My mother died when I was 15. We were close. She was slowly killing her self with drugs and alcohol. I didn't figure that out until about two months before she died.
She told my aunt the Sunday before she died that she was going to kill herself. No one believed her. By the end of the week she was dead.
I blamed myself for the things I did and didn't do, so did my sisters, my aunt, grandparents and my father.
None of us were responsible.
Suicide is a powerful lie. One in which you actually believe that what you are about to do is reasonable. People will be better off without you and more importantly - it will stop the pain in whichever form that comes in.
We were a shipwreck of a family for years. It has been just recently that we have all been able to talk about it and and what it has done.
We still have fears of becoming our mother and in a way, I think we all have some hope that we can become the best part of our mother. But the sickness ran deep in the family.
I was lucky. I was young and her favorite. My sisters were far to beautiful, talented, smart and successful to escape her sickness. She took her frustration out on them.
After she died it continued for all of us in other ways.
Again, I was lucky. I found an amazing woman named Tania that showed me what God can do. That loved me and cared for me and helped me heal.
She is a woman that believed in me when there was nothing to believe in and no reason to think there would be. At least that is how I saw it.
Tania saw past my mothers sickness, and The Lord healed me.
I am fortunate to have four wonderful children and I am finally becoming the man and father I was born to be. Because of a good woman, the mother of my children and the love of My eternities.
Today I celebrate her, and the woman who raised her my wonderful and dear mother in law, Mary Ann. I also celebrate my daughter Hannah who is new to this mother thing and is already outpacing most.
I also celebrate my sisters who are far better mothers than they believe, and woman who have grateful and decent children all of whom I love.
But I also celebrate my mother for not only the good memories that seem to grow harder and harder to retrieve, but also for the lessons she taught me in her sickness.
There is no bad. There are only things we love and experience. It is how we deal with them that makes us stronger or cripples us.
I choose to see the good and learn the lessons. I wish all could learn what my mother taught me. I am a better man because of it. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have had my first two children and I wouldn't have met Tania who gave me the next two children.
'All that I am ... I am because of my mother.' Abe Lincoln.
