"Be Stronger"

My memories from my childhood are limited. In fact, I only have a select few that exist in great detail within my recall. Until the age of 10, I hardly lived a life; it was one of dissociation. My sisters talk about the nights our parents fought, about the tears we all shed huddled together on the bed. My cries muffled by a blanket, their hands stroking my back and playing with my curls, voicing soothing coos as the time ticked by. And yet I don’t remember anything but the colour of my bedspread.

Her children. Young impressionable minds that she would mold to be how she wanted. Her whispers haunt my mind as I break into cold sweats at night. Things about my dad, things he’s said and done. That he didn’t care about us. That he was a terrible man. Listening to her is my greatest regret.

Before any of us could reach adolescence, my mother began teaching us to be stronger. My sisters were taught how to take a beating. Walls against their backs and my mother’s hands at their throats. I learned to watch, to listen, to forget. My sisters would fight back against the vicious words she spewed, but I could never find the courage to part my lips. As I grew older, the courage was still a lump of unlit coal in my lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe through the blockage.

My sisters were pushed through the doorway never to return home. And I was left alone. My mother knew about the cuts on my arms and knew hitting would never hurt me. So instead she used words. I accredit to her one thing, teaching me just how powerful they could be. Worthless. Sensitive. Unlovable. Nothing. She is the reason I’m a writer.

She taught me that to make it in this world I had to become something I could never be. Despite how hard I have tried to forget these memories, these are the ones I can never let go of. Her voice is my inner monologue. She rings in my ears like a church's bell prefacing the gospel. I let her words become me.

When I realized I would never be strong enough, I tried my best to never disappoint again. With a quivering voice I told her how many pills I had swallowed. As she drove me to the hospital, I had foolishly hoped for words of kindness and love in possibly my last moments. Her words dripped with sincerity when she spat curses of rage. How could I be so selfish? In a hospital room filled with loved ones, she stood on the sidelines. Anger decorated her face. Her lips twitched at the corners as she spared no sympathy. When my dad left to get coffee, lightning finally flashed. I can never forget the coldness I saw in her eyes before she walked away that day.

When the time finally arrived that I became too resistant, she threw me out. My last glimmer of hope was extinguished that day. I called my dad, pleading with him to save me. It was from then on that I started to learn what love felt like.

The moment my dad and stepmom met, my mother began feeding me stories. I should have known better than to listen, but I believed my mother. She’ll never care for you or treat you as well as I do, she would tell me, her own daughter will always be better than you. I grew resentful. My stepmom did everything and more to make me feel welcomed, and yet I treated her as if the kindness was fake. My step-sister who just wanted to get to know me I instead competed with. I knew deep down they would never love me if my own mother could not.

When I came to live with my dad, I did not understand where the resentment in my heart stemmed from. I had buried my mother’s words so deep with the shovel she handed me. It took time to separate her thoughts from my own. And I never could have done that without my stepmom. When I woke her in the middle of the night because my cut needed stitches, I was prepared for her to scream at me. But she took my hand so gently and held it as I showed her. Instead of leaving bruises on my arm, she left tenderness. At the hospital, she came in with me and stayed. She wasted her entire night making sure I was safe, and I felt terrible for the trouble I caused her. Having her comfort through the pain felt foreign, like I should have been walking on eggshells to limit the explosive aftermath bound to follow.

My stepmom’s sudden movements had made me flinch all night. But I resisted the urge to pull away. When the night was through she hugged me, and once her arms were around me my legs almost gave way from exhaustion. The tension I did not know I was holding melted from my body. It felt right, in a way I had never known before. I was no longer shivering from the cold. I felt warmth for the first time.

My mother taught me that I could never be enough the way I was. So I tried to change. I changed the way I saw the world and the people in it. I tried to become a daughter she could love. But my stepmom, despite all the terrible things I had done, showed me love for who I was. In my darkest moments, she was there. When I tried to push her away, she was there. She was a constant in my life when I was losing my sense of self. After everything I had put her through she remained. My mother taught me to be stronger, but my stepmom taught me true strength.