I was a 19-year-old heroin addict working at a gas station in 2008. I was working at the cash register when I got a call on the station phone. The call came from a childhood friend of my mom’s. Her friend lived about an hour from me. My mom was living 3 states away at the time. Being called at work was weird. Cellphones were still new (ish) but most people had them. (Think, flip phones and whatnot.) Normally I’d take calls on my lime green Samsung slider phone. So being called at work was a red flag. My mom’s friend never called me, so, again, weird. Mom’s friend asked if I had heard from my mom. I hadn’t. Apparently, she was missing. For some reason, my first thought was to text my mom’s husband. They were going through a divorce but still living together. My mom had previously told me not to talk to him anymore. She had never given me a direct answer as to why she didn't want me talking to him but she was acting strange in regards to what was going on between them. I could tell that she was afraid of him. She had never told me not to speak to someone before. My mom had been in and out of many relationships throughout my childhood and she never had any issue with me keeping contact with one of her exes. But she was firm in saying that I needed to stay away from this one. Their divorce was supposed to be finalized that week.
So, I slid my phone open and texted my “stepdad.”
The text I sent said, “Where is my mom? Please tell me you didn’t hurt her.”
His response: "Kelsey, I definitely did not hurt her. I got a text around 10. She was leaving town for a few days."
Somehow I knew he had killed her. Right then, after that text, I just knew it.
I got drunk that night.
Looking back and thinking about the fact that I talked to my mother's murderer just after he had killed her and her dead body was lying in their garage while he was texting me, just blows my mind. None of this makes sense.
PSA: Murder is gross, messy, and confusing. Don’t murder people.
Exodus 20:13 (CSB) “Do not murder.”
After driving to my then boyfriend’s house he and his mom and I drank until we were belligerent. Like an idiot, I called the county police department in the town where she was murdered many times that night asking for updates or details as to where my mom was. My boyfriend’s mom kept telling me, “She's dead! She's dead! He killed her! Your mom is dead.” I couldn't take much more of her insanity so he drove me to my dad's house where I passed out.
The morning of November 12th my aunt called and told me the police had found my mom’s body in her garage. It was revealed to us later that she had laid there dead since the night of the 10th or the wee hours of the morning of the 11th. These are details I may never know. Her husband had indeed hurt her. He beat her to death, wrapped her in towels and a tent in their garage, and attempted to cover it all up. The story is still all over the Internet. Because I was addicted to drugs at the time that it happened, I’ve had to refresh my memory of the details via Google. Of course, I still have my own memories of the “incident”. I will never forget the way it made me feel. At the time I thought maybe it was the drugs that made me feel like I was on a reality TV show. I kept waiting for somebody to pop out and say this was all a joke. But looking back, perhaps that is just the way traumatic experiences feel sometimes. The shock makes you feel like this can’t possibly be happening. My dad used to watch a lot of shows like Criminal Minds, Law and Order, and NCIS. So when this happened, I kept thinking, “Am I on TV? This stuff only happens on TV!” No one ever popped out and said it was a sick joke. Mom’s body was taken for immediate autopsy. I remember sitting at the dining table and bawling my eyes out while arguing with the coroner. I wanted her body shipped “home” to me in Indiana. She had moved 3 states away 6 years prior with the guy who killed her. She’d lived in my hometown for nearly 20 years before that. If they’d just send her home to me, we could have a proper memorial for her here. I needed to see her. It had been quite a while at this point since I’d seen her last. Mom and I didn’t have a great relationship. I was very hurt by the fact that she left me to live with this guy.
She was always choosing men over me, which killed me inside, and eventually, it killed her too.
I needed the little bit of closure seeing her might bring me. I hadn’t seen her for about a year when she died. In the 6 years that she was gone before she died, I really only saw her a handful of times. It was an 8+ hour drive to her house in Minnesota. In my early teens, she flew me out to her a couple of times - alone. (I cannot fathom ever putting one of my kids in this situation!)
After a long conversation with the medical examiner explaining to me the condition of my mother’s body, they agreed to send her to our local funeral home. The guy that ran the funeral home was an old friend of my mom’s. He too warned me of Mom’s condition. On November 17th, I got to see her for myself. (Shocking that they released her body so quickly.) Every one of her family members got to see her before me. Her mother and father, understandably. She was their baby. But being much older than I, they’d die before me and not have to live with the pain as long.
