Debts

 

Dear Old Friend,

Since I wrote my last letter to you about the way your mother came to my rescue when I called her, I’ve been thinking about both of our mothers.  I wouldn’t describe either one of them as warm and fuzzy, although I would say that my mother might have had a slight edge over yours in that category; but your mother certainly had a kind and generous heart!  When my mother returned from Hawaii after losing the baby, she once again relied on that generosity and, as you recall, your mother opened her home to both of us. 

It seemed odd to be staying in your house without you!  As you’ve reminded me, your relationship with your mother was strained at that point, so you were living with your grandmother. There’s a lot I don’t remember about that time, but you have mentioned to me that, when you came to visit, you envied the relationship I seemed to have with my mother because you heard us giggling together in our room.  I was definitely happy to have her home, safe and sound.  I asked her whether Bill had done anything to cause her to lose the baby, and she assured me that he had not.  In fact, she said, he had been absolutely wonderful the entire time she was in Hawaii.  She described his attentiveness and concern in glowing terms. 

On one hand, I was thankful she had not been in danger; but, on the other hand, my suspicions appeared to be confirmed that I had been the thorn in Bill’s side all along.  With me out of the picture, he had apparently become the man my mother always hoped he would be.  I asked her why she came back, if things were so perfect; and she said they both agreed she needed to be with me.  I realized that this positioned Bill as the noble, self-sacrificing one and I was once more the obstacle in the way of my mother’s happiness; but, I was fourteen and I didn’t care; I was simply glad to have my mother back.

As I began to feel more stable, my grades and my attitude improved.  My mother found a job, and I began to look forward to a time when we could afford a place of our own.  So, about six weeks before the end of the school year, I was completely taken by surprise when my mother announced that she was going back to Hawaii.  I can’t honestly tell you what my reaction was on the outside, I may have cried and pleaded for her to stay, I don’t remember; but, on the inside, I emotionally shut down.  The immediate plan, my mother explained, was for me to remain in your mother’s home until school was out, and then I would go to stay with my grandparents for the summer.  What would happen after that was yet to be determined.

I clearly remember the day she left.  It was early May.  I had the flu, with a high fever. Everyone in the house was going out to dinner to celebrate your birthday and Mothers Day.  I was supposed to go with you, but I was too sick.  Your mother offered to reschedule, but there were too many people involved for the plans to be changed at the last minute.  So, after you left the house, my mother tucked me in bed, kissed me goodbye and took a cab to the airport.

That became a defining moment for me.  For more years than I want to admit, I used that moment, that image of my mother, suitcase in hand, walking out of my room and leaving me, sick and alone, as the wellspring from which I drew bitterness and self-pity.  Over and over I conjured up that moment to justify my hard-heartedness and unforgiveness.  I used it as a reason for entitlement. In my mind, my mother had, at that moment, created a debt to me which she could never repay.

Many years passed before I understood that I, too, had created scores of debts I could not pay; not only to God, but to those around me.  The brokenness which exists in each one of us causes us to repeat patterns we swore we would never repeat and to make poor choices even when we're certain we're doing the right thing.  This brokenness results in our wounding those we love the most. This brokenness creates debts we cannot pay; debts which could only be paid by the death and resurrection of the very Son of God.

I’m so grateful to know that truth now.  I wish I had learned it sooner.

Love Always,

Bonnie

Undeserved Love

Dear Old Friend,

I wonder sometimes if you grasp how important you and your family were to me after you entered my life when we were ten.  We were both only children and I felt that you were the closest I would ever get to having a sister.  We both loved to read and write.  We both loved to sing and we listened to the same music.  You taught me to cha-cha.  Regrettably, I was the one who inadvertently informed you that there was no Santa Claus.  We spent most weekends at one or the other’s house because choir practice was on Friday nights, so afterward we would just go home together. When my parents divorced, yours was the ‘unbroken’ family which provided stability for me.  It makes sense, then, that yours was the family my mother asked to take me in when she decided to move to Hawaii. 

When I was lobbying against the move, I had naively assumed that, when my mother saw the lack of wisdom in moving us far away to be with Bill because we would have no one to call for help when we inevitably needed it, it would logically follow that both of us would continue to live with my grandparents.  I was entirely emotionally unprepared for the possibility that she would choose to go without me.  When I was faced with that reality I felt I had no right to complain because I had “won”; so I tried to appear happy in the face of my hollow victory.

Since I had attended a church school up to that point, there was general agreement that I should continue to do so; and, as there was no local church-affiliated high school near my grandparents, the choices were either to send me to a boarding school, or to approach your family about allowing me to live with you.  Your parents were extremely gracious in agreeing to open their home to me.  

