A Missing Mother...

In all these blogs I have seldom mentioned my mother other than the drinking, fighting, and violence.  Sadly there are reasons.  I have few photos of my parents anyway.  Recently when I found a stash of photos I 

have shared here I came across a photo not in the folder, but the bottom of a box.  It is difficult for me to see because it clearly shows the "disconnect" I always felt from very young age of having a "missing mother."  She was not missing in the context she had gone someplace, no, but the love for and acceptance of her child was missing.  For you see my mother could never deal with the fact her child had a deformity.

When people rudely stared at and made remarks about the midget toddler, she would get angry at ME, not them and blamed me for being the reason why they were being ugly to me.  She continued doing this into my adulthood.

My mother lived in hate and blamed everyone for her problems.  She was never ever at fault, nor did she 

ever apologize for anything...to anyone.

Interestingly my Grandfather who was seeking custody of me before he suddenly died, told me there was a Little Person in my mother's high school class.  She and a group of others tormented this poor guy unmercefully.

They would kick his stools he needed out from under him.  They chanted ugly words at him.  Laughed at him.  Made his life hell.  Even after they graduated.  [This proves what goes around comes around folks!]

So you see, my missing mother already had a huge disdain for we "midgets" before I even got here.  I was her nightmare come true.  The disconnect was sealed.  You can see it in photos.  And see it in this.  In the photos I am actually being held by her, I am being held away from her.  Not held close.  Not cuddled. 

I could feel The Disconnect.  And always felt it.

My Grandfather is the one who took this photo.  He said in the next moment I was reaching out for him crying.  He said I constantly reached out not only crying for him but everyone...except...my...mother.

I have written about my dear babysitter I had from age three to four who I especially clung to then.  Most kids do not want to leave their parents.  I on the other hand, did not want to leave WITH mine.  Or LIVE with them.

They drank and fought constantly often screaming as they lunged at each other with knives as I screamed for them to stop.  A few years later when guns were in their hands as they screamed, I screamed for them to kill each other.  The violence never ended.  Nor did my fear.

Often I had nothing to eat...except old uneaten crusts 

of pizza and the remaining beer I would find at the bottom of bottles.  One day at the babysitters I threw up pieces of cigarette butts I had eaten because I was so hungry and they were all I could find.  In this day and time she would have had places to call to report what she knew I was living with.  As weekends were even worse, she did however convince my father to please allow me to spend weekends with her family.  Those weekends at Mrs. Cassity's probably saved my life then.

Many years later in my late twenties as I was passing through town she was absolutely thrilled when I called to see if I could stop for a visit.  Mrs. Cassity still lived 

in the very same home and little had changed.  As I told her how the rest of my childhood went, horses, art, Theatre Scene Design, and my mentor friends she cried.  She was so proud of me and so grateful I was living such a full, happy loved life.

After I told Mrs. Cassity how at age four my father had abandoned me in a woods to die not long before he was kicked out of law school due to his drinking, she cried.  Said she knew something awful had happened to me in the days following that shattering nightmare, because I very uncharacteristically was quiet...waaay too quiet and though she gently tried to grasp what horror I just experienced, she realized it was not because I didn't WANT to talk...it was because I COULDN'T for I was so traumatized by the abandonment.

Before I left Mrs. Cassity had something very special to share with me she had kept and treasured all those years.  She brought out a little clay horse.  I recognized

it, because I made the little horse as everything I created was a horse.  She was going to give it to me and though I was very touched and grateful, I wanted her to keep it.

Back to my mother a moment.  She lived a very bitter miserable life blaming everyone for being why her life was this way.  Where my father had recognized the terrible things he had done to me, expressing remorse and seeking my forgiveness, my missing mother never did.  

Yet through this blog and by being with me on this amazing journey of my Life Of WOW here, you happily know I surviva-soared despite having a missing mother.  My dear adult friends all during my childhood who nurtured, hugged, and loved me through are also why.