Teach What You Know

Shame is the lie someone tells you about yourself ...Anais Nin.

And that you hear so often, you believe it, I wanted to add when I read this on a recent Facebook post.

My troubled mother, as much a victim of alcohol abuse as she was to make her children, must have heard a great many lies as a child. From what I know from my grandmother and my daddy, she was unwanted and unloved, subjected to a cold, cruel father and a helpless, distant mother. She was an only child, spoiled materialistically and denied emotionally, raised in the shadows of adultery, verbal if not physical abuse, and rampant alcoholism. In my cool, rational moments, I think that her only sin was to teach and pass on what she knew.

She taught us to be intolerant of anyone and anything different - Catholics, Jews, immigrants of all colors, blacks, gays, rock and roll, certain authors, anyone with wealth or power was a threat. They were misbegotten and lazy, taking advantage of the system, contaminating society, perverts and communists. I'm free, white and over twenty one, she used to say proudly, I belong here. Alcohol produced a drunken sort of self confidence in her, an assurance she didn't otherwise feel and was, I think, terribly lonely and afraid without.

She taught us envy, to covet what belonged to others and resent their having it, as if we had been cheated - jealousy of other peoples time and possessions and accomplishments - fear of trying, as if we should know our place and not even attempt to rise above it - inadequacy, as if we would never be good enough, worthy enough, bright enough. She reinforced our fears and poisoned us with rage and resentment against life, against people, against ourselves. She taught us hate and how to disguise it, hypocrisy and how to hide it, shame and how to feel it. She taught us her view of the world and the anger she had built on all her life. Her's was a bitter, unsatisfied life, consumed with an anxious, greedy lust that kept her constantly suspicious, hateful, dull witted, drunk and alone. She was a mean spirit in search of harm she could do to others and thriving on it.

It was a time when family secrets were kept secret, when alcohol abuse was covered up or never mentioned, when no one talked or sought help. To her dying day, my mother felt falsely accused and unfairly treated, lashing out at life with a rare viciousness and an unrelenting self pity. She simply never spared a thought for anyone else and died angry and wasted.

I can't find it in my heart to wish her peace in an afterlife, if one exists - there's just enough of her in me to keep my own hate burning bright and enough of my daddy in me to make me ashamed of it - but she's dead and buried and at least I don't still wish her harm. She's in a place where aside from poisoning the soil, she can't hurt anyone anymore and should she discover a kind and redemptive God, it'll be His choice to teach her what He knows.