by Leigh Byrne
Staring at her photograph, I wondered if near the end she’d had a moment of regret. Thinking of her alone, kneeling in a dark corner begging for the chance to go back, reach back, take back the horrible things she had done made me bury my face in my hands and cry. If you were faced with such a moment, Mama, my heart aches for you. If you weren’t my heart aches for you.
Wally put his arm around me to show his support, as I turned to address the family members now approaching me. My siblings and I engaged in an obligatory stiff hug, and then went our separate ways. I wondered, as I looked at their children, how my brothers would explain the new aunt that had suddenly appeared. Molly and Daryl didn’t come to the funeral; they had never known Mama as a grandmother, but I’d heard my brothers’ children had a relationship with her.
Now that my book was published revealing the secrets of Mama’s past, what would my brothers tell their children when they are old enough to read it and ask questions? To try to spare them this dilemma, I took Dani’s advice and changed all the names in the book, but people have a way of finding things out. If they do, there are only two possible answers. Either Mama Rose was a deeply troubled, mentally ill woman, or their aunt Tuesday is evil for writing such awful lies about their grandmother. Which would they choose?
Mama was dead. While she lived there lived hope—a glimmer of chance—we would somehow find a way to put our hideous past behind us and reconcile. Now my dream of hearing her call me Tuesday again would not be realized, and she was never going to explain why she mistreated me. She had left no answers behind. From relatives who had gone through her personal belongings, I’d learned she’d left no journal or un-mailed letters. There was nowhere left to turn but to the enigma that remained: my mother was disturbed in a way that neither I, nor anyone else, could explain, and for reasons I would never fully understand, she stopped loving me, if she ever did. But this I could finally accept, because now I knew what love felt like.
There’s truth to what they say—that in death all is forgiven. When I was a child, I believed Daddy when he promised to rescue me from my daily abuse and when he didn’t, in many ways, his was the greater betrayal. Not until after his death was I able to forgive him and let go of my resentment. Now Mama was gone, and the time had come to rid myself of the remaining shards of anger still jutting from my heart. At her funeral, realizing death truly is the ultimate closure, I forgave her too. Forgave her for robbing me of my childhood, for the years of torment, and for dismissing what she’d done without accountability, which turned out to be the most damaging blow of all. I forgave my mother even though she had never asked for my forgiveness, or admitted she’d done anything for which to be forgiven. I forgave her for myself.
EPILOGUE
It’s my opinion that no one comes away from severe childhood trauma unscathed. Every child we allow to be abused today has the potential to grow into a defective adult. Yesterday’s victims, at their worst, are convicts, drug addicts, or abusive parents. At best, they appear normal to the outside world, living anonymously among us as our neighbors, friends, and co-workers, while silently struggling with the damage in their own private ways.
Some of the scars from my childhood trauma remain with me today. My ability to trust has been fractured, because I know, first hand, evil can exist even behind seemingly kind faces. I still have bouts with depression and a tendency toward reclusiveness. The phobias and fears that plagued my young adulthood continue to linger below the surface of my conscious mind. I’m still afraid of driving, especially on an interstate or in a big city, and I still get lost regularly. I can’t submerge my head in water, and when I feel my life slipping from my control, I do something I can control—I rearrange furniture.
But the most devastating damage of all, is that I’ve missed out on the joy of family. I grew up without a mother or a father, and the isolation from my siblings during our childhood has carried over into our adult lives. I see one of my brothers and his wife and kids once a year. I have no contact with any other family members. Still, my life is filled with love and support. I have the family I created, my friends and in-laws, and they all mean the world to me.
After failing to get back in touch with Aunt Macy, I later found out she had passed away. Of all the mistakes I had to resolve during that arduous time of my life, not contacting her proved to be the most excruciating of all. But as Aunt Macy herself—forever the optimist—would have pointed out, I have learned many life lessons from my experiences. One of the most valuable is this: Children—and perhaps the elderly—are the only true victims of abuse. As adults, we are only victims when we allow ourselves to be. The instant we make the decision to strike back, we become warriors. When the fight is over, we will have either won or lost, but one thing is for sure, we will not have been victims.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leigh Byrne is an American author who lives in southern Indiana. Call Me Cockroach is her second book. Her first book, Call Me Tuesday, was published in 2012, and is available through Amazon. To find out more about Leigh, visit her blog: http://callme2sday.blogspot.com/
CONTENTS
Author's Note
Acknowledgements
The Great Survivors
A New Shade of Crazy
Unloading Worthless Rocks
Change on the Horizon
Return to Survival Mode
My New Family
Mr. and Mrs. Chicken
Little Man, Big Gun
The Virus
Becoming Our Parents
The Magic of Family
A Pretend Kind of Happy
Possibilities
Reflections of a Girl Called Horse Face
Legacy Denied
The Other Grandmother
Saving Emma
Hungry Again
Echoes of Discontentment
The Dark Stranger
A Coward’s Dream
Ladybug Fly Away
Going Back
The High Price of Pantyhose
Tuesday’s Eclipse
Flickers in the Dark
Dark Tuesday
Descent
Pushing Off the Bottom
Searching for the Surface
Stormy Skies for Tuesday
Emergence
Burying the Anger
Epilogue
About the Author
Table of Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Acknowledgements
The Great Survivors
A New Shade of Crazy
Unloading Worthless Rocks
Change on the Horizon
Return to Survival Mode
My New Family
Mr. and Mrs. Chicken
Little Man, Big Gun
The Virus
Becoming Our Parents
The Magic of Family
A Pretend Kind of Happy
Possibilities
Reflections of a Girl Called Horse Face
Legacy Denied
The Other Grandmother
Saving Emma
Hungry Again
Echoes of Discontentment
The Dark Stranger
A Coward’s Dream
Ladybug Fly Away
Going Back
The High Price of Pantyhose
Tuesday’s Eclipse
Flickers in the Dark
Dark Tuesday
Descent
Pushing Off the Bottom
Searching for the Surface
Stormy Skies for Tuesday
Emergence
Burying the Anger
Epilogue
About the Author
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