SOME WOMEN ARE LUCKY. They talk to their mother every day. They go shopping or on trips with their mother. They make special meals. Share garden plants, books, recipes, jokes. Some mothers and daughters have a very special bond--a combination of family and friendship, blood and water if you will.
I'm not one of those women. I don't have a bond with my mother. For reasons I've never understood, the bond just isn't there and never has been. Fortunately I have a close relationship with my sister. She and I have spent a lot of time commiserating and exploring the reasons why our mother was never a mother and the emotional scars we deal with because of this.
Linda Joy Myers is another of the unlucky women. She grew up with a mother who was unavailable emotionally and physically. Her memoir Don't Call Me Mother chronicles her life from earliest recollections onward. Train stations, waiting... Hoping that the sight of her mother would erase the accumulation of doubts, longings and hurts.
A mysterious liaison exists between Linda's mother and grandmother. When Linda's mother is unable or unwilling to care for little Linda, grandmother takes over but the job is fraught with her own inner turmoils. The result is that Linda spends her childhood being abused in ways that no child should ever have to endure.
Today, Linda is a vibrant woman with a gift for writing and encouraging others. And more importantly she has broken the chain of mother-daughter abandonment that spans several previous generations. She is a fully-engaged mother of her two grown children. I applaud Linda for sharing her story. How she was able to turn her turmoil into triumph is inspiring.