Telling my mother goodbye, believing that she was foolishly heading off into danger where there would be no one to protect her, not knowing if I would ever see her again, was the hardest thing I had ever done.  Black is the presence of all colors, and that day I was so full of conflicting emotions that the closest I can come to explaining how I felt is that my mind was black. 

I think all of us—your parents, you and I—had expected that my being in your home wouldn’t be much different than it had been when I spent so many weekends with you before.  And that wasn’t an unrealistic expectation, except for the fact that I was no longer the same person.  The girl I was before had known she was visiting because she wanted to; she knew that she had her own home to which she could return, where she belonged.  The girl you brought home with you knew that she had nowhere else to go, nowhere else she belonged; and that made all the unanticipated difference.

You welcomed me with open arms. Your parents even bought bunk beds so that we could share your room.  Everyone was wonderful to me. Your parents, thinking it would help me feel more like family, asked me to call them Aunt and Uncle, but I couldn’t do it.  I think it hurt them that I didn’t, and I’m sure I wasn’t able to articulate my reason, even to myself back then; but, I now understand that, to me, it would have represented a final surrender of my own family and assimilation into yours.  I may have been a totally separate member, but I still needed to feel like a member of my own family. 

My anger and confusion caused me to act out in other ways, some small, some more significant.  Every home has ways of doing things which differ from others, your mother folded towels differently than my mother.  My family lined up shoes under the bed, yours didn’t.  My family had the toilet paper facing one way on the holder, yours the other.  I refused to conform. 

I couldn’t focus well in school, and for the first time ever, my grades fell.  Because I didn’t feel that I “belonged”, in so many ways, one of the ways I tried to achieve that belonging was by cheating; not by copying the work of others, as you might expect, since my own grades were falling, but by allowing others to copy the work I had done.  I was caught by an understanding teacher because of a spelling error which was duplicated by the person who copied my work, and was simply admonished not to do it again.

As it happened, my "Big Brother", the boy from my grandparents’ home town who was like family to me, ended up attending this same school.  He had Physical Science class a period after I did, so, with no initiation on his part, I decided to copy down the answers to the daily quizzes and pass them to him in the hall as we changed classes.  Ultimately he was confronted for cheating, but he never divulged my name as the person who gave him the answers. 

I spent a lot of my spare time writing.  One piece I still remember was about a person who was initially the sole survivor of a nuclear explosion, and later died from radiation exposure.  I didn’t see then that it was my sub-conscious attempt at being figuratively autobiographical.

It seems strange to me that I have no memory of attending church when I was with you, although I’m sure we must have gone every week.  Up to that time, I had looked to God as my source of protection, comfort and strength.  Although I had always keenly felt guilt whenever I had done something I knew was wrong, I had never doubted that God was with me. 

The only specific memory I have of God during that period involves a guest speaker who came to our school for a week of chapel services.  He was very emotional and at the end of the week he had us all weeping and coming up front to confess our sins.  The peer pressure to go up to the microphone was intense.  The holdouts were viewed as unrepentant sinners and were prayed for.  When it was over and we came back to our senses, I think we all felt sickened, as if we had been sullied by participating in an emotional orgy. 

At some level I understood that what had happened at those chapel services misrepresented God; but there was a residual negative effect for me. For the first time, I began to fear that God would not be available as my source of protection, comfort and strength unless I was doing what he wanted me to do, and I knew that I wasn’t.  I began to wonder if that was the reason he didn’t seem to be answering my prayers.

Because this was still a time when long distance rates, particularly from Hawaii, were prohibitive, my communication with my mother was limited to letters.  Neither of us said much in our correspondence outside of politely reporting the safe news.  I didn’t know how she was really doing, she didn’t really know about me.

When she called me in late November, then, my initial reaction was fear.  I thought that something terrible had happened to her, and it had.  The placenta had prematurely detached from her uterine wall and she hemorrhaged.  The doctors had managed to save her life, but they were unable to save the baby.  It had been a little boy. 

I have no idea what I said to her on the phone.  I just remember going into the bathroom afterward so that none of you could see me, and I cried.  I cried from sadness for my mother’s loss and relief that she was all right.  I cried because I was afraid that Bill had done something to cause what had happened, and I had no way of knowing whether or not she was safe.  And I cried because, in what I knew was my terrible hardheartedness, I was secretly relieved that there would be no baby.  

A few days later, she called again to say that she was coming home at Christmastime, not for a visit, but to stay; and Bill was not coming with her.  My relief was immense. 

