Monday my doctor asked me if you ever gave me anything out of love. Love? There was fire in my eyes when he used that word. I have not once felt loved by another human being, especially not by you. I remember feeling like I destroyed your life. I remember feeling like a burden to you. I remember asking you how it felt to have a handicapped child. I also remember the look in your eye and that you offered no answer at all. Perhaps you knew most of what I experienced you put in my head. I don’t know. I felt like such a burden. I apologized for it so many times, not out loud but in my heart. I’m so sorry. I am so sorry. My heart was heavy with guilt and I didn’t even know what I was doing to make things so difficult. I racked my brain, I swear I did but I never came up with one single answer all I knew was I destroyed your life. I also knew I was responsible for keeping what was left of you alive.
There were times I feared so much that you’d kill yourself so I cut out little red and pink hearts from construction paper and put them in the shower where I was sure you’d slit your wrists. I wanted you to see them and think to yourself, I’m loved I can’t leave. I made little cards for you and told you how I believed you were the best mother in the world. One time when I feared you would leave us I took an old pickle jar and went door to door collecting money to send you off to Hawaii for a vacation from me. I told my neighbors you needed a vacation and could they spare some change. I came back with a pickle jar full of coins. I was good at coming up with stuff like that to make you smile and make you stay a little bit longer. But each time you stayed your life got worse and you promised I was killing your love for me and that one day you’d leave and never come back. I both destroyed you and saved you.
As I got older and you became ill it was up to my sister and myself to care for you. I suppose many daughters do this type of thing, care for an ill parent. I don’t think that’s so odd but it is when the mother refuses medical care and asks her teenage daughters to perform pseudo-medical techniques instead of letting the doctors care for her. One day when we pulled up to the heart doctor for a stress test you told me to if you have a heart attack don’t’ let the doctors touch you. You told me to instruct them to put an ice pack over your heart and that you’d be revived that way. I just shook my head. You kind of giggled and said the doctors don’t know what they’re doing but that I could save your life if only I keep a level head when others panic. I always did that though, I always kept a level head when others panicked.
It’s strange when I think about how you trained our family to depend only on one another for both life and death. I recall doing drills with you where the sister and I listened for the sound of your voice and stopped or started on command. You said it would save our life some day if we listened for your voice at all times. You could save us and we could save you or you could kill us and we could kill you. I believe it was all about you and nowhere in the mix was there ever real love. There was loyalty and dedication fueled by fear. There was conditioning and orders followed but never true respect and certainly never love. How on earth does that happen? How did you hold me inside you and not feel something for me? How does that happen? How do you bring a child into the world and find it acceptable to do the things you did? I don’t understand it and I never will… I hope I never will. The day I understand it is the day I become you and that can never happen…Dear God that can never happen.
Your daughter, (the free one)
Austin
Letters Home: A Personal Savior-Tuesday, October 14, 2008-11:12PM EST
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