Although I do believe no parent should ever have to bury a child. My brain can’t even go there. The thought of losing a child is too much for me. The thought of someone taking my child from me in this fashion is excruciating. I feel for them.
However, I do not feel my relationship with my mother has ever been respected or honored as the connection a “normal” mother and child would have. But I believe that lack of connection is something my mom herself created and so when she passed, I was not a priority once again.
This is my perspective. I know that it could possibly be skewed due to my drinking and the drugs that I was using at the time. I only have a few memories left of the whole ordeal and how I felt at that time. Between my body naturally forcing trauma out and the drugs I used at that time, I feel like my brain is starting to forget. Or perhaps the wounds are healing? Life goes on, I got married, had kids, and I’ve lost other loved ones. I’m not sure how much capacity my brain even has. So, it seems like there is no better time than now to recall what I can. Talking about it feels like it creates a hole in my soul.
I must be careful not to get sucked into the darkness and evil.
Again, this is my perspective on these events. I will never agree with what happened to her. No decent person deserves to die this way. But I have to admit, I might struggle to portray a depiction of the events of her murder that are not tainted with the pain of our relationship (or lack thereof) leading up to the events. I think my view on all of this has always been hurtful to her family. They were not pleased with me after what happened because I’ve always believed that this was her fault. She didn’t make smart choices leading up to this. My feelings have caused distress within her family. She was their daughter, their sweet baby girl. She was their sister and best friend! She was their fun aunt and cousin. She was so full of life, love, and humor to so many. But she was my mom. The only mom I had. The mom that I’ve always needed but never had. The mom that left me at 13 and caused me great pain for many years. She failed me as a mother and the pain crippled me. I am who I am today because of everything she wasn’t. Her murder was still very painful and traumatic for me. You only get one mom. I was robbed of any chance to reconcile with her.
So, after pleading with the authorities to see her body, I got to see her. Well, what was left of her, anyway… She didn’t look like my mom. She looked like Shrek. She wasn’t green, but her head was swollen and her features didn’t seem to be hers.
Her head was swollen, like a balloon. I guess that’s to be expected when you die from “blunt force trauma to the head and neck”. At her trial, I learned that he had put her face down in a garbage can, like trash. He used the can to pull her bloodied body down the stairs of her townhome to the garage. Those words haunted me for years. “Blunt force trauma to the head and neck.” I would get high to try to rid my mind of the murder, but these words would play on repeat in my mind.
At the time, I didn’t truly understand the extent of her injuries. He had badly beaten her. I heard that. The medical examiner had tried to explain it to me. But I was 19 and spent most of my time partying and using drugs. Being 19 alone is not enough to fully grasp what had happened. There is no 19-year-old child ready to see their mother’s brutally beaten dead body lying in front of them. If you think losing a parent changes you, I promise you that having a parent who was murdered, transforms you into someone you had no idea you’d ever become. My transformation wouldn’t begin for another year. But after I sobered up, it would happen. Ultimately, I was a child, her child. He had taken her away from me for the past 6 years, now he had taken her from me forever.
I was a child.
I was HER child.
A child who needed her mom.
I needed my mom.
I just wanted to see her to say goodbye. But it wasn’t her.
I never got to say goodbye.
I saw what he had done to her.
But I never saw HER again.
It's been 15 years since my mother's murder. This means I have lived 21 years of my 34-year-old life without a mother. She moved away with him 6 years before her death. Part of me had already buried her. She died to me years before her death.
I do not have vivid memories of my mom’s body lying there in front of me. It’s all in bits and pieces. The memories are very dark and I see them as if I had tunnel vision. The year following her death I would use drugs more heavily than I had ever used before. In my memories, I can see her hands. I remember her hands that didn’t look like her hands. The examiner had cut her nails short for evidence. She always had longer natural nails. Her hands were damaged, and bruised, and showed that she had fought for her life. I remember the position of her body and the way her hands were folded. Her right ear was torn and that was the ear facing us. The condition of that ear haunted my nightmares for years. They had a terrible amount of makeup on her. But not enough lipstick. One of the sisters helped to add that. It smeared. My mom didn’t wear much makeup, ever, and definitely not smeared lipstick. She was wearing a turtleneck to cover her broken neck and crushed throat. Outside of winter months and formal events, my mom wore V-neck shirts. One thing she always told me was that, “showing a little chest” was more attractive. Today I value modesty, I would never teach my daughters the things my mom found important.
