Dear mother

Not everyone sees things the same way.

Dear mother,

My brother, Timothy, has a heart so deep he seeks any chance of hope he can find even when deprived of it for long lengths of time.

For most of my life you were a mother of love and support. You were the wings to keep me on my feet, the woman to enlighten my confusion and behold my pain and hurt throughout my schooling. You spoke my pain to me just by looking into my eyes. You saw the tears I had shed without a single word spoken from my unfathomable mouth. 

Mother, you made me a girl of strength, courage,  and someone to be provided with a home and family.

I saw the damage that had been greedily pushed over your life and I too felt the losses of those who left us from both death and abandonment.

I fell too when it felt like pain was consuming our family. 

Me, being a child, I couldn't provide you with the support and help I foresaw you needing. You yearned for love and a way to financially and emotionally support both you and us children. 

We, being your major source of happiness,  weren't able to understand your agony in the intensity that you were receiving. This led us to being unable to connect with you in a way that we should have.

The loss of your mother, my grandmother and my best friend, had consumed both you and I to the point that we never spoke a word of her existence again. The grieving hole never closing, but intwined within other emotions felt.

Randall passing away was at the peek of my capabilities to understand why life does these horrible things to us. I couldn't dare face another heart ache, painful reminder that one that was loved, was now gone. Forever. 

I was not a strong person, mother.  I was so young. I needed guidance. You as an adult, and a mother, needed just as much help as I did but neither one of us understood this deprivation for help and support. 

I could see you slip away

You faded into the darkest parts of your soul and I feared for you and the verdict of our relationship with not only us, myself, but the entirety of our family. 

The morning of the raid still beats clearly in the front of my mind and the fear engaged floods me entirely. I was scared, mother. So afraid of what they were going to do to you, especially when I didn't understand what was happening. 

You blocked me out. You turned me into some mad woman, someone I feared looking at in the mirror. I didn't want to live the home life of constant fighting and the fear of the unknown was striking me out.

When us children couldn't support you, you turned to a substance so popular on television advertising. You turned to a tool so disgusting I can't bare to think of. You turned to meth. You turned your back on me. You turned your back on yourself. 

I wanted you to understand that after it was out into the open, that I was going to forgive you. I empathised your sadness and I understood that we were both dealing with our demons in our own ways. I was ready to move on with our lives and find a pathway into the light.

My brother faced his own tragedies with you during this time, and had a wilful way of turning this negative experience into something beautiful. Though you destroyed a part in me I'm not sure I could ever forget. 

Cluttering my mind with emotions of sadness, guilt, anger and confusion I wasnt sure what to do with myself. I drove myself into a bog and was lost in your darkness.

You found out sickening news about your partner and a violation he had done to me and you chose to stay with him and leave me for 10 months. You not only chose to stay with him, but messaged me saying you love me with no actions or attempt to improve our relationship. 

Mother, you tore me. I needed the support I offered you. I was so angry at you. I was so saddened by my life that I live to this day. You think that because I live in a beautiful home with beautiful people meant that I was supposed to be happy?  a house isn't a home without those who love you. A home is what I didn't have.

Thinking that while I was battling you through a mobile phone - that wasn't mine - you were by your boyfriends side in the most affectionate way possible. It was hard find someone to understand me. Imagine wanting something so badly, more than anything, and it just isn't going to happen. You'll never get what you want. The frustration and illness that overwhelmed me was everlasting. 

It made me cringe, and rage and cry.  You left me for a man! A man who deserves to rot in hell for the damage he had cursed upon us all. He is a plague and you two made me feel so guilty for hurting deep inside. He still, to this day, consumes me. He is the demon in my eyes and the nightmares that I sleep with. 

Mother,  I know you haven't laid your demons to bed and I know I haven't either. Though I know you're trying to stand on your own two feet again.  I appreciate you making the effort but it saddens me to not be able to heal the way my brother did.

I'm not a weak, or a horrible person for feeling this way.

I am dealing with the life that you have directed me to and I am trying as best as I can. 

You will concrete your life and fulfil yourself with your desires.

But for now, I can't forget the suffering you have made me drown in over the course of a year.

I'm sorry, mother.



I wrote this letter in response to my brothers intentions in his own personal letter to our mother. People suffering in a similar situation do not need to have the same outlook as he did, and it is understandable to not be as forgiving. It is not fair nor okay to have to face any of this on your own. Though, you're never alone. Even when it all feels so empty.

Thank you.