An open letter to my Mother:
Dearest Mother,
I could not have written this letter earlier. For not only would the timing have been off, but I needed at least a partial revelation and understanding of your worth, legacy and impact to humanity in the seemingly short time you spent on planet earth. And should I also say to be able to grasp the magnitude of all that went down and a glimpse of why. Your impact undoubtedly has nothing to do with self-exertion or abuse both on a familial or institutional level.
You see though my memories were vague of our sweet time together as a toddler, once while piggy-back swimming with you and the second while throwing up from consuming too much candy at my 4th birthday party. I still consume a lot of candy Mother :(, I just don't throw-up. I would later be devilishly programmed (in the years to come) to believe and also be constantly told that I was somehow unlucky in life and that was why you were gone. A very sick and sad statement for a person to make (especially to a child), now that I think of it. Oh well, now I know the opposite is true indeed :).
What's a six year old girl to do when the step-situation bashes her face against a wall, thereby cutting a huge gash barely a quarter of an inch from her right eye and still yelling furiously as blood gushed out... What in the world could trigger such physical, emotional and mental abuse.? But an assignment from hell itself.
As always, due to some miraculously divine intervention. Daddy would forget something or so he thought and make a u-turn back to the house. He would arrived just in time to save my right eye from bulging out its socket with a stitch or two. Of course the story he heard about what happened was bogus and ridiculous. And I was in no position to counteract or amend that. Besides with so many privately-owned hospitals to run, and many mouths to feed. I often struggled to spare my dad the gruesome and sordid details sometimes. In my harrassed juvenile mind, I was afraid he too would die... You see he was now all I had.
But today I look back and see that for the sake of where we are headed, those hard knocks were necessary to prepare and equip me for such a time as this. As the saying goes; "Offences will come... but woe unto those through whom they come." I would not want to be in their shoes right about now. By the time the step-situation met and collaborated with the temple-situation (as their recruited, paid and unpaid cohorts tagged along) I was not that easy to be messed with or fooled anymore.
I am so proud of you mother, that no child of another woman would say you diligently pursued them (breathing hell fire and brimstone) to destroy their lives in every way conceivable to the devil and man. You are a rare and priceless gem. A perpetual act of grace even in absentia.
Daddy was so proud and always spoke highly of you, so was your mother and your brothers and your mother-in-law and every other person that you as much as breezed by (All 3 million of them :). The hapless goonies tried to taint your name, because theirs was cursed. That's okay I went through the same thing, but the TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT!!!
You have always taken care of me sweet mother and even in your absence still do. Because the ONE you trusted and committed me to will never die. Therefore today I reap the good deeds, kindness and charity that you sowed. And the evidence is that, I came out of every ferocious flame I was thrust into un-scorched and hardly smelling of smoke.
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to the most beautiful, gentle, kind, humble and yet powerful woman I ever, never knew!!!
PS: That big gash on my right eye, was thought by most to be a birth/beauty mark. Now they know the story behind it. And even more coincidentally or should I say ironically the right side of my face happens to be my best camera-angle. To think that I always tried to avoid using it. Victory!!!
Oh mother, your prayers are being answered indeed. In my next letter, I will tell you what became of the two major situations (step and temple alike) and the not so major ones.
I will always love you! #Josephine