So there she was, wrapped in plastic and ice packs. She wasn't attractive now.
Her body would be cremated after our goodbyes and the plastic that they shipped her to me in was never removed. She was cold, like a frozen zombie creature just lying there. This wasn’t Mom. But, I am glad that I got to say goodbye to this body. It was a part of the process I needed to heal. Her family had a closed casket memorial service for her the next day.
I never got a moment alone with her body to say goodbye. I am unsure if this was because I was not trusted or if it was just the trauma of the situation and nobody wanted to leave her side. I had to say goodbye in the room full of her family. Which, obviously, they’re my family too. But unfortunately, nothing much more than blood has ever bound me to my relatives. We never gathered for holidays or exchanged gifts. No phone calls to chat. There is so much more “ill will” towards me that I won’t get into here, but it was dysfunction at its finest. I can recognize now that it was strange. At the time it just felt like “normal”. That’s the way it was. I was never wanted anywhere outside of my home with my dad. I did not feel welcome at my own mother’s funeral. But that’s just the way it had always been. There wasn’t a place for me in Mom’s life, so why would there be for me after her death? I rarely speak to her family now.
I do have an aunt who has made an effort since mom passed and I love and appreciate her for that. My kids have been around her, and I’m grateful for the time that we get with her when we get it. We went to visit her over the summer. I cried after we left. On the ride home my mind was racing. It had been years since I had spent any amount of time with my aunt. Being in her presence really made me feel closer to my mom. Or maybe it was just that I hadn’t been around her for so long I had forgotten so much of the good. There were brief moments of good during the 13 years that I did have with Mom. It's a weird thing when you don't have any family left around you. You don't need family near you to know who you are but having family helps you remember where you've come from. After we left, it dawned on me that visiting my aunt is the only place I’ve been in years where anyone has photos of her or talks about her. There are few places I go nowadays where people even remember my mom. There are photos of her there on display at my aunt’s house, that isn’t even true of my own home. Just seeing her face here and there made me feel feelings I hadn’t thought of in a long time. Some of her ashes are there. It's not often I encounter anyone who knows my parents. However, I have recently come in contact with a couple of folks at church who figured out who my mom was and said, “Hey I knew her when…” or “I didn’t know that was your mom!?” So, people haven’t totally forgotten her. And I'm beginning to wonder if she has been coming up more recently because I'm supposed to do something… God always has a plan, doesn’t He?
When someone dies, sometimes little things happen that will make you think of them. When my mom passed her younger sister saw owls during the daytime. She took these as “signs from my mom”. I don't know that any of that is true, I don't believe spirits themselves will contact us, but I am glad it gave her comfort. I can however tell you that my family and I took a road trip to Alabama with our camper over fall break and my mother was heavily on my mind. I did some “research” aka: I read Internet articles about her murder during the truck ride. I then began writing this blog post. During the week that I spent camping in Alabama every single night as I would lay in my bed an owl would sit in the tree above my camper in hoot... hoot... hoot... all night long.
Coincidence?
Maybe! Maybe not?!
I do think that as Christians it is important to remember that the Holy Spirit is the only spirit that we should be interacting with. Nine times out of 10 if you are interacting with the “spirit realm”, it is demonic and it is not the spirit of your loved one. The devil likes to mask himself and all sorts of forms. The easiest form for him to encounter you in would be the form of the spirit of a loved one. Do not be fooled. We also need not venture off to tell our children that little critters are their grandparents coming to say hello. I do however believe that God can send birds, insects, and critters of sorts that will bring comfort during a season of mourning.
But these are God's creatures and His creations are beautiful, all glory to HIM ALONE.
As we are grieving I don't think there's anything wrong with taking comfort in a toad that comes by at night or that beautiful red bird that comes through the trees at just the right time.
