Mama Mia

During work yesterday at SOL, I heard an upsetting story about my boss, D.  Up until now, I believed that the majority of her aggression went towards us, her employers.  I knew she wasn't a good person but I also couldn't help but feel that underneath it all was a human being, capable of love and maybe even compassion.  Sadly enough, I was giving this woman, yet again, way more credit than she deserved.

D has one daughter, Trite, and one son, Con.  From what I understand, she raised them mostly on her own because the father went AWOL on them when Trite was a little girl.  Trite is a 13 year old girl trapped in the body of a 34 year old woman.  She works at SOL, on and off, depending on whether or not D decides to fire her for that week.  She has pockmarks on her face, just like her mother.  She's stocky and pale with short blond hair and a permanent scowl on her face.  Her low, raspy voice is difficult to distinguish from D's and always leaves us nervous that D is just around the corner.  Trite is not a bad person, she is just trite.  She leaves work early every day with a miserable look on her face, claiming to have a hernia, a kidney infection, walking pneumonia, a stroke, pain in her arms, legs, vagina, I mean, the list goes on forever.  The saddest part is watching the way she endlessly vies for her mother's attention, like a clingy little girl in need of a warm embrace after bumping her knee on the living room sofa.  She has that loud, nervous laugh every time she says something she hopes D will find amusing.  Trite watches D's every move and dawdles around her like a lost puppy, fearful that if she walks away she might miss out on some subtle term of endearment or a warm look that secretly says "I love and accept you".  She waits for it although the rest of us know it will never come.

 I guess Trite's stray dad now wants to come and see the family and his grandchildren, which Trite doesn't want, due to the fact that she resents him for what he did.  So, two days ago Trite left SOL early, in tears, after receiving not one, but two text messages from D, which were meant to be sent to Trite's brother, Con.  One of them blasted Trite for not forgiving her father.  D went on and on about how sick of Trite she is and how Trite needs to control her anger and is being dramatic and annoying.  The second one said that Trite has no right to judge her father's parenting since Trite, herself, is such an awful parent.  D then continued to criticize Trite's only son and pointed out how bad he turned out.  If that wasn't painful enough, Trite confronted D about the text messages and told her to be more careful about who the receiver is and D responded by telling Trite, "well good, maybe you'll learn". 

No mother is perfect.  I honestly believe that parenting is the most painful and difficult job in the world.  I think that, as long as a woman is capable of loving her children, the rest falls into place.  No matter how many mistakes are made, no matter how many problems the child grows up to have, a loving mother should never spend her life in morbid reflection of what she could have done differently.  My mother loves me, with all her heart and soul, she loves me to the core and would go to the end of the earth for me in a heart beat.  She's treated me with compassion and encouragement and has never missed an opportunity to tell me that she loves me, never.  I am so very, very blessed  to have her for a mom.  In fact, she was all I could think about as I listened to that dreadful story.  It's because of how my mom raised me that mother's like D are so, disgustingly, unimaginable in my eyes.  D is, by far, the worst boss, woman and parent I have ever met.  I look at Trite sometimes and can't help but wonder what kind of woman she might have been, had she been loved throughout her life.  I wonder what she might have been capable of, had she been given a mother that knew how to properly care for her and offer her the kind of affection every child needs. 

So, for the mother's out there that truly love their children and know, outside of the problems and difficulties they may have encountered in and throughout motherhood, that they have always done their very best to be good, loving parents, do not be hard on yourselves.  Please do not beat yourselves up for the mistakes you've made, a loved child is worth more than any crisis, misunderstanding or defect that may have kicked them in the ass as they were growing up.  Motherhood is an all day, never ending job.  A series of threads that tie us together and leave knots in strange places; colorful, suffocating, unpredictable; easy to interlace but impossible to unravel.  Thank you to all the mothers out there with love in their hearts, who try, no matter what, to always do what's right.