A LETTER TO MY MOTHER

They say that as offspring it ain’t your job to take care of your parents. Who is ‘they?’ Well actually I’m not quite sure, but they do say it, I swear. Those self help guru people say it. That’s who. They say to take care of yourself, to love yourself, above anything and anybody else. I get that. I understand the priority of taking care of yourself first and foremost, but I don’t believe it should stop there.

I am here to argue against ‘their’ sentiment. Yes, I am. I disagree strongly. Since I was wee, I have felt the weight of the world on my shoulders, and to what that could be attributed to, I don’t really care at this moment, nor will I ever truly fully know, for that matter. It’s all just a bunch of hypotheses anyways. None of us knows anything, we’re all just pretending; some maybe better than others; me maybe worse than most.

‘They’ say to distance yourself from your parents, to move on, to get a job, to look to the future, and never to gaze to the past. They raised you, it’s done, time to move on. It’s as if ‘they’ believe that cutting off all ties with any source of negative emotion from your family will rid you of yours, but isn’t that just throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Just because there is  pain doesn’t mean there isn’t an equal or greater amount of love that ought not to be disregarded, or discarded at the drop of a hat. Don’t we all break the hearts of those we love just at little? And at the end of the day don’t we all mend those hearts as best we can? If we’ve got integrity we do. If there’s true love there then don’t throw it away, don’t take it for granted, and don’t distance yourself as if that space you create in writhing restraint will miraculously heal all that has harrowed you. Things don’t reside just in the black and the white. There’s grey darling, there’s grey.

I feel a lot. It’s overwhelming. I’m learning to embrace it. Key word; learning. I feel the pain of those around me. I feel the struggles of those closest to my heart. I feel the torment of my parents. I feel it deeply. I feel their unresolved, unsolved problems as if they were my own, because they are my own. I am not bitter about the fact that I take on their woes. I feel it is my responsibility to help them heal. I feel it is my duty.

My mother raised me on her own. My father moved out when I was four, my older sister left for school in Toronto when I was eight, and it was just mama and me for the rest of my adolescence.

My mother worked damn hard to raise me right. She made me feel so beautiful, so smart, so pure, and so loved. She did me good. Now that I am 25 years old, it’s time to give back. My frontal lobe is fully developed. I am who I am (shit). She’s finished. Isn’t it my turn to swivel now to face my mother and ask her to open her palms and receive? How many hours, years, and decades did she spend pouring every last ounce of blood, love, and tears into my sister, my father, and I? How much affection, thought, attention and care did she give us all, asking only to be loved and respected in return, with each one of us failing to give her even that?

It hasn’t been fair on her, and I know that, but I also know that I have the chance now to step up. A driving force behind the veil of my company is a mission that circumferences how I want to lead my life, and how I want to give back to those who have, like my mother, and like I, been abused. My mother instilled that in me. She did not deserve the way she was treated, and neither did I, but I’ve been working on myself for years now, and maybe now I am ready to help the one who’s helped me most. Maybe now I can right all the wrongs. I’m not dead yet, and neither is she. I always wanted to be the one who didn’t hurt her as badly as others had, and I failed. I will not call out what my grandmother, my grandfather, her siblings, teachers, or even my sister and father did to her, but I will call myself out, because it needs to be said, and the truth is the only way through.

I continued the cycle of abuse that she endured for years on end, and I am not proud. Not proud at all. I trashed her house, I screamed bloody murder, called her the most heinous of names, controlled her entire life with my PTSD and anxiety, and I have even physically shoved her, hard, at my lowest of lows. She never reciprocated any of that abuse to any of us. She never hurt us the way she’d been hurt. She came back time and again, and loved us. She forgave.

My mother gave up her life for us; a career as the brilliant artist that she is was halted, and it’s about time she be able to focus her attention not on her falling down house, not on financial constraints, not on her acting out children, not on the abuse she’s had to endure, not on taking care of anyone but herself; for once, herself. She deserves to heal what she was wrongly taught had to be suppressed for years to raise a family on such trying circumstances. My mother deserves to see the world, to sell her paintings, to direct films, to choreograph ballets, to sip Cristal, to go to parties in her honour, and to be seen for who she is. She deserves peace, and she deserves praise. If any of us deserves anything, she deserves it all.

Through CASSIDYALEXA, and through daily life, I am determined to forge a path for the wounded to blossom into what they, we were, are meant to be. I have this impulse because of how I was abused, and by how my mother took, and continues to take care of me through all the unsightly side effects of the trauma imbued. She saw my beauty and my pain throughout all of my guilty unconscious mistreatment. She gave it all. She healed me. I learned how to see the light in others through her dedication to see the light in me, even at my darkest hour. I became who I wanted to be because of how she modelled such morality. I owe it all to the grace of my mother.

And so, I’ll say it again; I do believe in returning that which your parents gave you, and offering of yourself to them after all they have offered to you. I don’t see it as a one sided transaction. When their job is done, your’s has just begun. The tables turn. You owe them at least to match what they supplied.

I do thank my father for doing the best he could with the tools he had at the time. I know his life wasn’t easy. He was abused; that fucks you up bad, and don’t I know it. I know he never meant any harm, and I know that what he went through would cause anyone to hurt deeper than they should, and so with compassion, I forgive him; even if he doesn’t ask my forgiveness, I do, and I thank him for the times that he was there for me. I thank him for the sailor moon pasta, for the times that he sang to me, told me stories, taught me how to build things, versed me on all things science, shared with me his genius and novel ideas, the adventures he took me on, and how he’s shown up for me and been the dad that I needed him to be at moments now later in life. Thank you.

I thank my mother for everything, and I mean everything that she did for me. I thank her for being my rock, for taking me to The National Ballet School on the other side of the country; moving her life to Toronto so I could explore mine, for never giving up on me, for supporting me, for making chocolates with Molly, for driving me to all of my classes, for putting up with me, for holding me through my panic attacks that persist to this day, for taking care of my little pup kitty Cowboy when I was too young, lost in irresponsibility, and wrapped up in my own narcissism to care for him, for playing with puzzles and poly pocket, for never making me go without, for putting my needs before hers, and for giving it her fucking all, and then some.

I am grateful for my parents, and I will continue to give them what neither of them were given by their own; I will give them love. I will give them empathy. I will give them my compassion. I will give them whatever they need, whenever they need, because that’s what was given to me. Thank you mama. That love is what all of us need, and I will give the world all of my love. I promise.

Today is my mother, Ailis’ birthday, and my promise to her is a commitment to doing whatever it takes to make the rest of her life as beautiful as she’s made mine. My mother deserves whatever she wants, and I’ll be damned if I don’t die trying to help that happen.

Happy Birthday, Perfect Angel. I love you dearly. May you be respected as never before by those you have always adored. May the world see your soul. May you be gifted back all of what you have given to us. It’s your turn to shine bright. The cosmos need your light. You are so loved, mama bear. Soar.

written by cassidy