BY MILAGROS SANCHEZ

	Art by Eric Green

My mother and I had a bad relationship when I was a child. I was very angry with her because she was not there for me emotionally or spiritually, and she resorted to violence whenever she was upset with me.

When I came to my mother at 9 years old and shared that the babysitter’s husband was molesting me, she chose to ignore me and kept leaving me at the babysitter’s house for two years. I was devastated that she didn’t believe me. As the years went by, I felt that I hated my mother and was determined to make her life miserable.

Eventually, when I was 12, she sent me to a group home where I was molested once again by a male counselor. My mother never once came to visit me. I felt very alone, angry and abandoned. I grew up, but the depression I’d felt since my childhood did not leave me.

The Little Girl Inside

When I was 21 years old, the pain of my childhood came back to haunt me. At the time, I was married with an 8-month-old baby. I was finding motherhood rough and stressful. Then I found out that I was pregnant, and that my husband was using heroin.

His behavior had me worried. At times he would not come home for two or three days. I could not eat or sleep. I started missing my pre-natal appointments. When I was six months pregnant, I gave birth. The baby was too premature. His weight was one pound, half an ounce. Fifteen days later the baby died.

I told my husband he had to leave. Then I got depressed. I felt that it was my fault the baby died. I felt guilty that I hadn’t wanted the baby when I first found out was pregnant. I also believed that, somehow, God was punishing me because of my behavior as a teenager, for making my mother suffer so much.

I started going to therapy and revealed a lot of deep, dark secrets. Talking about the molestation, and my mother’s reaction, was overwhelming. With my past coming up so strong, the thoughts in my head were not about being a parent to my child. Instead, I felt just like that little girl inside me who never healed.

A False Sense of Safety

Even though I was in therapy, I could not handle the pain I was feeling. About a year after my baby died, I took refuge in drugs. My sister-in-law introduced me to crack cocaine. When I saw her using crack, I was curious and tried it.

Crack gave me a sense of security, a sense of time freezing so I didn’t have to think, cry and feel all alone. It made my pain go away. I started using crack in 1988 and slowly but surely lost everything: first my children, then my job and my apartment. I sold my jewelry, TV, radio and even my body. After that I lost my self-respect and self-esteem.

My son JonPaul was about 2 when I started using drugs. Two years later, I had a second son, Gileric. Trying to parent my children while I was using was off the wall insanity. I often found myself screaming at them. At times I would put them to bed very early or just put them in their room to play just so I didn’t have to deal with them and they’d keep quiet, since I was paranoid much of the time. I was very cold toward them. I was not a loving person. I could not protect my kids.

Drowning in Darkness

One day, after I’d been using for about a year, I woke up and felt sick of living like that. So I dressed my boys and took them to my mom’s house to ask her to help me. I hoped she’d keep the boys while I went into treatment. But things didn’t turn out the way I hoped.

I remember it vividly: I knocked on the door. When my mom opened the door, my tears were rolling down. I said, “Mami, I need help. I have a drug problem and I need you to stay with the boys while I get myself together.”

Her response was to snatch my boys, telling me, “You’ve always been a problem child. You will never change and you’re no good. And never will be.” Then she slammed the door in my face.

Once again, I was devastated. That little girl resurfaced and I just lost myself and drowned in the darkness of the city. It swallowed me up.

Taught to Love Myself

For years, I stayed away from my boys and my mother. At first I did not care because crack had a tremendous hold on me, but once I started thinking about them I felt the pain of losing them. By then, my mother, sister and everyone I knew was telling me to get help.

I put myself into five different treatment facilities and would always leave after three months, because I was too scared. Finally, though, I stuck with it.

In treatment they taught me how to love myself. They told me it was not my fault what those men did to me. They helped me to express myself without getting angry and wanting to hurt someone physically. I learned that I could be in healthy relationships. Religion became a comfort for me, too. Having faith that God would help me relieved some of the pain I was feeling. I didn’t feel I had the whole burden anymore.

Expressing my Feelings

As a child, I was always told, “What happens at home stays at home.” Since what happened to me was taboo to talk about, I buried my pain inside but acted it out by being very rebellious, using alcohol at a very young age and, eventually, taking drugs. But in rehab, I found that it was all right to express myself. Slowly but surely I started talking about my feelings, even to my mother.

My mom was very closed at the beginning. There was a lot of shouting and screaming, but one day she said to me, “I know I have not been the best person or mother to you. But I’m sorry for not being there for you. I’ll try my best to be there for your boys. I love you.” I know that was very difficult for her because my mom never told any one of us that she loved us.

