that was, and I quote, “…to difficult to communicate with”. Therefore, I was too much trouble to be dealt with. In reality, she wanted a doll baby. I was Annabelle. Sure, she’d totally fight the “good” fight to get me in a dress and take a decent picture before I was allowed out of her sight. My “all-girl” appearance wasn’t going to stop me from playing football with my male cousins. Eventually, she’d compromise and tell me not to “mess up your teeth”. By the age of 10 so long as I could play the part of the perfect doll like daughter for her when absolutely necessary I could be my tomboy self. I was capable of respecting her when I absolutely had to, but there was very little maternal bond. I always felt inferior, misunderstood and unvalued.

As a kid, I couldn’t explain that. Hell, well into my adult years I couldn’t explain myself. So it just came out as aggression, anger and emotional frustrations. It wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I understood Maternal Bonds.

A healthy baby, 8 lbs 6oz with a 19inch head of strawberry blond hair. At 23 I had become a mother for the first time, and they were perfect. Wrapped in a soft as swaddle, they laid in my arms cooing. Instantaneously, I knew exactly what to do.

My first child had almost as rough of a start in this world as I did. I was the only person they had between themselves and a very bad man.

At 22 I had been isolated in Korea and forced to marry the man I had been living with. He was 19 years my elder and known to be abusive. I was his third wife. We had come back stateside, and I was already pregnant. My ex-husband was incapable of having children at 41. However he had an intense fetish for partying. At some point during his excessively drunken evening, he would fancy a good fucking. As the platoon NCO, he would use his station to enforce his will. He would stand in the corner between the dresser and foldout closet door watching his squadmates violate intoxicated women while he played with himself. His motto was, “No Soldier Left Behind”. He maintained his privacy by inflicting mafia like pain on anyone that spoke. It came to a point soldiers would stop by in the middle of the day because they had paid him for “lunch”.

It stopped the day he went AWOL from Fort Lewis. He had orders to report to Fort Riley, Kansas. Our entire house had been packed and shipped to storage at a location close to base. Once we arrived, we were to go to the housing office and get on the list. We never made it to the housing office.

Instead we drove through the upper Midwest in an Oldsmobile Auroa with a cracked radiator. The “Master Army Mechanic” had J.B. Welded the plastic together so many times, J.B. fucking retired. I remember sleeping on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere Wyoming while the Oldsmobile Hot Springs threw a 4 hour tantrum. I was 4 month pregnant at this point.

I had scheduled a prenatal consultation for the day after we had arrived in Kansas. I had started to show, and read online that I should be taking Prenatal vitamins. I stopped at Fred Meyer before leaving and picked up a 60 day supply. It was a good thing, because just like housing I never made it to the appointment. Or any appointments. Outside of going to Hutchison Hospital the day my water broke, I had no medical intervention in my pregnancy. I was isolated to him watching me daily inside the house to “make sure I wasn’t out of line” and coming home at night with the intention of either “fucking or beating it” out of me. One I had my child, he wouldn’t touch me. He wouldn’t dare coming into the back bedroom where we laid on the bed. Holding each other surrounded by soothing music and fierce love. We lived there exactly 7 days before we left.

I remember the cab ride to the airport. I had my child in a chest hammock. They slept peacefully nuzzled into my chest with a soft blanket. I cried most of the flights. Trying to hold them, drag the luggage and focus on getting from one plane to the next without blowing a gasket in between. Although we had just left a hell like situation, I knew I was doing what was best for them. I knew I was putting myself back in my Mothers jaws. It may have been the only time I have felt somewhat protected by her. I knew I would be sacrificing my child to a fate of nature verses nurture. I understood there was a real threat that my Mother would take my only child. I only hoped they were more resilient than I was… She did and they were.

I was on my second honeymoon the day my Mother called and sued me for all parental rights in 2007. The paperwork was finalized and sitting on the counter at the place I was staying when I got home. They were 2. She excommunicated me, and severed all communication. She adopted my child just as she had done to me, but this time she had requested a no contact order citing the child’s mental health as reasoning. I was destroyed.

I spent the next 16 years never fully recovering. I welcomed my totally awesome daughter in 2009 and my handful of a son in 2011. These two are the ones that to this day show me how to be a Mother. They gave me first steps, first words and love like I’ve never known. This year is also the first year we have not been together.

It is extremely difficult to away from all of them. I miss our blanket piles while binging American Dad or Demon Slayer X. I miss them watching from the kitchen counter amazed at the workings of dinner. I miss watching you run down our road on the way home from school in your rain boots, jumping in each muddy puddle along the way. I miss telling you both to knock it the fuck off.

To be a Mother was a choice I made. I created my best friends. I don’t need a specific day to respect, value and cherish the Mothers. Anytime my children tell me they love me, or trust me enough to come openly to me… that is all the recognition and celebration I need.

I’m not sorry if this offended anyone. My reality include a biological mother that abandoned me at the hospital, and an adoptive mother who quit before we even began. -🍋💋