A Letter to my Mother

Dear Mother,

What a long, strange trip this life has been thus far. When I look back upon the memory of you, I typically only see the good things. I hope it will always stay that way. Things that I remember are you being proud of me for getting three teeth pulled in 4th grade without crying. Afterwards, you took me to Luby’s Cafeteria at the Northwest Arkansas Mall. I drank chocolate milk through a straw, and it went everywhere because my mouth was completely numb. Then you took me to Toys R’ Us and bought me Pokémon Crystal. I remember you being proud of me for succeeding in martial arts and always buying me Pokémon cards and then lying to dad about how expensive the First Edition holographic cards truly were. I remember us watching crime shows together like Forensic Files, The New Detectives, and Cold Case Files. You were always my biggest fan and supporter, and you always told me that I was your rock. After an unsuccessful first marriage, it was just the two of us for awhile before you would eventually meet the man that I call dad, my adoptive father, whom you had my little brothers with. Dad was a hardworking man, and he still is today. He was probably still pretty immature when you first met, but I can’t blame him. Men tend to mature slower than women. Aside from the marital problems that you and dad faced, it wasn’t too bad of a childhood. We were taken care of and spoiled, to be honest. I never look back on my childhood in a negative light.

But there’s another aspect of my childhood that I never talk about, and I think it’s time. You see, I’m a father now. And there are issues with me that I didn’t fully realize I had until I met my precious daughter. When she looks at me with tears in her eyes, I am frozen solid in my tracks. It’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. But why would I have PTSD? I’ve never been to a combat zone. To take a closer look at that, we’d have to pull back the curtain of my childhood.

While I might have had a decent childhood, yours was anything but. It’s hard to decipher fact from fiction when you speak, but you have told me numerous times that you were raped by a family member as a child. A family member that still comes to family functions and is still accepted. Nobody believed you is what you said. Your father, my grandfather, was murdered when you were still a young girl. No doubt you must…