So, when Christmas vacation ended, I moved from your home to live with my mother nearby.  I was carrying so much guilt and shame over the behavior and state of my family by then that I know it affected my relationship with you.  I felt embarrassed about how I disrupted the life of your family and then just left.  I felt, in a way, like I abandoned you.  I even felt guilty for being happy to be with my mother.  I, in short, was a conflicted mess!

I’m not sure, dear friend, whether I ever said this to you, so just in case, after all these years, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the love you and your family showed me by being there for me even though I was petulant and ungrateful in the face of that love.  You, unlike that chapel speaker, demonstrated for me what God's grace truly is.  I will be forever grateful.

Love Always,

Bonnie

Left Behind

 

Dear Old Friend,

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother since my last letter to you.  I don’t know if you were aware that when she was just a baby her mother abandoned her and ran off with another man.  My grandfather then took off as well, leaving my mother with his parents until he remarried when she was eight.  I asked her once if she was sad to move away from her grandparents, who had raised her, and she said she only remembered being very excited and happy to finally live with her father.

She didn’t “meet” her mother until she was in College.  She tracked her down to Baltimore, Maryland and since the school was in a Maryland suburb just outside of Washington, D.C., my mother contacted her and made arrangements to come to her home.  She took along a couple of friends for support and her recollection was simply that they had a very nice visit.  Her mother and stepfather lived in a lovely apartment. They had no children. 

I tried to get my mother to tell me how it felt to finally meet the mother who had left her, but she could only say again that she had been ‘excited and happy’ to see her and get to know her.

Through the years my mother was the one who made the effort to maintain contact with her mother.  When my mother visited, she thought it was odd that she never met any of her mother’s friends.  On one occasion, when they did run into a friend at a restaurant, my grandmother only introduced my mother by name, with no reference to the fact that this was her daughter.  We assumed that no one knew my grandmother had a daughter, and apparently she intended to keep it that way.  My mother only laughed about it.  If she had any feelings of abandonment, they were very deeply buried. 

Following our Great Escape to my grandparent’s home, I recall waking up in the morning with an initial sense of relief that we were safe, quickly followed by a sinking feeling as I remembered that my mother was expecting Bill’s child.  Our lives had already been dramatically altered, but I realized they were about to change even more.  I tried to imagine what it would be like, living in this small house with my grandparents, my mother and a new baby.  I wondered if I could love this child.  I wondered if Bill would want to see the baby, or if he would even be allowed to.

I knew how upset my grandparents were about what had happened.  They did not want Bill anywhere near their daughter or me.  We soon learned that, when Bill realized we were gone, he had sold enough of our belongings to purchase a plane ticket to Hawaii, and had simply walked away.  I felt that was good news.  My grandfather and my mother made the trek back to Maryland where they found a padlock on the apartment door because no rent had been paid.  My grandfather footed the bill for the back rent and a moving van, and soon everything we owned was crammed into my grandparent’s house and garage.

Feeling safer, with Bill so far away, I began to adjust to what I thought would be my new life.  From past visits I knew some of the kids in my grandparents’ church, including a boy I called my Big Brother who was almost like family to me since our families had been close for three generations.  All of them were happy to see me, which helped me to feel less alone.   I hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to my friends at home since we left so abruptly, but I wrote to them and soon received letters in response, which made me feel a lot better.  I slowly began to think that maybe life was going to be all right.

Then the phone calls from Hawaii began. 

At first my grandfather did not want my mother to take the call from Bill, but she said she needed to speak with him about some things anyway.  I think I knew right away what this would mean, but I didn’t want to believe it.  At first my mother tried to reassure me when I voiced my feelings to her about Bill.  I didn’t have to worry, she said.  They just had things they needed to straighten out.  But the calls became more frequent and lasted longer and I became more frightened and desperate.  Soon there was talk of our moving to Hawaii to be with Bill.  My grandparents balked, my father balked, I balked and hoped that our united stance would actually convince my mother of what a bad idea this was.

Ultimately, my mother agreed that it was, indeed, a bad idea for me to move to Hawaii; so she decided to move there herself, without me.

Understanding my mother’s story helps me to understand my own; and, most likely, if I knew my grandmother’s story and her mother’s, etc., things would be even clearer.  That understanding doesn’t excuse, it just helps to explain. We are all flawed humans in need of forgiveness and grace, and we are our mother’s daughters, no matter how hard we try….

