I remember being in the bathroom with my mother and saying something to her. In my memory, she sits down on the edge of the bathtub and says: “Look what you’re doing. You’re only five and I’m 38 – and you’re already making your mommy cry like this.” I feel more terribly wrong and guilty than ever before in my life.
Until September of last year, after about 37 years, I wondered what I had said to my mother that day to seem to have hurt her so badly. I wondered what a five-year-old girl could possibly have done wrong to bring such unhappiness upon her mother.
I remember that the scene began with her telling me I could tell her anything. That she wouldn’t be angry. That I could trust her, and that she was my mommy, after all. So I told her what, as I remember it, happened when she wasn’t there.
When I saw her reaction, I felt shame myself and an overwhelming sense of guilt. I tried to comfort her and assured her that Daddy still loved her anyway.
What a weight can rest on a five-year-old child who is confronted with the wounds and the overwhelm of the adults?