The sky lost its sunny smile and took on the cold hard
scowl of winter. I watched the clouds, dark and low, threatening to roll
toward us.
Until now the day had been bright and mild. The roadsides and lawns
stubbornly clung to their summer garb and scoffed at the menacing weather.
Leafless trees stood stark and defiant against an icy blue sky.
I sighed, lamenting the passing of fall. Constant busyness kept me inside and
I hadn’t so much as scuffed through the leaves. Their bright brassy voices
had shouted at me to come out and play, but I could barely spare them an
admiring glance. Even their deaths went unnoticed until I heard the grumbling
north wind dispose of their drab remains.
It was already the end of November, and I wanted life to slow down. It seemed
to be in some sort of hurry and I felt caught up in a race against my will.
Our family was driving to the airport to see my son, Lance, catch his flight
back to the Navy Base in North Carolina. His last day of the Thanksgiving
Holiday with us found me scurrying to do a million and one things. I thought
about the autumn leaves; once again life made unfair demands on my time, and
robbed me of a relaxed visit with my son.
“It wasn’t always like this, was it?” I leaned my head against the passenger seat,
trying to remember. Lance sat in the back with his brothers and sisters,
their voices soft and fading, while sleep claimed a small portion of my
precious time.
Several minutes later I jerked awake. Snowflakes fell in slow motion from a
now darkened sky, like aimless drifters unsure of their destination. Then I
watched the wind chasten them, and they hurled themselves against the
windshield in a frenzy. It was as if Old Man Winter appeared on the scene and
decided to take charge. With a sudden icy blast of his breath, he banished
the last remnants of fall from his sight before he drove the dark clouds
eastward.
Something familiar about the entire scene before me tugged at the pit of my
stomach. I watched headlights passing by on the left side, and the road
hurrying away on my right. Without warning, time dislodged a small chunk of
memory, dropping it into my lap, leaving a gaping hole in the wall I had
erected to seal off the past.
Just as sudden, thirty years spilled out of the breach and carried me away
like a flash flood. It was another wintry day and I was on the road staring
at the same scenery, and driving in the same weather conditions, pregnant
with the same son I was soon to watch fly away.
Thirty years earlier, moving from Rhode Island to Washington State in the
dead of winter, and due to have a baby in four months, I harbored anger and
resentment toward his father. And although I kept my feelings about his
continuous infidelity concealed, my frustration surfaced in the worst way,
for I became abusive to our daughter, Erin, and less than a model mother to
our oldest son, Eric.
Bitterness consumed me. I ended up with an acute case of toxemia by the time
Lance was full term. Social Services became involved, and put Erin in the
hospital for tests, as she was terribly undernourished. While we were there,
I went into labor.
The added complications of Lance's transverse position brought us both
dangerously close to not making it through his delivery. When I came to, I
was hooked up to IVs and a catheter. I was too groggy to hold my baby, but
deemed cognizant enough to be told Erin had been removed from our home.
Unable to move, and nearly out of my mind with pain, I had no control over my
life or what was happening to my children. A week on morphine for the
excruciating pain left me in a worsened condition, and from there my life
spiraled into a state of despair.
Due to the traumatic birth and the effects of the highly addictive drug, I
was unable to nurse my little boy, and for nearly a week I saw him only at
arm’s length as I floated in and out of a dream-like stupor. The natural,
normal bonding of mother and son never took place. My breasts, swollen with
an ample supply of useless milk, made it painful to try and hold him;
instead, Lance took his bottle propped up with a blanket on the couch or in
his bassinet.
I spent the next month dealing with the unbearable symptoms of withdrawal.
Migraines and depression made it impossible to handle even the simple chores,
and the cruel reality of life left me without hope and turning into an abusive mother.
A little over a year later Erin was permanently taken away, and living in
denial about myself and my marriage, I became pregnant with our second
daughter, Jeni. Within a month after her birth, my children and I were
abandoned and left to subsist on welfare. Social Services stepped in once
again.
At age twenty-four, I’d had four children in five years and suffered through
a horrible marriage. At age twenty-five I had nothing; my children were all
in adopted homes, and I was on my own.
Added September 27, 2019 (I had no one to blame but myself, for I had become abusive, taking out my humiliation, frustration and eventual hatred
toward my husband for his infidelity and sexual perversion, on my children, instead of seeking help. My excuses were nothing more than not facing up to the unrecognizable person I had become.)
I tried pushing away from the memories but the overwhelming feeling of dèjÃ
vu grabbed me and threw me back into the choking debris of the past. I had
changed, but nothing could take away the pain of those memories. My heart
cried out for help, but instead of throwing me a lifeline, the Lord made me
look at the disgusting flotsam. At first I didn’t understand, but when I
stopped swimming against the current trying to drag me down, I watched the
past float away.
“That’s not a part of your life anymore,” His still small voice reminded me.
My legs relaxed and my feet touched bottom. I stood up. The Truth and God’s
forgiveness were beneath me all that time, solid as a rock. I shook free from
the memories. I had a new life now, along with a wonderful husband and seven
beautiful children. And through a miraculous turn of events, I found Eric and
Lance, both of whom assured me they harbored no ill feelings for anything
that had happened in the past.
I blinked my way back to the present and stared at the immediate
transformation of the landscape. The trees, bare to the bones but a few
minutes ago, stopped shivering and hugged their fluffy winter coats. The
green grass surrendered its smugness, and then disappeared altogether under a
clean blanket of white.
Surrounded by the beauty of the newly fallen snow, my mind cleared as we
walked toward the airport. Once inside I stayed close to my son, feeling like
the wintry world outside. We stood around saying our good-byes. I was last.
Held in a warm embrace, I heard the whispered words, “Thank you, Mom.” The
gaping hole of the past closed, repaired by his unconditional, forgiving
love.
As I watched the plane bear Lance away, I was left with the assurance that
the bond between mother and son had wrapped its arms around us, and finally
would have a chance to take hold. “Now,” I thought, “if I could just get time
to slow down a bit...”
|
