A Letter to My Mom on Learning to Love
**Note: My mother, Karen Shoemaker, passed away on August 25, 2013 due to kidney failure caused by her long battle with alcoholism. I wrote this letter to share with her and then decided to share with you all, to provide hope and comfort for others who have had to learn to love someone through hard times. Loving someone through addiction, betrayal, or any other hard time is not easy, and I do not believe someone can just walk in and say 'I know what you are going through'. But my hope is that by sharing my story, it can provide an ounce of hope to someone who needs it.**
Dear mama,
There is not a morning I don't wake up and look at my phone without anticipation of seeing your name. Your "Good Morning"s and "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" texts were comforting moments in the hurricane that was our relationship in the latter years. I am still in shock that this year marks 4 years since we said goodbye. With each year that passes, I find the month of August to be a time where I am left to discover a new purpose for this part of life without you.
This year, I am learning a lot about how you and God have taught me to love. When I sat down to begin writing to you, I didn't know where to begin. In the last few months, I have felt your spirit and the Lord's presence sharing a clear message of understanding but I still am struggling on how to thank you for it. But I guess I should start at the beginning.
Growing up, loving you was easy. Loving my brother felt harder because he always hid my toys and ate my dessert when I wasn't looking (but I ultimately I still loved him). However, loving you and dad felt easy. You took care of me, showed me how amazing the world was, provided for me, and most importantly, you introduced me to and cultivated my faith. You showed me how to love and serve my faith and how to lean into it in all things. To love you in my youth left my heart and mind filled with memories of laughter, joy and hope.
But then loving you changed. It slowly became harder to feel loved by you and therefore it was harder to know how to love you. There were days I didn't know if you saw me. I knew physically you saw me, but I didn't know if you mentally knew I was there. The alcohol was slowly taking the mother I knew, and turning you into someone I didn't recognize.
It was not easy, but I found comfort in my faith and knowing that I had to love you through it. It was likely that I was going to trust what you said 50% of the time because the disease and the devil were telling your lies. My heart wanted to believe you would change and I wanted to hold your hand through every step to show you I wasn't going to fail you. But I quickly learned, loving you was the only thing I could actually do. I know there were people who had opinions on how everyone in your life should love you. Some people said we didn't love you because they thought we should be showing up in ways they believed we should in order to get you better. Mom, I am thankful that no matter what anyone had to say, you knew deep down, I (we) loved you.
As you took your last breath, there was a sort of comfort that calmed my heart. While my heart was breaking knowing I was losing you and Ainsley was losing her grandma, I knew that you were surrounded by our love and the love of Christ. Those days, weeks, months, and now years that have followed have been an in and out fog that I have, quite honestly, struggled to know how to navigate at times. I have moments where I feel you by my side but still miss you physically holding my hand... or other times when I bottle up anger or frustration from something and wish you were there to call so that I can just release that and then you can tell me I am being ridiculous.
Yet, I always come back to the fact that love got us where we are. I could hate you, loathe you, and many other awful things. But I love you. That is why I miss you. I love you because I learned to love you through the hard things thanks to my faith and what the Lord calls us to do. I learned to love you because He loves us through all the hard things too.
See, it all makes sense now why you and the Lord have been sharing 1 Corinthians 13 with me in such bold and aggressive ways. It was easy to love you as a child, because I was loving you through innocence. It doesn't discount, invalidate, or change the fact I loved you. It was just different, it was a love built on trust and innocence. But through you, your introducing me to the Lord, and life, I have learned to love as an adult. Through the hardest times.
While so many wedding vows contain elements of 1 Corinthians 13 (and I can see why, relationships are INCREDIBLY hard work), this chapter goes so far beyond that. But you know that, don't you mom. 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us (me) to lay everything down for faith, hope, and love, but ultimately love.
Thank you mom. Thank you for teaching me to love. Without love in these last three to ten years, a lot would be different for me. While you aren't physically here, you are with me every day and there is not a day that doesn't go by where I don't thank the Lord for all that you gave me. I know you were never thrilled about my tattoos, but I got one just for you. This one represents how you and the Lord have taught me to love through all things. And the mountain peaks represent the faith, hope, and love. I know you're probably rolling your eyes at me... sorry mama. But this way, anytime some sees it and has the courage to ask, I can share the story about how I learned to love as an adult, through the hard stuff and hopefully give them just an ounce of hope for anything they may be going through or encounter in life.
