Healing the Inner Child (Part 2): What the Child Could Not See

Revisiting an old wound through the eyes of the adult I have become.

The child in me could never answer one question: Should I love her, or should I be angry with her?

When I was little, people often told me how attached I was to my mother. Whenever she had to leave me, I would cry endlessly. My mother used to tell me that on my first day of school, I spent the entire day crying. I was her little soldier, her eyes and ears.

Yet I do not remember much of that.

As far back as I can remember, I have always felt an emotional gap between my mother and me. Very early in my life, I learned that she had once tried to have an abortion because she wanted a daughter instead.

That information did not do any good for the child I was.

I felt disconnected from myself, and I felt disconnected from others. To the point that I was always ready to leave. When I had to say goodbye to my grandparents, who took care of us while my mother was sick, my older brother and the other children cried.

I did not.

At that moment, I was seen as an insensitive child.

Neither of my parents thought it was necessary to keep that information from me, or at least wait until I was old enough to handle it. They spoke about it openly.

At first glance, one might say they were irresponsible parents who did not care about their child’s well-being.

Yet their actions proved otherwise.

My mother could not tolerate seeing other people humiliate us. She could not bear to see us suffer. She was so protective that she was willing to fight for us. I can honestly say that she took very good care of us.

That is why I never knew how to behave toward her or even how to see her. I could not hate her, yet I carried anger inside me.

The child in me could never answer one question:

Should I love her, or should I be angry with her?

Because I could not choose between the two, I chose distance instead. Physical distance. Emotional distance.

After writing the first poem and expressing that anger, I felt divided. One part of me felt relieved. Another part felt that I had been unfair to her. And another part was simply curious.

Then I remembered an anecdote about Abraham Lincoln, and I thought to myself:

If I had been in her place, perhaps I would have done the same thing—or even worse.

That thought forced the adult in me to look a little deeper into my mother’s life.

My mother often said that she had always carried one wish close to her heart:

If God gave her only one child, she wanted it to be a daughter.

The first child was a boy, but she still hoped. The second was another boy, and by then her disappointment had grown. In one final attempt to have a daughter, she had me.

When she learned that I was yet another boy, she tried to have an abortion.

I will not discuss the morality of abortion here, nor am I trying to justify my mother’s actions.

She was human, with her weaknesses, and in moments of deep despair, people sometimes do things they later regret. There is a reason we remove dangerous objects from someone who is in a severe psychological crisis.

That explains why she attempted the abortion.

But it still does not explain what hurt me.

My wound came from the fact that this truth entered my life far too early and from the casual way my parents spoke about it throughout my childhood.

Then I looked even further.

My mother was the firstborn in a traditional farming family. My father was the first son in his family as well.

In those communities, firstborn children often had to take care of the rest of the family from a very young age. They were forced to become adults long before they understood what being an adult actually meant.

Their parents treated them like adults.

There were very few things that were considered inappropriate to discuss in front of children. Sex seemed to be the most important taboo. Everything else appeared to be acceptable.

It then became understandable that my parents repeated the same patterns they had learned as children.

The problem was not their intentions or their willingness to be good parents.

They were simply products of their time.

Understanding this does not erase the years of suffering, the lack of self-esteem, or the self-sabotage I have experienced.

And no matter how much I wish otherwise, I cannot change a past that has already been carved into the marble of my soul.

Yet it allowed me to understand the hidden reasons behind their mistakes.

And by showing this reality to the inner child, the process of healing and personal growth became a little clearer.

To be continued…

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