Embarrassing side note:
Before I found God, I did think a toad was my mother at one point in time! At that point in time, I was heavily addicted to drugs. My drug-addicted brain convinced me that the toad was my mother. So I would talk to the toad. (insert uncomfortable laugh) My sober mind now understands that the toad came every night because the back porch light attracted an abundance of insects that it likes to eat. I think a lot of people get lost in that mindset of dragonflies being angels or cardinals being visitors from heaven. I do believe that God is capable of sending these critters to bring us comfort but we need to be very careful not to believe that our lost loved ones spirits are embodied in these animals. Christians do not believe in reincarnation. Not to mention, I hope like crazy that my parents would not come back as a bug that could be easily squished.
I do pray that I will see my parents again someday. I know that my mother attended the church that I attend now at one point in time. I know that she had also gone to a church after she moved away with her murderer. I do not know if she was ever baptized. I do not know if she accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. I do know that the Internet says that the medical examiner believes that she had been suffering for 3 to 4 minutes gurgling her own blood before she finally died. My God is all-powerful. In that 3 to 4 minutes, He could have saved her, right?
I hope so.
I know that the Bible says that if we "confess with our mouths" that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved. If she was not able to profess that, will I see her in Heaven?
Romans 10:9-10 “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
Acts 16:31 “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
So, was my mom saved, I don’t know.
Sometimes I wish that I could speak to her woman-to-woman or mom-to-mom as the strong Christian woman that I am today. I wish I could have a conversation with her about her behavior as a mother and some of the choices that she made. I never got to witness her leading a Godly life. I never got to see her in a healthy light. My heart desires a connection with her as I have seen with other women and their grown daughters at my church.
I wish she hadn't soured my heart towards women who try to mother me. My mom was not a great mom and then she was stolen from me. I have lived without a mother since she moved away when I was 13 years old. I have lived the past 21 years of my life without the influence or support of a mom. Lacking that support and love has caused me to become incredibly strong in a sense. In other ways, I have a bit of bitterness inside of me. I try not to project that bitterness onto others. Mother's Day does tend to be hard at church. I thought it would get easier but as I see adult women and their mothers being grandmothers to their children my heart tends to ache. Not always, but sometimes. Over the years, women have tried to come alongside me and be motherly towards me, but I struggle to open my heart to them. I do fine with women who want to be friends, but I struggle to be mothered. I guess that’s the result of trauma. I’ve always just wanted my own mom. As messy as she was, she was my mom. So many people saw so much good in her and I desperately wanted to be able to interact with her on that level. Each year the grief crops up differently.
I recently came across a video of a woman pretending to be her teen self from 2004. She was “talking to her mom” in the video, the story was about a time they’d gone shopping. For the most part, when I see something like this, I can enjoy it. But when I saw this it shook me. I was only reminded that I didn’t have any memories of my mother like this. She left me in 2003 to move away with her murderer. She was supposed to be moving back to Indiana after her divorce. She was planning to live in a town roughly an hour from my home. Obviously, she never made it back. After she passed I learned that she was not moving back to be near me. She was moving back to be near her next boyfriend with whom she’d already discussed marriage. Typical.
Over the years I've been approached by people asking for this story for television shows and I've never shared with them or wanted to partake in a show. The last time I was called was only a few years ago. It really creeped me out. A woman kept calling me saying that she was the producer of a documentary and they wanted my perspective on the story of my mother's murder. She said she had also been in contact with the murderer and his family and if I didn't give my side of the story, it would be told from his standpoint. I did some Google searching on her name and her production company and it left me feeling pretty gross inside. Who knows who I was actually talking to? Maybe it was the murderer’s prison girlfriend…? Maybe it was legit? Who knows!? She said that she found my phone number after I had gotten an Internet service that came with a landline and my home phone kept ringing. This all happened within a year of getting the internet service. Super creepy!
So, my mother's murder continues to haunt me. But I can handle it today.
Who was my MOM?
My mom was born in Chicago Heights Illinois in 1963. She was the third child. I wish I could tell you more about her childhood. All I know is that of which I have been told by others.
I mean, how am I supposed to know anything about her? She was only my mother.
I do know that she was one of four children and she had a half-brother from her father's previous marriage. I don't know what it was like when she was a little girl. I don't know what type of things she liked to do. I mean, I would’ve had to engage in these conversations with her for me to retain any knowledge of who she once was. I suffered through the brief 13 years of interactions with her. My childhood with her was full of pain, abuse, and arguing. I didn’t have enough time to learn much about her childhood or what her life was like before me. I thought it was probably time for me to hurry up and write down what I did know about her before every ounce of who she was to me, completely disappeared from my mind.
