Digging Up The Past

Most people that I know do not know how my mother died.

A lot of people that I know do not even know that my parents are dead.

Whenever anyone asks, I usually just kind of skirt the question, or say something about how we don't get along.

I don't really know why this is. I guess it is because I don't want their pity, or to hear the ever present "I'm so sorry." I don't want to see the look they would give me if I told them that my father died of a heart attack when I was seven, and that my mother killed herself when I was sixteen.

She had left me and my little sister at home one day to go to work, and never came home that night. Or the next. Or the next. Apparently, she was done with us, and decided to stay at a boyfriend's house in the town that she worked at, rather than come home to her kids. Two months went by. I heard from her once, when she called to say she was coming by to pick something up. (I was living with my grandmother by now, and my little sister was living with my aunt in the same town where my mom was working) On the day she was supposed to come by, I made sure I was gone. I was angry with her for not coming home, for not calling, even on my birthday. So I left.

I never saw her again.

About two weeks after that, right before Christmas, my aunt called to tell me my mother had died. She wouldn't tell me how on the phone. She said she needed to tell me face to face.

The night before, my mom had called my aunt around 1 in the morning, telling her she needed to come get my sister (who was staying with her for the night). She wouldn't say why. When my aunt went over to the house, there was no answer. The door was unlocked, so my aunt walked in. She found my mom. My mother had put a shotgun in her mouth.

My little sister (3 at the time) was asleep in another room, thankfully. She hadn't woken up. I am very grateful for that.

To this day, we're not sure why she did it. there was no note, no warning. She had seemed fine earlier that day. She'd always had a drinking problem, so we suspect she was drunk, upset about something, and decided to take her life rather than try to get help.

My mom had tried to kill herself once before that, when I was 13. She downed a bottle of sleeping pills and half a bottle of wine and went to bed. Somehow, she woke up, and I realized something was wrong when she came stumbling into the living room, incoherent, and tried to make a phone call with my sister's sippy cup. I called 911, she went to the hospital and had her stomach pumped, all was well. She seemed to be fine afterwards. Everything went back to normal.

Looking back, I realize someone should have made her get help. But no one did.

I'm spilling all this I guess because today I realized that it's about time to let God back into my life, and I wanted to give a little background on why He hasn't been in it for a long time. I lost what little faith I had when my mom died. But this morning, when I went to check the mail, I had one of those hokey church letters. You know the kind, where they ask you to return a card or something similar so that the church can pray for you and help Jesus into your life. For some reason, instead of throwing it out, I did it. Some small voice inside me just told me it was something I should do. So I wrote down what I needed prayers for, which right now is money, and sent it off. I am barely scraping by this month, so close that I probably won't be blogging for a couple of weeks, as we need lights and a car more than the Internet. My cell phone got turned off yesterday, leaving me no way to call anyone for anything since we don't have a house phone.

Except earlier today my cell phone came back on.

I did not pay the bill. Ex did not pay the bill. No one paid it. But it is on and paid for nonetheless.

I know some would say big deal, so your cell phone is on. But how often do you hear about bills paying themselves? Maybe I am reading too much into this, but that coupled with the fact that I just sent off a letter to a church this morning after years of being ambivalent at best about God, maybe it is something.

Maybe Someone is trying to tell me He's there to help me. That I'm not as alone as I've been feeling.

I'd like to think so.