Mother’s Day: Searching For My Mom

I had hand-drawn cards from my kids, a bottle of wine and roses from my husband, but I felt I couldn’t fully appreciate them.

Mother’s Day just wasn’t about me. There was an emptiness that could only be explained by the hole that was left by my mother.

No, she didn’t die. She didn’t abandon me or exit my life. I cut her out — I had promised myself that I would never be abused again.

I come from a broken home. My dad had a Ph.D. in biology, a penchant for Christian theology and a hobby of abusing me. You won’t find him on any database for sex offenders, though, because he was never caught. My mother knew about his violence, but she never told anyone. She knew about his porn addiction, but she never made him get help.

She even knew that he’d shot our neighbor boy’s dog for fun, right in front of me.

Granted, she was in a difficult situation. She had five children, no job and a misconception that if she stayed with her husband as a submissive Christian wife, God would fix the broken man she loved and depended on.

Read More at The Houston Chronicle, Gray Matters