She was a journalist. She went to Louisiana Tech and majored in English. She was smart and never let me forget it. I was never as smart as she was and didn't stand a chance in conversation with her. She was my superior, we'd never be equal.
I know she loved to read, she loved her pets, and she loved to drink with friends. She enjoyed playing Scrabble and eating popcorn with melted caramel. She loved coffee, cheese, and guacamole. She was a great baker and made delicious cakes and cookies. She could talk in funny voices and loved jamming out to loud music in the car. I know that she could type ridiculously fast. Something that I cannot do. She was a professional writer. I have held myself back from writing for years because I know I will never be “as good” of a writer as she was.
They say time heals all wounds. 15 years later, I am still waiting for the mental and emotional wounds she and her murder have caused me to fully heal. I mean, overall, I am "totally fine." I'm weird, but, like, I'm good, bro! Ya know?
** Laughter is excellent medicine. If you are in a "messed up" situation and you are unable to find moments where you can laugh... I urge you, to step back and get out of the seriousness of it and just laugh. LAUGH about how insane it all is…Laugh because it's ridiculous! Laugh because life is crazy! Laugh because it's going to make you feel good! Sometimes I have to laugh so I don't cry. Just laugh.
But - I do have a hard time believing that it is the TIME that actually brings healing to the wounds. Time passes, memories fade and the wounds are still there.
Even with extensive therapy over a dozen years - if I am tipped in just the right direction, my boiling blood still spills through “mom-sized slits” and bursts open my scars. Although, the trauma she subjected me to doesn't cut me to the core anymore, rather, it's like an annoyance. The pain is similar to superficial cat scratches on your hands.
The reminders only sting like getting hand sanitizer in those little cuts.
(This is HUGE PROGRESS!)
I don't believe in allowing our circumstances to dictate behavior. I try not to “play the victim”. I especially try not to allow the trauma of my childhood to determine the course of my adulthood. We have to let go and move on. But there's no denying that what happened will be part of me forever. And at times, the damage my mother caused me affects me still today. But I am no longer controlled by her. I used to only be the girl whose mom was murdered. I am now the woman who has lived a life of pain but chooses to continually surrender to the healing power of Jesus Christ.
Over the years, there have been times, that I have found myself despising everything about her from her deep laugh to her promiscuous actions and her final abandonment of her only child.
Somehow over the last 5 - 8 years, my feelings towards her have evolved from a place of hate, pain, and loneliness to pity and sympathy. I still struggle with the fear of rejection in other areas of my life. My brain “the enemy” says my own mother didn’t want me so how could anyone else? But the adult me tries to understand her with an empathetic point of view. After becoming a mother myself, my hate for her ran deeper than ever before. 12 years ago I was lying in the hospital all alone… I was a 22-year-old single mom. There I sat holding my first child. I remember feeling this intense love and connection to my little human. This connection seemed to be pulled straight from my heart and plugged right into the heart of my baby. It was wild to feel the most love for this life and so much hate for a dead person all at once. Back then, calling her my mother left a bitter sting in my mouth. I was devastated by her poor life choices. A mother isn't someone who leaves. A mother stays in fights for her child. A mother chooses to mother her child over her own selfish wants and desires.
Doesn’t she? I believe so. That’s what I do for my children.
It took me a long time after she died to move on from who she was when I was a kid. I had to forgive a dead person for years of abuse without any opportunity for a conversation to find closure. Depending on who I’m talking to, sometimes it still bothers me. But overall, I am at peace with her memory. It’s rare that I ever miss her. I think about her only occasionally. Sometimes I forget her birthday. But November still feels gross. The Christmas of 2020 I found myself missing her terribly. It was bizarre and caught me completely off guard. I was asleep in bed in a Florida condo when I was jolted awake at 2 AM with memories of her! I couldn’t go back to sleep and started scouring the web looking for articles about her murder just to feel a little bit of connection. Weird, huh!?
