A Link To Mom's Book On Amazon: https://a.co/d/h1Lbj0R
“Just before I die, I am going to swallow a bag of popcorn kernnels. My cremation is going to be epic!”-Mary Starnes
“Love is stronger than death…Love creates an eternal bond that cannot be broken. It only becomes stronger over time”.
A Prelude And Some Background
It’s been awhile since I last read my mother’s book, in fact I gave my only copy away to my therapist Angela to read at her leisure. However just before starting this post, I ordered another copy which cost me right around eleven dollars. I am estranged from my mother’s family for personal reasons, mostly because I could not let go of my resentment and acted out my pain in ways which have ensured that there would be a permanent strain between myself and them. I still haven’t let go but that doesn’t lessen how much I love my family, even if it seems from a sane perspective that I truly hate them. Even if anyone could empathize with the reasons why I was cut off and essentially disowned. I make this post to process the very complex feelings I have about my mother and also as a way to tell my story as I see it.
The blog post Swallowing Spirits & Spitting Out Demons is the backstory that explains the strain between my mother and I. It’s actually an older post but I deleted and then posted it again for a couple of reasons: first of all, I wasn’t satisfied with the number of views it got, despite it performing very well on other blogging platforms like Substack and Medium. I wanted to see how it would hold up if it were shown again, to a larger audience of people, many of whom have probably never seen or read it before. Especially for new subscribers who are unfamiliar with my background and don’t understand why I occasionally talk about drug addiction. Second of all, it flows with the topic of this post, making it relevant in the coming hours and days. Particuarly since I plan on following up with another post about my biological father, Bob. And finally, I needed an excuse to give it a little bit more “dazzle” with an AI generated picture for its thumbnail. I’m no artist and I don’t have the time or patience to learn or the money to hire somebody, so I can understand if the image frustrates people who want to complain about “AI Slop”. Personally I feel like the picture came out nicely and perfectly captures the story I was trying to tell!
Brutal Beginnings
My mother grew up in an abusive household with a stepfather who would beat and molest her and also treated her siblings badly. In her autobiography which I’ve linked above, she goes into extensive detail about her childhood and all of the trauma that she faced growing up. I occasionally donate to RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network), an organization dedicated to helping survivors of sexual abuse and assault. Though I don’t donate often, I see it as my way of honoring her memory. When I read her book, it came across like something out of an episode of Breaking Bad. Tales of addiction, escaping to Mexico to evade police as a felon and even witnessing a murder are all part of her story.
At one point after a period of time being sober, mom got arrested while carpooling with a friend whom she claims had drugs on her that she didn’t know about. Of course with her extensive criminal record, the police didn’t believe Mary’s story and even I myself question the legitamacy of it given her long history of addiction prior to the incident. Because of this arrest, she missed my high school graduation, which I didn’t realize hurt me as much as it did. I suppose those emotions had lay dormant underneath the surface of my psyche, so subconciously that I was not even able to identify just how much raw anger was hidden deep inside of me.
Who Was Mary?
It’s very difficult to define a whole person, often we can only describe what we see from their actions and how they respond to different scenarios in real time. As the adage goes, “You can’t tell what’s inside of another person’s heart”. To me, my mother was someone who was very sweet, took responsibility for her actions, learned and grew from her past mistakes and was very artistically gifted. She could draw and write very well and from what I can tell, enjoyed doing both of these things. During her stints in prison, she likely practiced these skills and if memory serves, she even got an education throughout her various periods of incarceration. Mary wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed but she had good common sense about many things, except how to handle interpersonal conflict, in which I would describe her as essentially clueless.
I’m not exactly off of the hook myself, as I’ve had to learn how to manage my emotions and not react in a way that made an already bad situation far worse. While I’ve improved dramatically, there are still those odd occasions (which almost never happens anymore) where I have a difficult time thinking rationally and behaving well. Conflicts with my mother and sister have tested my patience and I admit I’ve been verbally and emotionally abusive towards both of them. I still find myself getting angry when I think about them, from time to time but the fact that my mother is now gone makes it difficult for me to remain resentful.
If anything, more often than not, I find myself in a state of grief and mourning. I am grateful that I at least had an opportunity to make peace with her before she left this world and even more grateful that I recognized the opportunity for what it was and seized upon it, without hesitation. While our relationship was marred by conflict and emotional baggage from the past, I will always love my mom even when I occasionally find myself feeling old resentments stirring up, now and again. I personally believe Mary deserved much better than she ever had and I know that she was worried about me when she found out that I was going through a drug addiction of my own. She still prayed for me, still wanted the best for me and still loved me through it all, even if it was from a distance. Forever is a very long time and that’s why I was willing to put aside my usual resentments for those last few weeks of her life and finally treat her with some modicum of love and respect.
How Religious Trauma Affects Our Relationship Posthumously
As a non-denominational Christian I’d like to believe that one day I will see my mother again in heaven and we will reunite in peace and harmony. However, I still battle with the thought that I am not good enough to end up in heaven and will inevitably be going down a different path in my own afterlife. As I mentioned in my recent post Purpose & Redemption: Why I Believe In A Higher Power, I still recall my youth pastor’s statement about how not everybody will make it to heaven.
On one hand I’ve heard that so long as one believes that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior and that he died for their sins, they are cleared of the inherent spiritual debt that they’ve incurred simply by existing. On the other, traumatic childhood memories of being told that “we won’t all make it to heaven” haunt me. My mother, despite her flaws and bad actions has clearly redeemed herself and was a faithful woman until the end, on the other hand I don’t see myself as being in the same category. Sometimes I even fear that my mother herself might be in Hell right now, which feels unbelievable to me. Yet despite all of this fear I still try to keep her close to me in thought and spirit, hoping that she’s watching over me with favor even with my shortcomings and past actions.
Mom’s Final Text Message
The text message pictured above is my mother’s final text to me before she died. What I find so emotionally devastating about it is how optimistic she sounded about recovering and getting better. Unfortunately, Mary passed away after this brief interaction. Unsurprisingly, I have this photo saved in my favorites folder on my phone and in my computer. As a reminder to myself that we don’t always have the time left that we think we will, with the people we care about the most. I had said this before in a previous post, but it bares repeating considering that post didn’t get much traction (hopefully this one does).
I remain hopeful that mom is in a better place today, though I struggle with the question of what she must think of me. I tend to believe that once a person dies (assuming they go to heaven), they are free of all resentments, earthly concerns, pain, stress and fear. They become aware of all of the grander mysteries of the universe and they know all of their loved ones’ hearts inside and out. Including the ability to read minds, understand motivations and ask God for direct help and guidance towards their loved ones. Of course I don’t claim to know any of this, I simply imagine that all of these things must be true.
