My preparations for Christmas are almost done. I keep telling myself that. They are almost done for the little girls anyway. The girls that are still in my home. The girls I get to keep for this year.Last Christmas was a blur, with the death of the baby, her memorial, and then her actual due date all happening in October, November and December. I was lost in my own fog, going through the mothering motions to try and hold the magic for M and L. I don't remember what we did last year, what memories we made, what gifts were given. I know we did it, there are pictures as proof, but the emotional links that solidify memories are missing.
I do what I can for my little misses. They are the real victims in our horror story. They are the ones that keep losing people and don't know why. They are the ones I keep in the dark trying in some vain way to protect them from the monstrous truth that we live in. They have lost 3 sisters in a year and a half. They lost their baby sister to something that not even the best medical care in the world could fix. They learned at 4 and 6 the horrific, finality of death. They learned about babies dying in your arms instead of coming home to be loved. They learned of loss so intense that you never are the same again. And they learned the saying, "families are forever".
Then they learned the truth of what mommy always says, "hate makes people go away and never come back." I tried to teach them all that, even the big ones that grasped onto a hate so intense that they have now gone away from our family, and never come back. That is the hardest lesson my littles have learned, and one they still haven't learned all of yet.
I have 5 beautiful daughters, 4 that walk this earth and 1 that flies the heavens. My older ones have brought so much joy and love and pride that it seems impossible the depths of betrayal and pain they have inflicted.
I don't prepare Christmas for them. This has become an awaking for me, I finally put into words why this was killing me. I don't want to remember them this year. I don't want to remember the 3 that are missing. I can't breath when I think of them, I can't focus, and I can't make memories or magic with the girls I still can hold. I spent years making magic for the big ones, memories and fun. Now I want to not think of it. I need to make memories with the littles that don't include the shadow of their big sisters that hate our family so much they are willingly and actively trying to destroying it. I don't want a memorial to my dead baby being the focus of our Holiday season. I don't want to be reminded that I held her as her heart stopped beating.
I want to live in a fantasy world. .And I think that's what makes me the worlds worst mother. It's a time for family, to hold loved ones and remember cherished memories. I DON"T WANT TO. I want to forget. I want to blot out of my mind those missing pieces. I can't.
My little girls will have a very different Christmas this year. Everything they will receive is something that I have made them from scrapes and leftovers in the house. Lawyers and bankruptcy and mounting medical bills and the like have taken every penny. I am barely able to keep the lights turned on and the rent paid. The big girls are a different story.
E is in foster care, I have no rights to her anymore and she blames me for this. I am at fault, I tried every way to get her the help she needs. She stood in the hospital they day before I had to sign the papers and declared that she would "tell them all a story so big it would get me and the little girls taken away" because I had put her in the hospital for a suicide attempt, again. She sure did tell a story, and she keeps changing in it and adding to it. She will receive everything she wants because she is a poor unloved child lost in the system. Never mind that her family is brokenhearted and longing to have her back. She would have to tell the truth, and why do that when pity gets adults to give you everything you want. She hasn't had to eat "what's left in the fridge casserole" because there was no money left for groceries. Her little sisters have. Her little sisters will probably find out this yer that mom and dad are Santa because there is no money to keep up the magic. I want to not think of her this year.
K is right where she wanted to be when she set the bomb to light. The casualties left in the wake of her self centered actions are to numerous. The one that worries me most is what will happen when the littles learn that her lies led to this. Led to the horror of criminal charges against their dad, charges that threaten to take him away from them for the rest of their lives. She hated our home and rules so much that she devised the most heinous plan. And it worked. She is gone now, and can never come back as she is unwilling to acknowledge what she has done. She is still so missed, and loved that pieces of sanity and soul die each day trying to figure out how I raised a child who could do this. Her biological father is good at giving her what she wants, it shuts her up. No rules or morals for her either, how dare I try to instill some in her. She wants to lie and steal and do drugs and have sex and whatever else pops into her mind. For trying to teach her to be a moral human, we received lies and hate. As much as I love her, and always will, part of me hates her too. What kind of mother says that? Puts that thought to words? Her little sisters love her still, they don't know what she has done, yet. There will come a time when they learn the truth and I live in dread of that day.
Christmas is a time of joy right? It just highlights the darkness for me. And yet, in the midst of all the pain and hate and sorrow, there is a spark of hope that lives in my dead, black heart. I know that my Savior was born in Bethlehem to a young mother named Mary. I know that He came to learn, grow and ultimately die showing me the way home. I know that without Him the darkness would swallow me whole and nothing would be left. That small spark deep inside, it keeps me going. Knowing that while He never did anything to deserve the price asked, He paid for me, washed me clean, and will help me walk through the darkest depths to find my way home. I am a mother that fails, fails daily, a mother that admits to loving and hating her children at the same time. A mother that has the fear of loosing her children not just in this life, but forever. Without them, what good is eternity?
I can't see when this shadow of pain ends, maybe it doesn't in this life., Fear may walk with me until my last breath, but He will be waiting for me when I cross that veil. He will be there to hold me and soothe the pain and terror that has become my constant companion. So maybe this Christmas, while I want to forget those missing, maybe I'll just remember the one who came to show me the way.
