Creating Peace From the Pieces

As I sit by my little girl, rubbing her precious tiny feet to help her drift into Dreamland, I’m reminded of a similar time with my own mother. She would spend hours, often late into the night, massaging my legs until my growing pains subsided and I could sleep. It’s one of the fondest memories I have with my mom. There are a few other sweet moments of maternal softness that will forever bring a bittersweet smile to my heart: Homeade muffins on the first morning of school, personalized pajamas on Christmas Eve, and many evenings reading books to us. Our mom wasn’t lacking in maternal instinct, but I think that because there were so many of us to mother, we often didn’t experience the personal attention we would otherwise have received. That is the line I liked to tell myself for years, anyway. In truth, each of those wonderful moments of family history is overshadowed by a different memory where instead of my mother’s love, it’s my mother’s passive agression or victim complex that is highlighted.

I’ll begin to smile as I recollect her massaging my leg aches away, then wince because a heavier memory of blue welts up the backs of those same legs, overpowers my thoughts. Mom would become angry with me for something, then hold onto that anger until her partner in crime returned home from work. She’d assault my dad with her report even as he opened the front door. I think she was manipulatively aware of his anger triggers. He’d grab his rod of correction and lay into whomever most needed their rebellious attitude adjusted. Occasionally we escaped with a light whipping, but more often we hobbled away on bruised, sometimes bleeding legs to finish our chores. Mom didn’t come to ease those aches.

Christmas Eve had it’s charm, but any holiday was celebrated with an undertone of fear and baited breath. One of us would use the wrong tone or body language, and whether or not it truly stemmed from an attitude, we were guilty. Mom would become upset, Dad would yell, Mom would accuse Dad of overreacting, Dad would yell more, something or someone would become the recipient of Dad’s anger, and Mom would be heartbroken about how Dad was always mad and her kids didn’t honor their parents. Dad would eventually cool off, attempt to lighten the mood with a stupid joke, and we’d gather for holiday traditions wearing our personalized pajamas and forged smiles. 

School was hell. Mom believed it was the will of God that she homeschool us. Public school was allegedly rife with sex and liberal brainwashing. The irony does not escape me. She didn’t have time to physically tutor each arrow in her quiver, but our lackluster attitude towards education was of course the fault of our sinful rebellion, not her contribution to overpopulation. As we grew into adolescence, Mom’s verbal coachings turned into long lectures on our lack of self motivation. I often timed them in an attempt to distract myself from the noise. She’d yell for hours on end until we wanted to vomit any homeade muffins. 

I recently came across one of the stories we listened to Mom read aloud, and just one look at the book cover brought me back. We’d sit in a circle around our mother’s rocker, entranced by a far away world she brought to life. I mentally glance down to our living room rug, and absently trace it’s floral design with my finger. Nothing is absent minded about my next memory on that carpet, though. Her exact iniquity is vague, but my little sister was in trouble for something, and for reasons unknown, we were all in the living room as Dad prepared to spank her. She was trembling in fear with tears pouring from her little eyes. You see, my mom had come up with a demerit system for our transgressions, but would occasionally forget to report us to our dad for punishment, and instead let them accumulate. Because of this, our baby sibling had racked up somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 demerits – meaning 100 licks. Right before raising his rod of correction, my dad looked at us and asked if anyone wanted to take the punishment for our sister. Scared beyond anything, I stepped forward and claimed her sentence of stripes. I bent over, gripped a couch arm, and gritted my teeth. I focused my eyes down to that same floral rug that previously had offered my backside an opposite experience, felt one single swat, and heard my dad quietly tell everyone to just go to bed. That night, more than a punishment changed. I accepted more than a beating. I realized I wanted to be strong. Looking into my sister’s terrified eyes, I realized I could be strong. As I listened to my dad’s voice soften, I realized I had to be strong – strong to stand up against my dad’s wrath. As I grew up though, I’d come to understand that more importantly, I needed to be strong so I could maneuver my dad away from my mom’s mood manipulations. 

“Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:” (2 Corinthians 4:1-3)

“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” (James 1:26)