I am blessed to have my mother. There once was a time when that thought may not have crossed my mind. You see, I genuinely believe that we have to forgive our parents. They were once children, too, as were their parents. I had no idea that my mother was the first to break the generational trauma. How would I know? One afternoon I decided to listen to her story and see where it took us.
My mother was born into an abusive household in Mexico, in the middle of nowhere. She grew up seeing abuse, feeling abuse. She felt fear for most of her childhood. She then got married to my father, who was, you guessed it, physically abusive. My mother got pregnant with my sister Eue at 20 years old. Three years later, she became pregnant again with twins.
I asked her why she had more kids in that environment. Her response, ” I was on birth control, but the clinic had me pause my birth control,” and thus here I am. My father had hurt her so many times that she began running away to her mother’s house, but every single time her father would tell her to go back to her husband. She didn’t know what to do. Her husband would hit her, and her father didn’t want her at his home. The third time she ran away, she knew it was time to leave permanently.
The last straw came with a scar on her lip. She grabbed her daughters and told my father she was leaving for America. He said she could go, but to leave his children. She took us with her, but she could not take us to America at the time, so she left us with her mother, my grandma. It would be a while before my mom saw us again. Eue was five and we were toddlers. She didn’t know it, but my dad would come to get us from my grandmothers.
This is where I asked her if she had come back for us out of love or responsibility. I wanted to know if, at that time in her life, as a young woman, now in America, she thought of us? Did she miss her children? Did the responsibility of motherhood weigh on her to go back for us? Or was it a mother’s love?
I asked her this specifically, why? Why was it crucial for me to know why she returned for us? Ever since I can remember, my mother has been tough. Tough on herself and tough on her children. I have one memory. One. Of my mother caressing me. I hold it dear to my heart. My mother was tough. She was born into challenging circumstances. Her environment shaped her. So I needed to know, was it a mother’s love or responsibility?
She said,” I got a job immediately as a dishwasher at your uncle’s restaurant when I got to America. I would stand there every day, washing dishes, crying for my little girls I left behind. You all three would appear right in front of my eyes. Standing there right in front of me, crying for me. I needed to go back for you all. I went back for both reasons—responsibility and love.”
My mother was the first to break the generational trauma. I had overseen her acts of courage because all I could see was her cold nature. My mother went back for us out of love and responsibility, for a chance at a life without abuse, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity and for her.