How do I find comfort in reading things like, “Her body, wrapped in a sleeping bag and tent in her garage, had many injuries, including a crushed neck that left her struggling to breathe for three or four minutes before dying. There was so much blood.”
One heckuva way to feel "connected” to your mom. But for some reason rereading things to make it all real again reminds me that she isn't just a bad nightmare. It happened, she's gone, and it's okay to want to feel connected to her.
There are a few photos of her that linger on the internet. So that night I got out of bed with my phone and went out to the balcony to look at her face. There she was, looking at her felt like I was looking at a character, not my mom. I wondered how I could be missing this person that I barely thought about. I was mad at myself for allowing her to get to me. I was confused. I am no longer angry with her. I don’t make it a habit to allow her to clog my thoughts. Maybe I was feeling this way because of watching my mother-in-law interact with my sister-in-law. Maybe it was the emotions of the holiday, who knows? All I do know is that I was feeling real feelings for my mom that I hadn’t experienced much before. As time has progressed, my healing has attempted to delete her from my mind. I have found myself pitying her at times. She had to have been a lost soul to behave the way she did.
There are all sorts of articles online praising her and who she was as a journalist. However, there is not much that shows that she was a mother. Aside from a few words written by people who have no idea who she really was.
So who was she? And why was she the way she was? These are questions I am learning to accept that I won't have all the answers to. But I do know a little. I am tiptoeing lightly here... I am tiptoeing in an attempt not to offend those who loved her. I know that absolutely no one can be all good or all bad. We are all broken and damaged creatures that suffer through life and its challenges. But, this is what I was told. Her parents were drunks as she was growing up and people saw her mom hitting her. I have been told horrible stories about her dad. I don't know the truth, but I trust that my source would not make this up. These are just a couple of the stories I've been told. So, perhaps she was a damaged little girl. A girl who had issues and grew up to be an adult who drank because she didn't know what to do with the pain of her past. Maybe taking it out on me was the only way she knew how to handle any of it. Perhaps her promiscuous behavior was her trying to fill the void left by a lack of love as a child. I don't know. None of that really even matters but from an empathetic standpoint, I can understand how her behavior was the way it was. She was doing the best she could with what she had.
As the holidays approach, I am realizing that in the six years that she was in Minnesota, I don't even know if she put up a Christmas tree. She had gobs of Christmas decorations when she lived here with me but I know so very little about who she was when she moved away, that I don't even know if she decorated for the holidays. To further that thought, I don't remember ever going to her parent's house for a holiday. I don't know if they ever put up a tree. I don't know what any of her relatives do for the holidays. How sad is that? To me, holidays have always been about family, but that was only ever modeled to me by my dad and paternal grandparents. I pray that as my children age, we will still be able to gather for the holidays. Even if it isn't on the exact date or if the holidays look different from what I hope they will be, we will still emphasize the importance of family.
I have thought about death a lot lately. From the anniversary of my mother's murder in November to a YouTube video of a 33-year-old mother of a five-year-old and a one-year-old who found out she had stage four cancer and died... And then at church hearing the story of a 28-year-old mother who had a massive heart attack from contracting a virus and is expected to die soon. Death is inevitable. I know I'm going to die, someday. I'm not afraid to die because I know where I will be in eternity. I believe in Jesus Christ and my salvation is in HIM, but the thought of leaving my children behind too soon is what terrifies me. My mother died at 45 years old. I was 19 and I had no idea who I was. I had no concept of God. I was bitter, angry, scared, and sad, and I wanted to give up. I had no hope for my future. God forbid I would die at 45 years old, but if I did, my children would be 23, 19, and 13. My children would have lived their entire lives with me up until that point. They would know that I deeply loved them. They would know the truth of God's word. They would have a church family to fall back on. My children would be equipped with resources on how to continue life without me. My children would never have to question my love for them. I am who I am today as a result of who my mother wasn't.
I believe that God hand plucked me from the pits of hell. When I found Jesus in a jail cell, I was 20 years old with little hope for the future. It's not often that I think about how far I've come, but if I'm honest, statistically speaking, I should be dead or in prison. Today, I am truly everything that my mother was not. I may never have a college degree or gobs of friends, but I am a loving mother who is involved with her children. I am a loyal loving wife who stands by her husband through the ugliness of life. This is something that I had to choose to be. I have met so many people over the years who fall victim to their circumstances and pout about the "cards they were dealt." Life is hard for everyone. We have to stand and fight against it.
