As We Forgive Those

Hidden, like the washed out stars in the lunar light, she wept. Bitterly. No one knew but me. No one cared as much as me. Behind the cracking white paint of her attic door, she stifled her sobs and choked on her melancholy. But like those forgotten stars, she still shined with a blazing light. I can even recall,though I doubt my memory at times, a carpet of light stretching out from under the thick oak door. Whether it was the setting sun or the glow of her  suffusing halo, the point of the matter is that the light was a ruddy red that imbrued the weathered planks of the floor, and it warmed them so much so that the planks eased into submission. As strange as that sounds, I swear to this day that the wood beneath my bare feet softened from its hard protest against my bodily weight. Although the warmth was inviting, I could never muster up the courage to enter her sanctuary. The closest I ever got to condoling her was flattening the palm of my hand upon the chipping paint and crying silently with her. At that time, I was ten years old and the word abortion was foreign to me. It was an insignificant word that tumbled out from my grandmother's mouth, but whatever it was, it brought about an agonizing, unforgiving, and relentless path for my mother to stumble and collapse onto. She had always been a beam of light in my short four years of life, but after her traumatic experience, which I had known nothing about at the time, the only light I ever enjoyed was that soft radiance creeping out from under the attic door. As little children do, I made up stories in my mind about the light. I invented millions of them to satisfy my hungry need to know why she hid herself from me, but my favorite idea was that her love and beauty was so powerful that she had to barricade herself behind the attic door in order to keep her bursting beams of light from harming me in some overwhelming way.

 I began to believe that her beauty grew out of her sorrow due to her regular visits to the attic. Despite her wet, smeared face, she was by far the most stunning when she was flushed and full of an enlivened passion for my lost sister. Bizarrely enough, she would open the door after a good hour or two in the room and stand towering over me in a romantic way that resembled a battle-worn heroine in a black and white movie. I had remembered watching Gone with the Wind with grandmother once, and Scarlet O'Hara's concluding scene of determination wafted into my mind, but my mom's relapses were frequent and eventually they wore her beauty and love down to a ghost of a woman who spoke only when it was necessary. In other words, she only answered questions or grunted out short demands, but her hands spoke endlessly to me. A pat on the shoulder, the brushing of my hair from my eyes, or a twirl of my pony tail in her fingers all indicated that my mother was trapped in the her gnarled body. Every touch was tender and caressing. I coveted them so much that I nearly welled up with tears whenever such attention was granted to me. Unfortunately this bliss, though greatly limited, only lasted as long as my innocence, and soon enough I discovered the meaning of this haunting word abortion.

It's difficult to explain what I felt when I found out the depth of the word and how much it effected me. First, I felt the complete and irrevocable loss of a sister. Second, I felt a nauseating confusion as to why my mom had done such a wretched thing. Third, my stomach lurched with the thought that it could have been me that she had aborted. And finally, with much regret, I was consumed by a terrible and violent fury that thrust me into the thinnest, basest form of relationship possible for a mother and daughter. The day she had figured out I had made the discovery is the day my mother's spirit broke. I couldn't invent any excuses for her crime, but what seemed more disturbing to me was how she couldn't handle the toll it had taken on her. Why would she plunge herself into her own hell and take me part of the way with her? I only had half a mother while the other half was a tortured soul that was far from comprehendible.

I will stop there as far as my contempt goes. Yes, my mother did something that was absolutely unacceptable in my eyes, but even so, it was not unforgivable. Looking back on the majority of my life post-revelation, I was a poor excuse for a daughter. I held a gun to my mom's head every day after I had learned the meaning of abortion,  and I gutted her with my emotional absence. What she needed most was her only child whom she loved far more than that ten year old could ever have imagined. Even my over-imaginative mind couldn't think up such a reasonable possibility that my mother had no choice in the matter. Then again, I was so angry that a psycho analysis of my mom was the last thing I wanted to do. But now, as a mother, I can meet my mom half way with the inconsolable loss of a child, not to mention one that you had a hand in. I also came to understand that my mother did it against her own wishes. I won't go into detail about it as it is her private issue, and if she wasn't willing to share it with her only child, then I will not disrespect her privacy. My grandmother deemed me old enough to grasp the feelings my mother felt when I had my first child, and she was right. When I found out the truth, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours. How could I have been so horrible for so many years without having knowing her situation? Whether she had wanted to have an abortion or not, she was still suffering desperately. I was selfish beyond belief. I kicked her when she was down, and I put my own feelings above hers. I accused her and condemned her wrongly, and now I couldn't go back in time to change it.

Guilt can be an awful cancer. I felt sick for a number of days and didn't know how to confront her about it. I spent so many days in the bathroom, crying for my poor mom, until the day I opened the door and my son was staring up at me imploringly. Tears were in his eyes. It's incredible how  astute children can be. I embraced him and told him everything was okay, and it was. I knew what to do. I took my son over to my mom's house with a bouquet of flowers and knocked on the door that had a rusty 116 on it. My mom opened it slowly with a shaking hand, took one look at my son, then a shocked expression met my joyous one. "I would like to introduce you to your grandson Broderick." My son stretched out the bouquet to my mom, and blurted out that he was five years old. He pulled a few strips of  paint off her door while my mom and I exchanged looks. "I'm sorry." I mouthed to her. She shook her head silently, and hugged me to her with Brodrick squashed between us. The warmth of her arms was as overwhelming as I had imagined as a child. It delivered a solace that permeated every bone in my body. Somehow, my mother conveyed a desire for my forgiveness in the same moment she had given me hers. I just smiled and shook my head. I watched as Brodrick took her by the hand and lead her in the house. Her face was beaming with pure joy and love. I glanced at the white paint curling away from her front door, and as I walked past it, I knew the barricade between my mother an me was finally gone. 

© Mikal Minarich