The Myth Of The Heroic Mother

My hands are empty as are my arms,

The years are lost and can never be re-lived.

Memory fades but can become sharp with sad reminders.

I was not brave,

I was terrified and alone,

With no one to see my fear and anguish.

My back was not straight and strong,

My back was against the wall.

My options were to lose my family,

Or to surrender.

And surrender was like death,

With no satisfaction for a good deed done,

Or noble tears for doing "the right thing,"

That wasn't right.

There was just loss and grief,

Smothered under stoic silence.

I did not act out of love,

But out of desperation.

Had I followed the love in my heart,

There would have been no surrender,

No missing pieces of myself,

No nightmares and depression,

No tears on birthdays and Mother's Day,

No self-hatred and no death-wish.

Those who think they know,

Don't know the inner mother.

They only see the outer bad girl.

They only want to see the fairy tale,

They don't want to witness the agony,

They don't want to believe,

That it's not part of God's plan,

For a mother to lose her child,

Just so someone else can be called "Mother."

I was not a heroine or a player in God's Great Plan.

I was a frightened girl, abandoned and alone,

Who was judged by a society,

Whose standards were unjust,

And whose methods were cruel.

God is not cruel.

Robin Westbrook (c) 6/27/2010