Eddie my brother, Michele my sister, me, and my mother Diana Louise Ferguson, circa 1967
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray
Today I am grateful for my mother.
I am a mama’s boy, growing up my father was a busy man with his own carpet business. We saw him on occasion, but for the most part, it was my mother who we spent time with.
My mother used to sneak me out of the house, and take me to see movies. I got my love for movies, among other things, from my mother. She introduced me to such great films and directors like Woody Allen, Cabaret, The Who’s Tommy, I was only about 8 or 9, when I saw these movies. During high school, she worked for the post office driving mail from Texas to California and back. She would be on the road for four days, and home for three, when she would come home, we would spend those three days watching movies. We would go to the local video store, rent about eight hours worth of movies, stay up all night watching them, take a nap, and then go get some more.
My life changed dramatically when I was 10, my mother and father divorced. This was not a friendly affair, the battles lasted for years, almost 10, our family would never be the same.
My mother was a beautiful woman, but she changed drastically. Instead of spending time with her children, she chose to spend most of her time in bars. We were an upper middle class family, and my mother now chose to date men who we in Texas would refer to as poor white trash. It had nothing to do with economic status, these were people who chose paths in their lives to offer nothing to the rest of the world, in most cases the paths they chose would end up with them being on the other side of the law.
But I still loved my mother, she was the woman, who, when I was a child, seemed she could make every dream come true, and every nightmare go away. I made a lot of attempts at connecting with my mother, but it became very apparent that she no longer wanted to be a mom, she just wanted to be loved, and would do whatever it took to get that love, even if that meant allowing her children the freedom to destroy their lives, and some of my siblings took that route.
To say my mother’s childhood was bad, would be an understatement of gigantic proportions. What you see is a picture of a beautiful little girl, with an amazing smile, and a twinkle in her eye. But hidden is the pain of years of abuse at the hands of an evil woman, who was my grandmother.
I never fully realized the damage that was done to my mother, until as a grown man I was sitting with her one night, when the phone rang, and it was my grandmother on the line, and my mother began to tremble. The effects of years of abuse still manifested themselves in a woman who was almost 50, talking to her mother over the phone, who was hundreds of miles away.
The pain of that childhood, the pain of life my mother endured, put her in and out of hospitals many times. She suffered from depression, she suffered from anxiety. She threatened to take her life on numerous occasions, and made many attempts, she finally got her wish on March 1st, 2003. I got the call late that night, I had been trying to get my mother to come out to Las Vegas to stay with me and the girls, for however long she wished to. But it was too late. I pleaded with my father to drive down to her apartment to confirm that it was her, there had been so many rumors before, but eventually we would find out this time it was definitely true. There was the possibility it was murder, and I spent my night hoping it was, because if not, it meant that our mother had one last time shunned her children.
I spent the rest of that night, well into the next day crying. I have never cried this much in my life, I couldn’t stop, I was inconsolable, the flow of tears was uncontrollable. I couldn’t decide if I was crying more for my mom, or myself. The guilt I was feeling was amazingly heavy. I knew I could have been a better son, I knew that I could have done more to make her happy, to make her proud, and I failed her.
Weeks later, in a conversation with my father, we learned that my mother had more than likely planned on not only taking her life, but his as well. She called him that afternoon and had instructed him to come over, but to leave my brother at home. Their relationship had changed after so many years, and they had become friends, but something told my dad that day not to go. There was something in her voice my father said, that was unsettling
It is five years later to the week, and I have to come to terms with forgiving not only her, but myself. It is a struggle to find the gratitude in the life of someone, when all you are faced is with the tragedy, but I will give it a shot.
I am grateful for the years I had with my mother. I am grateful for the amazing childhood I had the good, and the bad. I am grateful for the passions in my life that I inherited from my mother. I am grateful for the sacrifices she made in the name of her children. I am grateful for the love that she showed her grand daughters. I am grateful for the lessons in life that I learned from her pain, and from her mistakes. I am grateful that God chose her to be my mom, for whatever reason that may be, which I know will be revealed to me in due time.
I love you mom, and I hope and pray that you finally found some happiness, and a release of the pain that you held onto so strongly, I have to let you go now, but there will come a time when we will be together again.