So, was my mother a good person? Maybe. I really didn't know her well towards the end. There seem to be a lot of articles with people praising her. Maybe she was a decent human to people who were involved in her life. But I can say that she was not a good mother.
She made some halfhearted attempts to stay in contact with me after she moved away. At least for the first couple of years anyway. She would send cards. I can remember a couple of the greeting cards that she sent me. I only have one of them to this day, but another stands out in my mind. It was a white square card (blank inside) the front of it was a cartoon scene. A little guy was standing on the ground looking up at a UFO saying, “Take me take me!” The aliens were responding, “No you're ugly!”
It was a strange card because nothing was written inside. I remember thinking, maybe this was us. She couldn't take me with her because I was ugly. But I know she was just trying to be funny. My mom had a very unique sense of humor. She could have most people laughing right away. She was very quick-witted and pretty sure of herself. She made a name for herself in public. People really liked her. She would say silly things like, “I’m a princess.” Friends of hers would buy her tiaras and frilly pink accessories.
Her catchphrase for a few years before she died was, “I’m delightful and everybody loves me!” After her murder one of her friends purchased a silver bracelet for me with this quote engraved on it. (I wore it while cooking meth and it tarnished.) I didn't find her to be delightful. She was goofy with her friends, but at home, she was far from it. Her comedic behavior had her identified as “the clown” of each of her little bunches of friends. This fun-loving charismatic person that people had grown to know and love was an entirely different version of the woman I received behind closed doors. I was an only child and spent a lot of time alone. She worked full-time and had meetings in the evenings. If she didn't have a meeting she would stop downtown at the bar with friends before she came home. She left me a list of chores to do to keep me busy while I was home alone. At times I still have nightmares of being trapped in the house that she and I lived in.
While people were grieving her loss I was battling anger, frustration, and pain. People would stop and tell me how much she loved me or would send me cards saying how much she cared for me. I know they were trying to bring me comfort but it made me even more upset. I never believed that she loved me. Her actions showed me otherwise.
Those who were close enough to know her behind the scenes knew more of her truth. My truth. After she passed away it was hard for people to identify with the woman that I was so angry with. Many people were angry at me when I would "tell stories" about the mother that I knew. Some folks thought that because I was on drugs I was just angry and making up stories because she had moved away and I hadn't gotten over it. There were other people who just flat-out called me a liar. Because I was struggling to grieve the loss of her, I received a lot of backlash and heat from her friends and family. These people were more bonded and connected to her than I was, and I was her only child. I had one person even tell me that they wished that it was me who was dead. At that time, I wished I was dead too. There was a memorial service held in our town in her honor the spring after she died. By this point, I was so far gone on drugs I had very little regard for anyone around me. I showed up at the end of the service for a few photos. They had a balloon release and went for a walk holding pictures and wearing shirts with her face on them. I do not remember that day. I can only see it in photos.
Since her murder, I've gone through extensive therapy. I have come to the point of acknowledging that no human is all good or all bad. While I had received a lot of the bad parts of her, she was not only the bad that I knew. While folks were upset with me for "damning the dead", I was angry with them and their peaceful or happy relationships with her. They got the fun, silly, and exciting part of her that I had spent years dying to connect with. I never measured up. While they were mourning the loss of her, I had already been grieving her loss for years. The woman who was newly dead to them had been dead to me for years. Her murder was fresh and new and painful to me too. While the way she died was extremely traumatic and hard for me to come to terms with, she had already felt dead to me for a quarter of my life. I was honestly surprised to hear that any of her friends in Minnesota even knew that she had a daughter. She was consumed with her dogs, her job, her blog, her new friends, and her murderer. I was not a priority.
