A Letter to The Mother Who Wasn't

Dear Cathy,

I'm not sure there is a point to writing to the dead, but I am going to do it anyhow. For me. Because I don't live in your shadow anymore. I do this right after taking a handful of medication, PRESCRIBED TO ME BY A DOCTOR, for all the messed up shit my genes carry. I still remember the day you cursed me, and how I shrugged it off as just another asshole thing you said while high...

"One day, you are going to hurt the way I do."

For once, you actually were telling the truth. Like you, I have mental illness. Like you, I have physical ones too. Ones I thought you were lying about, because more then half the time you DID lie about your problems. How many days did you sit my sister and I down on the end of your bed and tell us you were going to die? You had it all figured out too, like death was something you just circled on a questionnaire. Today I choose Death. Check mark. Simple as that.

I know better now. I know the horror and despair of death. I know the helplessness and the fear. I know all the terrible and even beautiful parts of death. I think about death and my relationship with it every time I process bones for art. I think about it every time I walk through a grave yard. I know how close it is. But I also know that choosing death isn't as simple as a check mark.

You just made it sound that way.

My pill jar isn't a 20 sided, spinning container of Russian roulette. It has my day and nighttime pills marked off, and that's it. I could barely handle looking at my pill jar when I first got it, because it reminded me of you. Watching you spin your pill jar until you got the section you wanted, and see you dump a pile of pills into your hand then into your mouth. Dry. Like a fucking pro. You did this several times a day. You were courting death, and it wasn't romantic. There was no beauty in what you did. And it was the same action you pulled when they took you to Niagara Falls. My sister and Grandmother didn't know you were done with life, and sadly, my Grandmother didn't care. You were done. You didn't want to try, didn't want a second chance, and sure as hell didn't want to ever give my sister or I the chance to be your family.

So now I have to carry around the shadows of all that transpired between us. All the things left unsaid. All the bullshit and lies, and all the abuse you refused to knowledge happening under your roof. I went fucking mad recently and no one really blamed me. Anyone close to me knows what I have endured. Knows about the "drug house" and the life you cultivated for my sister and I. How I protected her many times from predators. How I can't even sleep at night like a normal person because people raped and beat me when I was vulnerable at night. The beatings sometimes were from you. You were terrifying when high. You switched personalities, and the one I knew as my mother would be replaced by a vicious beast. The beast wasn't human. It lived on fear. It would punch me in the back, shake me awake and threaten me so I wouldn't want to fall asleep. And if you weren't beating me...I still get upset if someone walks past my bedroom door when I am in bed. I have a roommate who gets up at all hours, and he wakes me up constantly just by walking past my door. I can't seem to shut it off. Every time I freak out a little.

I am 34 years old, and I need pills to sleep. I need anti-psychotics, I need pain medication. I cannot function without these things. Because people touched me. People raped me. People beat the fuck out of me...in YOUR house. A child is supposed to be safe in their house. A child should be able to trust their mother.

I had no mother.

This only touches the surface of what I endured. And you are gone now, so nothing I say here will reach your ears. But I needed to write this. For me. For the child I was. Because little Kweeny was a creative, and beautiful soul. She grew up hard and fast, and never got to play, so damn it, I play now. She had to learn most things on her own. She made mistakes, because she was a tough little shit who didn't trust easily. She still doesn't. But she's better now. She is loved and has a huge pack of friends in her life, and she doesn't need you anymore. She's free now.

She can run with wolves now, not drug addicts.

And she won't check the death box.

~Kweeny Todd