You can't make me if I don't want to, I don't have to. No. The person who says no has all the power. No. No. No. Make it stop. It stopped.
Margaret Fahning (mf)
Inappropriate. Narrow. Jealous.
1983 was the last time we spoke, when I still believed she cared for me like a daughter. Maybe Don was done with the Smiths and their problems. Maybe she was in love with dad. I thought she was trustworthy. She wasn't. I just needed her to be, so I made her so. I made myself a mom and ran to her with my problems.
Ignored my mother. Rejected her. Hurt her. Lost the opportunity of really knowing my mom.
Missing what was. Protecting myself. I held back parts of me. The me vs me part. I gave her the imaginary Margaret. She was more lovable than real Margaret.
But MF was telling me family secrets I was never meant to know. So she made secrets a legitimate form of coping. I kept my secrets forever secret. That's where I learned that.
MF helped me recreate my mother into a monster undeserving of my love and trust.
And then without any explanation she stopped talking to me. Cut the connection. Severed. Mom one and mom two failures. A failure of trust.
In hindsight we see. My mom was a remarkable woman and my dad was right, I am like my mother. I respect who she was and I am glad I could make her laugh.
My mother loved me. Peg was angry at a world that failed her. To spite that, she went her own way. Married a labor leader 11 years older than her. Had sex and abortion before marriage. Radical for a girl in the 1930s. She learned to drive,sarted farm life, had her 4th child and founded Altar and Rosary Society at St Bs, all in her 30s. She spoke against my marriage. Told me true and right. She worried about me. She loved me and hung in there with me.
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