Come to the Well
One daughter's alchemy and an invitation
When I was a young teenager in the 80s, I used to cry about my mother, a lot. To whoever would listen. I had lost her, not to death, but to a custody arrangement that wasn’t in her favor. And she had her own life to live now, in nightclubs and bowling alleys and dive bars, with boyfriends and booze and drugs.
My dad won full-custody, and it was for the best. We all knew it.
But I missed her. She hardly called and when she did, she was often drunk and weepy. And the drama, so much drama. I never knew what to expect when she called. Maybe she got thrown out of a moving car, or a bar for causing a scene. Maybe she was getting married to her boyfriend’s best friend (His parents were RICH! They lived in a mansion!) or getting arrested. Sometimes she was going to AA, but mostly not. Sometimes she talked about taking her own life. She would try, more than once.
She wasn’t around for the big stuff. And before she left, she had been my advocate, often fighting for my freedom, arguing with my dad on my behalf. She stood up for me, she showed me things and told me things. And now I had to figure it all out on my own. I taught myself to insert a tampon. And dear god, that took practice. “Is it supposed to hurt this bad?” I asked my friends at bible camp that summer.
For what we were missing, my little brother Kiko and I, my dad too, in her absence, looked to church, to Jesus, and community to fill in our gaping holes, and it became the glue that held our little broken family together.
Our pastor’s wife was Jeannie. She was beautiful. Long black hair, red-red lips, a nurturing and soothing presence. She seemed to glide, slightly off the ground when she walked, her panty hose making a sophisticated swish-swish womanly rhythm. She seemed to really like me. She let me help her, up in the nursery, during service. Really, I just wanted to be under her wing, cozy, snug as I could be. Seen and loved. I was hungry, and she fed my little needy soul. If I could have, I would have taken up all of her time. Many of the women of my church stood in for my missing mother during those years, thankfully.
I am no longer religious, and I had a lot of damage to recover from once I left the church, but there were some good things I took with me, too. And there had been many good people, who without their knowing, had been balm for my broken teen-aged heart. Like Jeannie.
Once, on a cold wintry Friday night, we were up in the nursery while service went on downstairs, babies playing at our feet. I cried about my mother. Jeannie held me and rocked me in her arms, and I could feel my hot tears soaking her blouse. And then she pulled away, took my hands in hers, looked me straight in the eye and said “Mija, I know how much you hurt. But listen to me, okay? I want you to imagine every tear you cry going into a well. All of your pain has a purpose. Fill up that well. Cry. And someday, I promise, women who are also hurting will come to your well, and drink, and their thirst will be quenched. That’s what women do for each other.”
Her words never left me, although for me personally, church went out of style with pin-striped jeans and shoulder pads. And I went on with my life.
Shortly after turning 18, I moved in with my mom, and her boyfriend, Tom. Surprise to no one, it was not the paradise I had fantasized about. Between fights, blood, police, suicide attempts, and oh-so-much more, I saw my mom at her worst (up to that point) and quickly married the first guy that asked me, at 19, with her strong urging, after only two weeks of dating. And the painful saga continued, my mom and me, both adults now, struggling to maintain some semblance of a relationship. I wanted a mom. A real mom. Without my realizing it, our roles had reversed. I was mothering her.
It went on like this for many, many years. From Chicago to Dallas, from her many roach-infested apartments, eviction notices, hospitalizations, job losses, shitty boyfriends and sometimes, brief, glowing periods of sobriety. Lucidity, light. We’d laugh and share stories. She’d watch my daughter overnight. They had a beautiful relationship. These periods lasted no more than four months at a time, before she’d be drinking again. I know being sober was a drag for her. She wanted to be numb, to not feel. To ease her pain.
During those brief periods of sobriety, I’d eat her up. Finally! I have my mom again. Sober, my mom was exactly what I needed in a mom. She gave me advice, she listened when I spoke. She made me feel loved, and hopeful. We’d laugh, do mom and daughter things like lunch and movies, before she’d go silent on me. I knew what that meant and kept my distance. I couldn’t stand her when she was under the influence. “Call me when you’re sober.” I’d abruptly ended her call. I banned her from seeing my daughter. I even went three years without seeing her, after she caused a huge drunken scene at my daughter’s sixth birthday pool party. She had become the kind of mom that ruined parties and couldn’t be trusted to watch her granddaughter.
I can tell you it never got better. It got worse, and worse, until November 11th, 2022, it was over. She died alone, in her sleep with half a handle of cheap rum at her bedside. I didn’t get to say goodbye, but I find comfort in the fact that my last words to her a couple days before had been “I love you.” She was dying, I could tell, but I’d been thinking that for a very long time.
It’s kind of funny; a connection I never made was the way that my mom’s saga had become my saga, for during all this madness, I was on my own path of self-betrayal, heading toward self-destruction. I seemed to be following in her footsteps, though way less dramatically. Most of my coping mechanisms harmed no one. I was the life of the party, just like my mom used to be. I found coping mechanisms that served me well, lifting me right out of my pain. Not just my mother-pain, but any uncomfortable feeling or moment. I found escapism, numbing and dissociation in many ways over the years. You name it, from shoplifting to sex, from cigarettes to dive bars and dangerous situations. I tried and tried to straighten up my act. I tried and tried to not be like her.
I prided myself in my hyper-independence, lest I come across as “needy”. God forbid if anyone learned I have needs.
I’d escape one means of my dopamine addiction only to replace it with another. I just wanted to find my way out, and I couldn’t. It wasn’t until I got really honest and faced myself, and did the deep inner healing work by learning to mother myself that I was able to make lasting changes.
I’m free now, from any pain my mother passed onto me. Sadly, she never healed from the wounds caused by abuse and neglect from her own mother. I’m whole now. I know now that I am worthy of my own loving care, and I can finally trust myself.
To be there for myself, to stay with myself, to no longer abandon myself.
It wasn’t until I took the time to do the deep healing work that I began to love and trust myself. My well was filled with my tears over the years. And along the way I’ve learned so much, about mother-pain, mother hunger, mother wounds. Call it what you will, so many women carry them around, bleeding internally, wondering why they can’t get their shit together.
Have you dealt with your mother’s mothering injuries? Or do they still live inside of you? Do you have some healing to do? Can I help you to do so?
Here’s the thing. Your story doesn’t have to look anything like mine. Whether your mom is alive or passed, whether she was addicted, or absent. Critical or negligent. Maybe she just had to work full-time, leaving you with caretakers you didn’t feel comfortable with. Whether those wounds in your heart were created when you were a tiny girl, or are happening now, because you wish your mom could know who you really are, instead of who she thinks you should be. Maybe you’re mothering your mother now, because of aging, or illness, and sometimes secretly find yourself resentful or exhausted. Add to that the guilt and shame you feel about feeling resentful or exhausted.
No matter the ache, the healing path is the same.
You must connect with the wee one inside of you and love her with all of your might. You must become your own number one protector, your own nurturer and trustworthy guide.
Mother yourself with the tender, loving acceptance and adoration you didn’t get from her.
After all, first we were daughters, and daughters we will always be.
How we have been mothered determines so much of who we are and how we live. And also how we hold ourselves back.
I’m glad you’re here, and I invite you to join me on this healing path, as we reconcile pieces of ourselves, and turn our tears to the well, so that others may come thirsty, and drink.
My dear, fellow-daughter. Let’s alchemize this mother ache, these injuries. Let’s heal.