This is why literature is an art. It speaks to each of us where we are. As the wife of an alcoholic husband and the daughter of a workaholic father, this speaks to me on many different levels.
In this first part, I identify with Anna, the young teenage girl and all her mixed up, crazy emotions.
I tried to think what to tell her, how to explain what was wrong without alarming her. I tried to think logically, to be calm. But finally I just blurted everything out.
"I cry all the time and some days I hate school and some days I love it and my friends are nice but they hurt my feelings and I don't like the way i look and I feel so lonely sometimes and its not your fault and I don't know what I am doing wrong - " I stopped for a moment and looked at her to see if she was alarmed or frightened or disgusted. But she just looked worried and like she loved me, so I gave in and told her what I was afraid of. "I think something's wrong with me." And I began to sob.
In this second part, I identify with the Mother, Eve; the powerlessness, the aching desire to offer your child something, the anger, the love.
My mother smiled, but in a way that was so gentle that it gave me hope. "Oh Anna," she said, in the same way she'd said it since I was little, and she just held me for a few minutes, rocking me. When my crying had slowed, she said "Nothing's wrong with you. You're not crazy, you're not sick."...
..."I took a few breaths, trying to be calm "Are you sure?" I asked...
... "Your father is making a terrible mistake by not returning," she said. "And there is nothing I can do about it. I can tell you he'll regret it for the rest of his life. He's missing out on the best thing in the world." She looked at me. "And that's you."...
..."Don't forget that: this is his mistake. The fact that he hasn't come home is no reflection on you. Its just evidence of his bad judgement." She looked at me evenly. "Which, unfortunately, is something that we can't control."
As parents, we CAN'T make it all OK for our kids.
We can't un-do the pain their absent of addicted parents have caused... we can't love them enough to make them not feel abandoned... we can't fill them up enough that they don't feel an emptiness from the loss... we can't make it "all better" as much as we would long to.
We CAN show up, we can be present, we can listen, we can hear, we can allow for uncomfortable feelings, we can offer comfort, we can teach them how to be honest and FEEL and not run away, we can offer them alternatives to the way their other parent has chose to live, we can offer "sips" of mental health (as we TRY to find it ourselves!!!), we can let them know they are not crazy or bad for having those feelings.
We can make a difference.
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