The Annual Column...
and some interesting side notations.
Lately, estranged children have been all the rage on social media. It seems even Oprah, friend to billionaire pedophiles and other such fuckery, has decided to stick her face into it.
Well, whoop de fucking doo.
Most years, when I write the column to my daughter on her birthday, I imagine all of the things she would have been.
Not this year.
This year, I’ve decided to write about all of the things she would not have been, not if there was any breath left in my body, that is.
She would never have been a woman without a home to go back to.
With or without baggage, trauma, issue A through issue Z, she would have known that her mother always had a place for her where she would be safe and the door would always be open.
She would have known, without fail, no matter when the call came, I’m coming.
I’m not asking questions, I’m not playing those games, I’m already jumping into my jeans and heading out the door. I don’t care if it’s a slight case of the nerves or a full-on zombie apocalypse, I’ll figure it out when I get there.
There wouldn’t have been a time she had to fear I wouldn’t have her back.
The fact is, it just could not happen. Even if she was wrong, she wasn’t. My job description didn’t include examining the situation to determine fault, it was simply to defend my daughter until I no longer had air in my lungs.
I know that I would have shown up.
Was there a time when people were going to be doing some sort of showing up? Yes? Ok, count me in.
Maybe some folks could possibly turn out? Ok, count me in.
You could maybe possibly need someone to seem to be there in support of you? Right. Ok, count me in.
These are the lessons I’ve learned in the life I’ve lived without her. The important shit, the life altering shit, that’s a lesson of its’ own. But the everyday shit? The day to day is being there, being on their team to the point where you might be the only bitch in the bleachers with your little sad ass hometeam flag, but dammit, you’re still there waving it.
With your stupid ass pompoms that don’t rah rah when you shake them.
Yes.
You shake them anyway.
I’ve known my share of emotionally stunted women in my lifetime, and as we’re all aware, I’m in a league of crazy all my own. There is a huge percentage of those women who will tell you a nearly identical story about their relationship with their momma.
The times I’ve heard in my advocacy work, “no, I don’t have a home I can go back to”, or “my mom has a new husband, and he says I can’t stay there”.
Well.
Let’s just say it isn’t in the bottom 5 reasons women don’t leave when they’re in situations which will most likely kill them.
Knowing that, knowing everything that I know now about life, that is the number one item on my list of things my daughter would have been certain of. She would always, without fail and without question, have somewhere to come back to. I don’t give a fuck if it was 3 times every week for an eight-month period out of a year, yep, come on home.
It also goes without saying she would know when she got home that regardless of what happened, I would stand behind her while she figured it out. Every time. Not half the time, not just for the first 7 times, every single fucking time.
I would have always been pulling for my girl with every single bit of life in my body.
There’s no question, I’ve had a row to hoe that couldn’t have been turned over by just anybody. My life has not been for the faint of heart.
I never would have expected her to tough it out, to thug it out, to get in the trenches and make it happen. What the fuck did I do all of this for if it was just to watch my own girl have to figure it out on her own?
What type of clown shit is that?
I’m the woman I am because I had to be. Because another option wasn’t afforded me. Because when it came down to it, I was all that I had, and I knew that. So, I could either thug it out or lay down and take it.
Why would I ever want that to be her options?
That’s not love.
That’s fucking sadism.
If you have parents you don’t talk to anymore, this might resonate with you. Or maybe you have your own slideshow of horrors you whip out at parties. What do I know? I’m just a writer with a daughter who didn’t live to see her first birthday, and this is my yearly cry about it.
If you have your own daughter though, I can assure you, these are the things which matter. There is enough about the world that will make your girl unsafe. If you value your time with her, don’t become part of that.
For my girl, now 24, I would have always had your back. I would have always been in your corner. You would have always had a home, right here with me.
Love,
Mom