SOBER MOTHER’S DAY

I woke up at six this morning to find a tray of goodies and the coffee pot ready to go as a Mother’s Day treat from my sixteen year old daughter. What an absolute gift. I am very confident that she has no idea that what she did means so much to me. Her act of kindness affirms that all the hard work I put into my sobriety and continue to put into it blesses me in beautiful ways.

Before my sobriety I did not deserve so much as a smile from my children. I loved them with all my heart but I had no idea how to be a mother to them. I tried the best with what I knew and what I thought was right but I failed miserably. I did not know how to show them how much I loved them and all too often I was just emotionally absent. I believed at the time that putting them into sports or dance class or cheerleading and giving them extravagant birthday parties was me being a great mother. What I did not understand until sobriety is that those things were not what my children needed. They needed a sober and present mother. A mother to sit and listen when they needed to talk, a mother to hold them and hug them when they were sad, a mother who didn’t explode into fits of anger when something was out of place. The older children needed a mother that was capable of taking care of the younger children so they did not have to.

I have come to realize that for the most part, my children feared me. They feared my anger and they feared something happening to me. I’m sure they loved me but they sure didn’t like me. I taught them not to trust people by my own actions, and I know that I left them emotionally scarred by my irrational behavior. It breaks my heart that they had the childhood they had.

During their childhood, I vowed I would never be the abusive parent that my own mother was to me and that I would be different. I believed that because I never laid a hand on them and because I allowed them activities and friends, then I was a much better parent than she was to me. I was not! Emotional abuse and neglect are no better than physical abuse. Giving your children “things” does not make you a good parent. Children need love and support and a feeling of security. Children need to know that you are proud of them, even when they try but fail. They need physical affection when they are little. They need to hear “I love you.”

In my sobriety I have learned these things and I really work hard every day to make a living amends. I can never go back and change what happened and even though I have apologized many times, it is my daily actions that will show them I am not the same mother they once had. By getting up and showing up everyday I am taking those steps. I am able to tell them I love them and I am proud of them. I do not get angry or raise my voice. I have learned to listen with my heart keeping my mouth shut which allows them to feel they can open up to me without judgement. I try to only offer advice or opinions when asked. I allow them to be their authentic selves no matter what that means and support the choices they make. That doesn’t mean I support decisions that I believe are harmful to them as I am still their mother, especially the youngest since she is not yet an adult.

I realize that my children must make their own mistakes and learn from them. My job is to be there to listen when they need me and offer help when they ask without any contingencies. I also must realize that when I encounter resistance with any of my children, I have to allow it because they are still learning to trust me and forgive me. The place in which they are in their lives emotionally was built over great time and I can’t expect that after just three years all would be forgotten. Especially with the older three children as they had the worst of me for a longer period of time.

This Mother’s Day is incredibly special to me and by far the best I have ever had. Not all my children live near me now that they are adults and I may not see four of the six but I know what a better place my relationships with them are. I am so incredibly proud of my children and where they are in their lives. My fourth child; a daughter, is celebrating her first Mother’s Day today and my heart is so full of joy over the incredible mother she is! She is the mother I wanted to be from the day they were born and my grandson is so blessed that she is his mommy. I am blessed this Mother’s Day because I not only have six wonderful children, but I get to be in the lives of my three beautiful grandsons. Since I am sober I get to watch them grow up and be there to see all they are doing . It is truly amazing.

There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my children. I love them so much it actually hurts sometimes. They are one of my biggest reasons to stay sober and continue to work on myself and becoming the best person I can be. They inspire me and teach me things everyday. I am amazed at the incredible humans they are despite having had to grow up with me as their mother. My four oldest children live on their own and are financially independent. Two own their own homes, one of them is graduating with her Doctorate in July and they are all kind souls. I am often baffled that they are the people they are having had such a poor example set before them, not only by me but the family that surrounded them. I am so grateful that they are all so close to each other and I think sometimes that because there were six of them, they supported each other and that’s how they survived.

One of the things that I enjoy the most is watching them when they are either all six together or some of them together in any combination. When I sit back and watch, I can see how much they all truly love each other and how close they really are. Not once when watching them have I not walked away with slight jaw pain from laughing so much. They are all quite funny and when they get together it is really just hours of laughing. I listen to them in conversation with each other and hear stories that I was unaware of but they are all stories of how much fun they had together growing up. Those stories comfort my heart because I now know that despite my being absent, they were not alone because they had each other. It also comforts me to know that when one day I am no longer here, they will all be okay because they have such incredible love and support from each other.

There was definitely a time when I believed it was too late for me to be a mother to them. During the first year or so of sobriety, I thought that too much damage had been done and that because they were not small children I might as well forget it. That thought changed. I am unsure of where along the path of sobriety over the last three years it changed but it did. I realized that although most of them were adults and I was midway through my life, there was still an entire second half of my life to be an incredible mother to them. I realized that I still had so much to experience with them and I didn’t want to miss any of it. There were grandchildren to see grow, weddings to be had, homes to be bought and birthdays to celebrate. In sobriety I have also learned that they all still have so many questions and things they still need to learn. I get frequent phone calls with such questions as; “how to I make this recipe?” or “ how do I anchor the shelf to the wall?” My daughter has surprisingly asked me many questions during these first 10 months of my grandson’s life. I often wonder why in the world she would come to me of all people but I am so grateful that she does.

I often doubt myself as to wether or not I am doing well or if they see the person I have become but it is those phone calls that affirm I am indeed doing alright. I am still getting used to the new me and working on building confidence in the person I have become. Too often I believe that the people around me; wether they have been in my life a long or short time, see me as that dishonest unreliable addict and drunk that I was. I have to remember that they see what is in front of them and when I am showing up and being the best person I can be, that is what they will see.

Today I will spend my Mother’s Day full of gratitude, peace and hope. Today is an absolute gift, a gift I longed for and finally received. Today I will remember the question I continuously asked myself prior to my sobriety. “Why should I live and how can I live without drugs or alcohol?” The answer is to have this amazing life and be here with these amazing children and grandchildren!!!! HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY