Posted by brightfeather in My mother was teacher. However, she never taught in the public or private school system, prior to her marriage. We lived in the country and gained our education through correspondence, which meant that my mother was our tutor.
She taught her own children and other children well. Her love of reading and teaching, her ability to bring out the best in each of us — is with me still and will always be. Her love of singing and dancing are likewise tucked away in a special corner of my heart.
Unfortunately, my family experienced a tragedy. Our home and all of our possessions, all of the books we so loved and our own handwritten stories and songs were burned - literally. Only my parents and two children as well as the family bible survived the fire and, my parents took this to be an omen.
They were swept up and into a christian fundamentalist cult and from there on out, aside from our correspondence lessons, we were taught nothing but the bible. The happy, laughing, singing, dancing and creative person my mother had been faded away. The dark times descended upon us children, who then numbered three and later grew to include two more.
My mother became a strict and unsmiling disciplinarian. There was no escaping her as she also became the Jesus cult’s offcial school teacher. We were severely beaten when we were caught telling stories that were not bible stories. We were likewise beaten for singing songs other than hymns or when we were caught dancing.
My mother is currently in an old age home suffering from dementia. She’s reliving her own childhood memories and no longer recognizes her children. She swears like a sailor. She sings and dances in the common room to music only she can hear.
My memories of my mother, as she was before the fire, are vivid. We spent evenings spent next to the woodstove and made up fairy stories about magical kingdoms and magical people. And these are the memories of her I choose to keep in a special corner of my heart.
if only the dementia could have trapped her in your childhood memories, rather than hers.
It seems the fire was a tragedy that went well beyond the loss of home and possessions. Sad. I’m glad that you have vivid memories of the good times to comfort you.
@adam
Most kids who are abused are abused by their fathers. This was not the case in our family. My mother was “the mother from hell”. She fractured 3 of the vertebrae in my neck while clubbing me with a bible and screaming that I wasn’t obedient. Untreated they and the other injuries she inflicted became the seat of the physical pain that I endure daily. Worse still is the physiological and emotional pain of having a mother, who was competitive and jealous of my every accomplishment.
When the really rotten memories haunt me I think the same thing that you have expressed. And, as sick as it may sound, I did take some strength from hearing you say it. I feel like you are giving me permission to say more and I feel like I need to do that.
I have forgiven but not forgotten. I acknowledge that I have suppressed an enormous amount of hatred for the woman my mother became and for what she did to our family.
… sigh …
@icedmocha
I have the good memories. The younger kids in my family don’t; to them I was “little mother”. Such is the way kids in many dysfunctional families adapt: they become the “little parents” who raised their siblings. Some, like me, choose not to become parents in later life. But most continue the cycle.
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I’m so sorry that you kids had to go through this. You are one strong lady! This really left me quite speechless. I can’t quite find the words that express my reaction to reading this.
Frankly it leaves me speechless too. The wonderful part of my life is that I married and I lived happily ever after.