Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

Unfortunately, it’s not quite a “Happy” 4th of July on my part. What point is freedom if we can’t get rid of the slavery of being human? This bondage to fear of what others will think and even to the misplaced consideration of others’ feelings. I’ve felt a new freedom this weekend that has filled my heart and mind to the brim with feelings and emotions I never realized I’ve been carrying within myself. They’ve been quite overwhelming. For the first time in a long time I want to scream. I want to beat something, throw things across the room. Destroy something with my bare hands. Words are just words. Words hide things. Words give a controlled outlet to feelings. Because in order to express ourselves, we must first contemplate the specific word that captures an entire mind, body and soul feeling. Even putting the word “soul” to describe our essence, our humanity, our spirituality, we create a pathetic description of something that goes beyond definition–the thing that connects us to our Creator who is beyond definition. Why else would there be so many names for Him and one of them is merely a sound, a breath: YHWH. In English, we say “Lord”, and uttering the holy name of our God becomes another controlled way of expressing ourselves, putting God as a piece of our lives, rather than us being a piece of His eternal plan.
Words cannot express all that I feel. Feelings I recently found have been lurking in a deep part of myself for years. Feelings of pain, of hurt, of anger. But I must attempt at expressing them because all that I feel is the same as many people face–no matter the age or experience. As a matter of fact, if anyone had asked me even six months ago, I probably would have said I have never been through anything that traumatic or painful, etc. and would have said that I pray God tests my faith in a way that makes me completely dependent on Him. But it’s not true. I would have been lying even to myself without realizing it. And that is part of the shock I’ve had to go through this past weekend. Even before your death, mom, I was hurting in a way that I’d never even admitted to myself. Then on top of that was the guilt from the sin I had used to feel something, feeling like such a hypocrite Christian for falling into sin when the truth was that that sin was the Band-Aid for a much deeper wound. A mentor through this helped me realized it and described it as this: your death stitched up a wound that still had the poison in it. And that same mentor helped me to see that poison and the effects it had on me and my relationships with others and my relationship with God. And my best friend even told me when I told her all of this that I did have a wall around my heart. A wall that kept anyone from getting too close and kept me from being all that I am. A wall that I realize didn’t just kept people out–I blocked God out too.
That’s the really scary thought to me. I had this wall up and I didn’t even know. I’d become so good at masking my minor pains with humor and smiles, that I’d hidden my greatest pain from myself.
This revelation caused me to look back at my life through new eyes and question whether I’d even had a moment of peace. Was there a moment when I was truly happy?
But then I can say that there were because there were moments when the fears that escaped from that inner pain were assuaged with the surprise of a close friend on a special birthday, or the happiness of accomplishment in receiving of a medal for one of the things I’m most passionate about, or the simple happiness of flying down a path of snow on a snowboard, or the enjoyment of a cheesy romance Hallmark movie snuggled up with a comfy mom. There was happiness amidst the pain. Now the only question is whether there could have been more. Could the moments when I felt alone in a crowd of people or tired at the thought of being around others have been different with feelings of joyful anticipation at being around those who could lift me up rather than me doing the heavy lifting? The most pressing and painful question remains though in the forefront. If I had seen the pain, if I hadn’t hidden it so well from myself as well as others, if I had let it out, if I had felt true happiness and joy would I have struggled with the sin that I did? Would I have thrown away my innocence for the sake of feeling happy and not alone?
I think everyone has an inner pain, and the difference between a life half-lived and truly lived is not whether or not you have a smile on your face in the hard times, but the ability to share your pain with others. It’s funny because we think we’re all alone in our pain–just as I know that you were the one who had to go through depression while I was in the backlash of you going through it, I was lost in your struggle and had to deal with life without mother even before you left this earth–yet we all (Christians and non-Christians) have struggles, inner turmoil that tears us apart, or weighs us down, or draws us within ourselves, all trapped in a pain that is inside every single human being on earth. And Christians are the WORST at this!!! We all preach about how we all are sinners and struggle and the Christian walk is hard and everything. Yet when life actually hits, and God tests our faith whether it’s in obvious ways (like the death of a mother) or in less obvious ways (like a mom going through depression and a child being caught on the sidelines in one of the most crucial times of her life: middle school) we “stay strong” by instinct, thinking that it is only by people seeing our strength that we can be a witness to our faith. When did having faith require being strong? Seriously, even using the analogy I used in a previous letter, a mustard seed’s shell must be BROKEN before the seed itself can grow into a tree! How can we be broken and strong at the same time? I mean, I’m only human!