Slowly, our relationship had improved. We talked more about the mistakes she made raising me, and we made it a point to forgive one another. I found out by talking to her about her childhood that my mom never was taught how to converse with her children, but only to get physical when things went wrong.

Changing the Pattern

My mom tried to change that pattern with my sons. She gave them the love I didn’t get when I was a child. They were her heart. I didn’t have any ill feelings about my mother’s love and devotion to my boys. I knew she had changed and my boys were safe with her.

When I learned about my mother’s upbringing, I understood better why things went wrong between us. This pattern of not speaking, and physically abusing your children, was passed down from my great-grandmother to my grandmother and then from my grandmother to my mother and to my sisters and myself.

When I understood the pattern, I told myself, “I will make it my business to change that pattern when I get my life together.”

My mother died not long after we had that conversation, and I relapsed, spending years more out there on the streets. But in June of 1997 I graduated from rehab and I’ve stayed clean since then.

On Aug. 4, 1997 I got my sons back. When my children came home for good, I felt that God had given me a second chance in life to be the best mom I can be.

In the months before they returned home I built a bond with my boys. We spent every other weekend together and I always had something planned for us to do as a family. We went out to the movies, the beach, or the pool, and to museums and the library. Sometimes we would just stay home and play family games. I would also make them their favorite foods.

Honest Answers

Every Friday we had a family conference. That was a chance for them to let out their feelings about what they went through. They were allowed to ask me any questions they wanted about my addiction and the time when I was not with them. Answering their questions, I would get very emotional, but it helped us get closer. It was a step toward breaking the silence and anger that had dominated my family’s relationships for too long.

My son JonPaul asked me why I left him with grandma for such a long time. He said, “Didn’t you love us? Was it something we did?” It was very hard for me to answer those questions. I prayed that they would forgive me for my honest answers.

I told my sons, “I had a drug problem, which took over my life and my mind. Even though I thought about you and loved you, the drugs were more important to me at the time. That was what the drugs were telling me. I left you with Grandma because I didn’t want to drag you into my world of drugs and insanity, too. But you were always in my heart and in my thoughts.”

I continued, “I was dealing with my own demons from my childhood. You did not have anything to do with that. And in no way did you do anything wrong. I was the one that messed up. But what’s important is that I’m here now and I love you guys to infinity and beyond.”

A Terrifying Moment

It wasn’t always easy to be a good mom. One afternoon I came home from work feeling very tired and found a message on my answering machine from JonPaul’s teacher. She said JonPaul, who was 12, was not showing up to school. Plus, he had never turned in the $75 I gave him for his cap and gown.

I asked JonPaul, “What was that all about?” He was giving me all kinds of excuses, but when he said, “I don’t care and I can do what I want,” I just I totally lost it and started hitting on him. Almost without realizing what I was doing, I even grabbed him by his throat and started choking him.

He said, with tears in his eyes, “Mami, you’re choking me.” At that moment I saw myself in JonPaul and my mother in me. When I realized I was acting out the role of my mother, that scared the hell out of me. I panicked, let go and ran to the hallway where I sat on the steps and called my sister, sobbing.

When I calmed down, I hugged him and apologized and promised him that it would never happen again. After that, I recommitted myself to breaking my family’s pattern. I made a conscious decision that I would talk to my boys no matter what they do that upsets me, instead of treating them how my mother treated me.

Listening to My Son

Since then, I haven’t reacted so crazily to my children. I’ve realized that my son is still learning how to be a son and I am learning how to be a mother. Things got better one day at a time.

Another time I was very upset with him was when the teacher informed me that JonPaul had not turned in any homework for a whole week and disrespected her in front of the other students.

I felt the heat rising in my head. But by the time JonPaul got home, I had calmed down and thought out a strategy of how to approach him in a positive way. We talked and I really listened to what he had to say.

Today I’m Blessed

Today I have a good relationship with my boys. I communicate with them, something my mother and father never did with me. We share our thoughts and feelings, whether good or bad. We go out together and, every other weekend, we have family game night. We all sit around the table and play games like Parcheesi, Sorry, Charades and Operation.

At times, things get hectic, but we pull through. Like every teen and mom, we struggle together to understand one another.

When I look back on what I’ve been through and what I put my kids through, I often start crying. Then I look at where I am today and realize I’m blessed. Not everyone gets a second chance in life.

I felt a lot of insecurity when I took over parenting my boys, but I overcame those emotions and focused on maintaining my recovery and bonding with my sons. Together, we made a choice to break our family’s pattern of violence and silence.

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