Love always,

Bonnie

Obstacle

Dear Old Friend,

I know you remember how I reacted when my mother married my step-father.  I felt betrayed, angry and afraid and I refused to go to the wedding.  I stayed at your house while they were on their honeymoon, but obviously I couldn’t avoid Bill once they came home. 

He had long since stopped trying to win my favor.  In my mind he was part of the reason for the demise of my parents’ marriage, and even though it was much more complicated than that, no matter how I tried to get past it, I couldn’t.  Although I was never outwardly hateful to him, and for my mother’s sake I tried to get along with him, he sensed the condemnation in me and he knew that I sensed the sickness in him, so his resentment of me grew.

I believe my mother looked at Bill as someone who needed to be rescued, and she thought she could be the one who pulled it off.  I also think that Bill liked the idea of my mother devoting herself to his rescue, and maybe even hoped that her love would be the thing which finally saved him; but, in his mind, I was the obstacle standing in the way of his new life. 

Bill didn’t really need a reason to drink, but it is the nature of alcoholism to assign blame in order to assuage guilt, so in his mind I was the reason.  A pattern developed where he would fly into a drunken rage and my mother would tell me to go to my room and lock my door.  I would hear him smashing things and threatening to kill me, and I sat in my room shaking with terror, praying and clutching my Bible, which seemed like the only protection I had. 

There was a phone in my room, and during one of those times I got the idea to call your mother.  As you know, she only lived a mile or so away, and because she and my mother were friends, she offered to come over.  Soon I heard a knock on the door and then your mother’s voice.  I also heard Bill sneak down the hall and shut the bedroom door.  Your mother acted as if she had just stopped by for a visit and sat down to chat.  Eventually, Bill passed out and it was quiet for the rest of the night.  I can’t tell you how grateful I was for your mother’s bravery and concern for my mother and for me!

Because there were other times after that when your mother "magically" appeared in the midst of his rages, Bill eventually caught on and started taking the living room phone off the hook so that I couldn’t call for help; but on the night after our eighth grade graduation, thankfully, he forgot.  His anger was particularly intense that night.  I held off as long as I could, but I finally called your mother and, bless her heart, she came.  Bill went into the bedroom, but did not fall asleep, and he kept yelling for my mother, who finally told your mother it would be better if she went home and took me with her.  It was my mother’s hope that he would calm down if I wasn't in the house.

I made a pretense of leaving, but somehow this night was different and I was afraid of what would happen if I left; so, even though I walked out of the apartment with your mother, I refused to go with her and she reluctantly went home.  I listened outside my apartment door for a long time as Bill’s fury grew instead of decreasing.  I heard my mother crying and then I heard her scream.  I ran to the door of an apartment downstairs and asked if I could use their phone to call my mother.  When she answered and I asked if she was all right, she said no and hung up.  Terrified, I called your mother again and asked her to call the police.  Then, I started walking to your house. 

Laws were different back then.  I later learned that when the police came Bill assured them everything was fine, just a lover’s quarrel, he said; and there was nothing they could do.  Unfortunately, the fact that the police had been summoned only intensified Bill’s anger.  Although I never got the full story from my mother, the rest of the evening consisted of, among other things, her being dragged down the hall by her hair, and a game of Russian roulette, with the gun pointed first at his head and then hers.

By then I was at your house, frantic because I had no idea what was happening at home.  Naturally I was unable to sleep as the night dragged on, until finally, just before daybreak, my mother knocked on your front door.  She told us that when Bill had finally passed out, she grabbed only her purse and ran.  She then announced that we were leaving immediately for the airport to fly to my grandparent’s home.  I was so relieved that we were safe and the nightmare was over!

Then, on the plane, she told me she was pregnant.

As you know, Bill was a part of my life, in one way or another, for many years.  I confess that I hated him.  I hated him long after he was gone.  There were times over the years when I tried not to hate him, and pretended that I didn't, because I knew it was wrong; but, underneath the “shoulds”, I still hated him.  Even the knowledge that my feelings were doing nothing to him and were only hurting me didn’t help.  I didn’t know how to stop.

As I’ve come to understand the gospel, I’ve also come to realize that we are no better than the person we despise the most; in God’s eyes I am no better than Bill.  Of course I'd like to think I am, but the fact of the matter is, God doesn’t compare us and then decide some of us sinners are better than others.  We do that, but God doesn’t.  Even with all of my attempts at goodness, I never deserved God’s favor any more or less than Bill did.  The only thing that recommends either one of us to God is the blood of Christ.  Without that, we are all only deserving of God's wrath.

That’s a hard truth.  But, interestingly, I find myself hoping that, somewhere along the way, Bill learned that truth before he died.

Love Always,

Bonnie