I don’t remember the first time.  I don’t remember every time.  But quite a few stand out.

The time I used a bad word.  I got slapped so hard it knocked me over.  The time I didn’t want to wear a jacket because I hated how it made me feel.  I was slammed into a wall.

Wooden spoons.  Flyswatters.  Belts.  Bare hands.

Those are some of the things from my childhood that I remember most about my mother.

To say we’ve had a rocky relationship is an understatement.  I remember the yelling, the hitting.  I remember anger and frustration.

I wish I remembered loving hands.  I wish I remembered cuddles, hugs and warmth.  I wish I remembered hearing “I love you.” Or “I’m proud of you.”

I wished these things this morning as I was feeding Ava before I left for work.  I lay in my bed with her tiny little body snuggled next to mine.  Her slurping away happily as I breathed in the scent of her hair, felt the warmth of her head on my cheek.  I whispered in her ear.  “Mommy loves you so much.”  I know at seventeen months she won’t remember that.  But if I tell her that every day, and show her how much I love her, she will remember it.

I honestly don’t know where things went awry for my mother and I.  I have a vague few memories from around 3.  Good memories.  However, that was also the point at which my father was diagnosed with the disease that would claim his life 14 years later.  I wonder if things had been different if my relationship with my mother would have been less adversarial.  Less physical.  I wonder how much of my punishments were really borne out of frustration of her life, taking care of my father and me, not really having a life of her own any longer.  Was she trapped?  Did she feel that way?  Was I just an easy target, being a child?  I’ll probably never know the answer to any of those questions.

I tried confronting my mother once.  Years ago.  After I moved away to Oregon.  I asked her if she remembered the wall incident.  She denied it ever happened and told me I was crazy.  I ended up hanging up on her.  We didn’t speak for over a year.  When we did, I was the one that made the first move.  I’ve never brought it up again.  At this point, she will never admit to any of it.  For her, it simply didn’t happen.  These are my demons to exorcise.

We did have some good times.  For a few years after my father passed we had a pretty good relationship.  Of course, by then she handed over the reigns of responsibility to me, so I’m sure she felt unburdened.  No longer chained to the house or her duties of caring for my father, she was free for the first time in years.  We went shopping, went to movies, out to eat.  She seemed happy when I got married.  She was very unhappy when I got divorced.

Then I met Darin.  I fell in love.  One of us had to move.  He had a job, family, and ties to Oregon.  He didn’t want to move.  So I did.  We made a agreement, my mother and I.  A financial one.  After a while, she chose not to honor it any longer.  And didn’t tell me.  A decision that led to one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do in my life.  I ended up filing for bankruptcy.  I had to stand up in front of a lawyer, a judge and the world and say “I can’t pay my bills.”  It was without a doubt the most humiliating thing I’ve ever experienced.

What I keep coming back to is my childhood.  I don’t know how to let go of it.  So often I look at my daughter and I cannot fathom slapping her in the face.  I cannot imagine not telling her everyday how proud I am of her.  How much I love her.

Why was I not good enough to be proud of?  Why did my mother feel she had to hit me?  Why did my father not stop her?  He never hit me himself, but he never once intervened, either.  Did he fear her wrath?  Did he feel trapped, too?  Knowing she was his caretaker as well as mine, did he fear her leaving him?

I could write for hours on this, but I only have questions.  Hundreds of them that I will probably never have the answers to.

My mother and I get along ok these days.  It helps that she’s 3000 miles away.  We see each other about once a year.  By the end of her stay, I’m definitely ready for her to go home.  I want her to have a relationship with her granddaughter, but I wouldn’t trust her alone with Ava for any length of time.

I have vowed that I will never, ever lay a hand on my daughter.  I have vowed that she will NEVER look at my hands and remember pain.  I have vowed that I will tell her every day how proud I am of her.  I will tell her every day that she is loved.  Because I never want her to look back on her childhood and ask any of the questions that I have.