So - my grief a lot of the time comes in the form of grieving the fact that my own mother didn't love me. Every year is different. It is not often that I find myself missing my mother. Perhaps there just aren't enough memories to miss. At this point, she's been gone longer than she was ever in my life. But I still grieve. The grief looks different than sitting and sobbing. Sometimes it does come out in sadness and tears, other times it's anger. Occasionally I experience a dull ache of jealousy and desire to have a relationship like others have. I've experienced a longing for a friendship in motherhood to bounce ideas off of. The frustrations of not having a mom to call hurts at times. I grieve for my children who will never have a maternal grandma who knows their every want and desire. I've witnessed beautiful connections between moms and daughters. Connections where the two adult moms love and respect each other. They talk about every little thing and the Grandma will pick up the slack as she's needed. I had a friend one time talk about the relationship she had with her mom. They were best friends. She had three children at the time and her mom would pop over and help tidy the house or do the laundry or bring lunch. There is a level of comfort that you can only get from your mother. I'd love to experience that. But I have to remind myself of who she was. I have to remind myself of the relationship that she had with her mother. She and her sisters never had a bond with their mom like that. I have to remember that it's not likely that she would have even been the supportive mother I have always wanted. But I will definitely be the loving, supportive, listening, caring, giving mother that I have so desperately wanted for my children in their adult lives if they will allow me to be.
15 years later, I still grieve. I don't necessarily grieve the loss of my mother. But I ache for the loss of the chance of reconciliation. I grieve for my children who will never have a grandmother to tell them all the silly stories about their mom when she was little. I grieve that my kids will never be loved by a maternal grandma. I grieve that unless I tell my kids stories, they will never hear them, because they do not have family that can share stories with them from my childhood. These are the little things that we take for granted. I get to witness these things with my husband and his family, but I don't ever experience them. Ya know, the funny stories at Christmas time that are shared about their family members from years ago… Family traditions… It's a sense of belonging… that I don't have. So, I grieve. My grief looks different each year and it comes in waves. Sometimes I go under and hit my head on a rock. Other times I stand up and ride the wave. Today I know that there's no right or wrong way to navigate through my grief. "Just keep swimming..."
It is what it is and this too shall pass!
From a devotional I recently read:
“Outside your relationships with God and with yourself, your relationships with your mom and your dad are the next most important. These are the formative relationships in your life. Your ability to relate to others--and the kind of person you've turned out to be is largely wrapped up in the relationships you had with your mom and dad.”
Interesting.
“Thankfully, the gospel is powerful enough to bring healing into all relationships, no matter how messed up they are. Through the gospel, we receive a new identity when we come to know Jesus. We don't just believe in something, we become someone--a loved son or daughter of God.”
My Dear Friend... YOU ARE LOVED. You are worthy of love!
My advice/reminders to you:
You only get one mom.
When she's gone, she's gone.
Reconcile if you can. (Before it's too late!)
Don't be afraid to have hard conversations
Remember that she too is merely human
Apologize when you're wrong
Allow her grace
Call her
Hug her
Say Thank You
Never take her for granted
Pray like crazy
Humans are messy creatures!!! We are all gross and we do things that we are ashamed of at times. We are all going to make messes. If you are the one responsible for the mess, clean it up! If your mother is responsible for the mess that has been made, seek counsel before addressing her. You do not have to do this alone! Remember that we serve a Mighty Lord that sees more than we do. There is no mess too big for Him to restore. If your mother has already passed, I pray that you have found a therapist who is walking alongside you. Processing trauma is extremely important. If you struggle to find resources on your own I am happy to help you in doing so you can reach out to me.
My email address is hellodear@myyaoo.com
Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds
He's got you! Rest in that.
I have forgiven my mother for the pain that she caused me. But I will never forget what she did. Her examples heavily influence my life and the choices I make today. A lot of who I am today is because of how badly I don't want to be like her. I live a very straight-laced, seemingly boring life at times, but that is simply because I know the dangers of choosing a life of sin and deviance.
We mustn't view forgiveness as a gift to the person who hurt us. Forgiveness is a gift to ourselves. We must forgive for the sake of our own souls. I promise you, that no matter how terribly someone has hurt you, you can forgive them! (Jesus says, 70x7!) You can and will grow from the experience if you allow God to use it for HIS GLORY. It doesn't mean that we condone what they did. It doesn't mean that we forget about how badly they hurt us. But it does mean that we can live with what happened because we are willing to forgive for our peace of mind. You cannot grow spiritually while hanging onto bitterness, anger, rage, and unforgiveness. If you have not yet let go of your hurts, what better time than NOW to do so!? Let's make 2024 a year of healing, forgiveness, love, and growth!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Love,
Kelsey
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