I love you mom and I miss you.
T
Dear mama,
There is not a morning I don't wake up and look at my phone without anticipation of seeing your name. Your "Good Morning"s and "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" texts were comforting moments in the hurricane that was our relationship in the latter years. I am still in shock that this year marks 4 years since we said goodbye. With each year that passes, I find the month of August to be a time where I am left to discover a new purpose for this part of life without you.
This year, I am learning a lot about how you and God have taught me to love. When I sat down to begin writing to you, I didn't know where to begin. In the last few months, I have felt your spirit and the Lord's presence sharing a clear message of understanding but I still am struggling on how to thank you for it. But I guess I should start at the beginning.
Growing up, loving you was easy. Loving my brother felt harder because he always hid my toys and ate my dessert when I wasn't looking (but I ultimately I still loved him). However, loving you and dad felt easy. You took care of me, showed me how amazing the world was, provided for me, and most importantly, you introduced me to and cultivated my faith. You showed me how to love and serve my faith and how to lean into it in all things. To love you in my youth left my heart and mind filled with memories of laughter, joy and hope.
But then loving you changed. It slowly became harder to feel loved by you and therefore it was harder to know how to love you. There were days I didn't know if you saw me. I knew physically you saw me, but I didn't know if you mentally knew I was there. The alcohol was slowly taking the mother I knew, and turning you into someone I didn't recognize.
It was not easy, but I found comfort in my faith and knowing that I had to love you through it. It was likely that I was going to trust what you said 50% of the time because the disease and the devil were telling your lies. My heart wanted to believe you would change and I wanted to hold your hand through every step to show you I wasn't going to fail you. But I quickly learned, loving you was the only thing I could actually do. I know there were people who had opinions on how everyone in your life should love you. Some people said we didn't love you because they thought we should be showing up in ways they believed we should in order to get you better. Mom, I am thankful that no matter what anyone had to say, you knew deep down, I (we) loved you.
As you took your last breath, there was a sort of comfort that calmed my heart. While my heart was breaking knowing I was losing you and Ainsley was losing her grandma, I knew that you were surrounded by our love and the love of Christ. Those days, weeks, months, and now years that have followed have been an in and out fog that I have, quite honestly, struggled to know how to navigate at times. I have moments where I feel you by my side but still miss you physically holding my hand... or other times when I bottle up anger or frustration from something and wish you were there to call so that I can just release that and then you can tell me I am being ridiculous.
Yet, I always come back to the fact that love got us where we are. I could hate you, loathe you, and many other awful things. But I love you. That is why I miss you. I love you because I learned to love you through the hard things thanks to my faith and what the Lord calls us to do. I learned to love you because He loves us through all the hard things too.
See, it all makes sense now why you and the Lord have been sharing 1 Corinthians 13 with me in such bold and aggressive ways. It was easy to love you as a child, because I was loving you through innocence. It doesn't discount, invalidate, or change the fact I loved you. It was just different, it was a love built on trust and innocence. But through you, your introducing me to the Lord, and life, I have learned to love as an adult. Through the hardest times.
While so many wedding vows contain elements of 1 Corinthians 13 (and I can see why, relationships are INCREDIBLY hard work), this chapter goes so far beyond that. But you know that, don't you mom. 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us (me) to lay everything down for faith, hope, and love, but ultimately love.
Thank you mom. Thank you for teaching me to love. Without love in these last three to ten years, a lot would be different for me. While you aren't physically here, you are with me every day and there is not a day that doesn't go by where I don't thank the Lord for all that you gave me. I know you were never thrilled about my tattoos, but I got one just for you. This one represents how you and the Lord have taught me to love through all things. And the mountain peaks represent the faith, hope, and love. I know you're probably rolling your eyes at me... sorry mama. But this way, anytime some sees it and has the courage to ask, I can share the story about how I learned to love as an adult, through the hard stuff and hopefully give them just an ounce of hope for anything they may be going through or encounter in life.
I love you mom and I miss you.
T
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