We Christians keep thinking we have to bring in more broken people into our churches without realizing that there might be people in the church who are in pain and need to be broken or are broken already but think they must also be strong to bring more broken people into church. Maybe even the person who sits next to us every Sunday is sitting there with a deep wound. Maybe it’s us. In my case, I was the one. And in middle school, when I was already struggling to find friends at church, was the shy thirteen-year-old girl who went to a different school than everyone really expected to just come out and say, “I feel alone at my home full of Christians and at my church full of Christians and why does my life as a Christian suck when I’m surrounded by people who say they love God? Why can’t I find help from someone other than my family, because I’m tired of being strong and I have to for them because my mom is sick and my dad has to take care of her and provide for us and my brother is graduating and getting married and my two younger sisters look up to me and my grandmother just lost her husband. Will someone be my friend?” Of course she can’t be expected to. Not during a time when she herself was going through the usual middle school issues that come with the awkward transition from childhood to adulthood when many social habits are acquired in how to talk to people and make friends and (for girls) how to be friends with boys without necessarily having everything else assumed. Not during the time when she was supposed to have a mother there to give her the guidance she needed in those areas.
Mom, that was harder than I ever really let on–even to myself. If I told myself enough scripture and Biblical clichés on how I was supposed to lean on God and that it wasn’t really your fault (because I know it wasn’t your fault that you had the struggles you did), I managed to slap a smile on my face and push aside the moments that tried to tear down the wall I built to stay strong. But no, I was thirteen. At the time I thought I was so old and grown-up (I’ve always felt so grown-up) but I was still a child. Even now, I’m just barely a legal adult, a tiny step away from childhood. Back then, it was still a struggle to turn in homework on time (who am I kidding, it still is) and life was about birthday parties and playing sports and trying to make A team and band concerts and board games and reading into the early morning and navigating friendships and relationships and just plain fun. It wasn’t supposed to be about contending with plants or a dirty room for your attention and even when I had your attention, worrying that whatever I had to say would set you off in anger suddenly because of your mood swings, then giving up on gaining your attention and so become unable to ask you for advice.
I still loved you, Mom. And I never blamed you for that hardship or anything I might have let myself feel a little bit then, and I still don’t blame you, even now that I know how much it truly affected me, because it wasn’t just the situation at home.
Church was honestly just as hard. I went only for God. Which is the primary reason we attend, but is only a part of why we attend church. The reason for going to a building with people is for the fellowship. That’s why it’s called “Bible Fellowship”. But back then, I only went for the music and preaching–the worst parts for me were the in between and the actual fellowship was supposed to occur, especially when the one friend I did have wasn’t there. I could have just as easily have not gone and no one would have missed me (except for that one friend). I thought we were supposed to be a church family. As the saying goes, “family means no one left behind”. I’d especially think that should apply to a church who professes the Christ who mends the brokenhearted. Nowadays I have become closer to some of the adults at my church and some of the younger generation. But the reason is because I chose to talk a little more and try to be there for people. Why do I have to be the one to put myself out there for others when I am the one hurting?
That brings me back to the who issue with us Christians hiding our pain. Aren’t we who are supposed to embrace those who hurt really try to get to the heart of the issue and love each other? When did embracing and loving come to mean loving from a distance? Yes there are such things as long-distance relationships, but how do those work without consistent and constant communication? Our “long-distance” embrace of sinners and broken people tend to be the non-communicative version, so in other words, we don’t. No wonder there has been the need for churches becoming “accepting” to the gay community and the accommodations for any who don’t like the whole “repenting and turning from your sinful life” thing and becoming a “radical” Christian who wants to be like Jesus in everything, from the movies we watch, to the music we listen to, to what we say, to waiting for marriage. We compromise what being the church really means. How could we cripple the body of Christ so much that we become numb to the parts that are literally gushing blood from wounds so deep that they’re drowning in their own blood. Christ is our head and he wants to heal His feet but His hands refuse to get dirty with the pain of the feet. How do we expect Christ’s body to move if we can’t even walk??
Mom, I finally have felt this pain and in acknowledging it and my other faults of allowing others to walk over me and expending myself for the sake of others, I have come to a place of understanding the why of many things in my life that has brought relief. Now peace and joy will only come when I fix my relationship with God and with the expulsion of this poison that has been flowing through me for far too long. But they will come and hopefully soon I will be able to live fully. To move on in the true strength that comes from healing rather than a Band-Aid that merely hides and can spread this passion for brokenness throughout the rest of the body of Christ. Because it’s only when we allow ourselves to be broken that we can find that perfect healing through Him.

Your daughter,
Hannah