By the time I was 18, I was out of my childhood home, vowing never to return but then had to go back five years later due to spinal surgery. Once that was done and I was mobile again, I left for good, never to look back.
Growing up I did not know a Mother’s love, embrace, encouragement, comfort or safety. Mine hated her children, made sure to remind us constantly and as a bonus, threw in a healthy dose of emotional and physical abuse, lies and control to spice things up.
After I left home, I lived in small studios and empty bedrooms at friends’ houses, moving around quite a bit, (all due to circumstances beyond my control). I worked full time, not making much money and was putting myself through college, atten
ding at night. I had $1.00 in my wallet between paychecks and could not afford anything after the bills were paid, including food. There was one quart of skim milk in the refrigerator each week and one box of Entenmann’s corn muffins until either ran out. If I was ever asked out on a date - which was pretty rare - I would insist on dinner; I needed to eat.
I worked in the shipping department of a contact lens company as the data entry clerk, entering invoices of stock bought and being shipped. We were a small department, got along well, helped each other out (even though we had different jobs) and socialized together quite a bit. At lunch time everyone would pull out their bagged lunch and we would sit around the shipping table and eat together. Of course, I had neither bag nor anything to pull out of one and would just hang out while everyone else ate. After a few days, an older petite woman in our group offered me half of her sandwich, telling me that she wasn’t going to eat it anyway and there was no sense letting it go to waste. She would do this everyday, making all kinds of excuses and so began my friendship with Marilyn.
We started hanging out together, with other co-workers and then at her house. Marilyn and I talked about everything, she fed me, made me laugh, genuinely cared about me, comforted me, shared secrets, gave me plenty of advice, wisdom and support; all things foreign to me. At one point I was being evicted from my current abode because someone called the town on an illegal rental in a private home and Marilyn told me to come and I could rent one of her upstairs rooms at her house as her three daughters had been out of the house for a while now. I was only there for a short time when her daughters demanded that I be asked to leave, jealous of my relationship with their mother. Leaving her home, her comfort, her everyday in my life was one of the saddest days of my life and in her eyes, I could tell she felt the same.
Marilyn was the closest to me ever knowing a mother, a good mother and the only one that I could call my best friend. I always told her that one day I would buy a house with a wrap around porch and put a rocking chair on it for her. She could sit on the porch, rocking in her chair and I would take care of her. I just had to finish school so I could get a better job and a bigger paycheck where I could actually save more than $1.00. After I left her house I did not see or talk to her as often as I would have liked and there were periods that went on a lot longer than I realized. I will never forget this one day when Marilyn’s oldest daughter called me - it was February - to let me know that her mother had passed. I was dumbfounded. When I could finally say something, I asked her when and she told me, “ last November”.
Beyond rage, my heart was broken into a million little pieces and I would tell Marilyn in my prayers, over and over, how sorry I was that she never got a chance to sit on the porch in her rocking chair and that I wasn’t able to keep my promise and take care of her. It would be a very long time before I would hear her name again.
It has been at least 20+ years since I lost her. Other losses and grieving over the past ten years brought me to a retreat in Maui of renewal, love and devotion. A group of us gathering together to get past the pain and wounds of our lives and repair our hearts. And it was so fitting to be in Maui as Hawaii is the Mother energy, heart center for the planet. What better place to heal your heart.
It is the first day of the retreat and we are in a circle. Everyone is taking their turn introducing themselves, i am looking at a small, older woman with greying hair and beautiful smiling eyes sitting next to me, whose turn is next. She looks at me, gives me a warm smile and clears her throat and to the group she says, “Hello, my name is Marilyn.”
