The broken mom: A raw letter to my dear daughters
This Dear Daughters appeared on CityMom Lateva's own blog, The All-Purpose Woman. As a treasured member of theCityMoms, we read through it and immediately squeezed Lateva tighter because she captures the love of a mother and her daughter so perfectly well. Below is an excerpt of Lateva's post, but you can catch the piece in its entirety here. Please know we made very minor changes to the prose for editing purposes.
Dear Daughters,
I wish that I could sum this up for you in a few short words, or play a song for you that covers how I feel. I wish that this letter never had to be written and that my past didn’t affect how I love you. There is a piece of mommy that is broken and I have tried to patch the brokenness and cover it with beautiful pieces of loving you harder and harder! I even tried to forget the things and people that broke me. Laughing and joking the pain away…Quietly wiping away tears of un-forgiveness and pain in my most joyous and saddest moments.Quietly saying prayers that stuff the wounds of my broken childhood.Purposely ignoring thoughts and pushing pass feelings to ensure that I am the perfect picture of a mother.Somehow, my dear daughters, the feelings continue to present themselves to me at the oddest of times. In my happiest moments, I still feel a sense of emptiness as a broken mom. In my sad moments, I am faced with a quick flash of the pain that I brush off and let pass, as I don’t want to face it. Covering up for those that have hurt me, simply because I don’t want to hurt them…But each time I look at you growing, learning and becoming the woman you will be, I am reminded of what I didn’t have and what I HAVE TO DO in being your mother!
Honestly, I am afraid that my brokenness will break you as I don’t know if what I am doing is right. Afraid that one day you’ll be writing an open letter to your dear daughters and facing the problems that I wrapped in a bow and presented to you as a gift.
I’ve erased and typed, typed, and erased the words to say to you on multiple occasions and on many different forms of communication. Never being strong enough to face the emotions that come with it, I stop in my tracks. There are so many things that I want to say to ensure that you can fully understand what I feel when mothering you. I know that this letter will not fully embody what I am trying to convey. This will come with time and experience on all fronts. You may not understand until you have a child of your own. But I have to share with you both for me and for you.
I knew early on that my mother-daughter relationship was unlike those around me.
It's always been like God blessed me with my mom to watch over her instead of her watching over me. I can remember as early as kindergarten watching the others play freely while I worried if my mother would be there to pick me up every day. ( I really cried daily; they had to bring a picture of my mother to class for me to stay calm.) That should have been a trigger for my mother, as I wasn’t a crier. I now realize that I worried for her safety even at such a tender age. Deep down I knew that at any moment she could be taken from me, and eventually she was. God has given me an intrinsic ability to feel and see when things before that are coming and this was an early example of that!
READ MORE: 9 things I want my daughter to know
Dear daughters, I was motherless too young. I had twelve years with my mother and by that, I mean in the same home where she was the sole provider. I experienced soooooooooo much as a child and really believe I blocked out a few things to ensure my sanity. We went through domestic violence, men, drugs, and ultimately incarceration. I can honestly tell you that all those experiences shaped me into the mother I am to you today and the broken mother I have to let go of.
My mother left… Some would say taken as she went to jail, but I really believe that she made choices that put her in bad situations and it all caught up with her. Yep, after living with my over/under protective mother for 12 years I was taken to my grandma’s house and left there with your 3 uncles. Mind you at that time we hadn’t spent much time with our father's side of the family - visited but always went back home. Thank God for family taking us in but after that day I would never have a home again. And home for me wasn’t just a place to put my things but a home for growing…a home for having room to make a mistake and be taught a life lesson from it. A home where I could grow into a woman softly and in stages… a home that let me release my anger when I needed to and put me back in my place… A home that went from mother-daughter to… daughter-friend.
By home I mean a mother.
Dear daughters, I hope to always be your home.
