‘I wasn’t there enough for my child when my mother got cancer’

“It was Mother’s Day when I got out of the shower in 2015 and my water broke. Nevertheless, we went for brunch and my mother told everyone at the buffet that I was in labor. Thirteen hours later, Finley was born,” Corey recalls.

spicy girl

‘Today that girl is already six and as the third child of the family she had to fight herself into the world. She has been dragged from sports field to school to shop all her life and has no choice. She has control over few things in life, so when she finds something, she sticks to it with everything: she can be spicy.’

Cancer

The girl was 16 months old when Corey’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. ‘We had just moved to another city, I didn’t know anyone and my world was in a thousand pieces. My mother, my guide, my eternal cheerleader, died. ‘

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Short fuse

“I would have liked to say I was loving it, but that would be a lie. It regularly overwhelmed me, even though Finley needed me, as all little children need their mother. She watched me do my best, but my fuse was short. I’ve tapped more times than I’d like to admit (it doesn’t work and I’m terribly sorry). I have pinched her too many times out of frustration and anger. Why didn’t she just listen? Why couldn’t she behave?’

help

Since her other two children never behaved like this, Corey sought help. “We’d tried everything, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to be a toy or a good girl. What she needed was much bigger than that. She needed me. She needed me when I didn’t have enough of myself to give to her.’

Sick with fear

“Finley is sensitive,” the mother continues. ‘She senses an energy much stronger than other children. When I’m scared, stressed, or sad, she feels it too. Only toddlers don’t have words for those emotions yet. She argues, screams, runs away, does everything she can to express her feelings while trying to let go of those feelings at the same time. She sensed it: all those years my mother was sick, Finley’s mother was sick too. Sick with anger, fear, frustration. I was never really there.’

‘Too heavy’

Corey’s mother passed away a year ago. ‘I cried and mourned a lot. And I often ask myself: would I have been a better mother if my own mother was still around? Of course. But, like Finley, I needed my perfectly healthy mother.’

Source: Scary Mommy

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