I'll Love you Forever... - by Venessa Hannah

To My Mother,

You were robbed, WE were robbed…
Robbed of the bond between mother and daughter. Robbed of the unconditional love that a daughter feels for her mother.

I spent over thirty years questioning everything. I was told you didn't want to be a mother, you didn't want me, you were too lazy to have kids and (unfortunately) SO many other terrible lies…

The truth is, up until 7 months ago, I wasn't able, wasn't strong enough to question all the things I'd had driven into my brain from such a young age by some of my most (then) beloved family. They were driven into my head in the most manipulative and deceiving ways…
So much so that I never questioned ANY of them…

But I digress, what I really want to tell you is that while I cannot take back the mistakes of the past, I can and will continue to strive for better, to nourish our relationship, to see you for who you are, more importantly who you have ALWAYS been. Someone of INCREDIBLE strength, perseverance, unconditional love and many more admirable qualities.

A Mother who adores her children and would give and do ANYTHING for, a mother who wanted nothing more than to be the best Mom to her children that she could be. A survivor who fought against ALL the odds, who overcame the terrible past she had endured to BE that amazing Mom she was, is and continues to be today. One of compassion, empathy, care, unconditional love and ALL the amazing and incredible characteristics indicative of a good Mother.

Did she make mistakes? Sure, but all Mothers do, especially the good ones. 
In fact, so many times I catch myself and I think how did she do it? Single mom, working to provide for her girls with basically no help, support or encouragement from her own parents, from any of her family of origin. They pretended to care but there was always judgement, ridicule and even that 'pretend' support never lasted long.

I have so much to say but I'm a mess of emotion so for now what I will say is this – THANK YOU, you 'done' great, Mom! I feel so very proud to call you my Mom and if I turn out to be half the Mom you were, are and continue to be… well I'm #winning

I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my mother you'll be. How fu$king lucky am I?!?!

One last thing, unfortunately we can't go back in time to fix things and this is something I struggle with daily because I feel as though I got "screwed" but I will continually strive to grow our relationship and instead be grateful that I now know. What do 'they' say? Better late than never, right?! Xoxo