mum’s the word

(First published - March 16th 2016)

I spoke before in a slightly graphic context about some of what I experienced from my father growing up and about how my condition has developed, off the back of some level of disjointedness in my upbringing.

That aside I think I should probably give some insight into the other half of my parental network... my Mum.

My Mum has always been someone who puts others before herself, even to this day she'd sacrifice her happiness to ensure that we didn't feel an ounce of sadness and when thinking back it would be an easy thing for anyone to blindly ask the question why not leave sooner? Why not take the kids and run away somewhere...

The ignorance of my father smacks in this question, because if anyone truly understood the degree of animosity that we saw on a daily basis, or the level of potential psychotic tendency in that man, you'd understand that to live every day in fear, fear of even potential death as we have seen in his eyes; you'd know it was not as easy as packing a bag and running off to our Nan's...

Back then there was no escape... My father was a man of such unbridled rage and adrenaline, that he'd hunt you across the country if your leaving meant that he might lose control of a situation...

In fact, at one stage after my parents has split and I was around 14 lets say, my father was sent to prison for 9 months, because he's travelled in the middle of the night to see an old flame, who'd split up with him and told him not to come over... He drove from Milton Keynes to Birmingham found another man in her house, threw him into the streets, destroyed her house and threatened to cut her throat with an apple peeler... that was after he battered her senseless...

So you have some degree of understanding as to what we were dealing with here.

I genuinely believe in reading some of what I put down in this blog and in understanding more about how my condition has developed, that my Mum probably feels in some way guilty that she could not get away earlier, that she wishes that she could have saved us from that environment when we were younger... But she couldn't...

I want my Mum to know that she should feel no single semblance of guilt, nor do I or will I ever hold her in any way responsible for anything we grew up with, other than the good bits! And I also want to say that through all of this my Mum was my constant, my calm, the smile and the cuddles, that's what I remember or her during my childhood...

No one could have taken us from that place.

If it wasn't for my Mother I'd be a very dark individual... My Mother taught me my compassion, she gave my heart warmth, taught me to love and to feel again after the years of anger... The only reason, I am alive today is because in every instance of feeling death in my mind, I found her...

I think about her every day, all the time, I wonder what she's thinking, I wonder what she's up to, I work myself into the ground so that one day I can stand up and say, 'you see what I did Mum!'

In my mind nothing I achieve is ever enough, but there will come a day when it is...

When we talk of our mothers there should be only wonder, there should be only warmth and their eyes and their smiles...

If you do end up reading this Mum, then I say again that you don't have to feel one ounce of guilt for anything that ever happened, everything I am today came about because that's just the way that one went...

It was your strength and your courage and your love and your calm that kept worse things from happening, that kept his focus diverted, it was you who saved us by giving us a new home, by teaching us the value of life, the value of our deeper family unit, a unit that now exists so strong you never have to worry about us again.

My worst days are when I worry you won't be there. When I won't be able to call you or to see you when I want to... When the girls have each other and I hide away on my own in reflection of how much I'll always love you.

There will come a time I am a father and the remaining weakness must leave me. And I promise you that when that day comes that you will know, my children will never feel an ounce of what I felt from him...

Half of my body is darkness and half on my body is light...

You are that light and it's that light I will take forward for my children to thrive on. They won't know of my darkness or the suffering, they will only see you in me and they will establish themselves as young Bell's in the wind, on a cloud, in a field, and of calm...

I wanted to end with something poetic here, but when you google poems for your Mum they're mostly crap, so I'll write one for you that we can hold on to together...

"In standing on that ledge, on corner darkened earth, as I look upon abyss, as I wonder what I'm worth,

There's a soul that fills me deep, as I float in absent space, as I fall towards the rock, and a warmth across my face,

And a hope that leads me well, as I wonder what I do, as I'm thankful that I live, knowing that the soul was you,

So I fly and fly again, on the verge of things to come, I evolve in every moment, and that's down down to you, my Mum."

Don't ever feel guilty, I love you more than anything in the world!