This is a Mothers day blog that is entirely different to the others out there. This is dedicated to the Mothers who have had the chance to be mothers ripped away from them, only to have their hearts and spirits weep constantly like a never healing wound. This is for the worthy mothers that have lost their children in Gods name, as if any God would truly support that.
My sister was telling me about a mutual friend of ours, a religious woman who had lost custody of her oldest children. Her children were old enough to make this decision themselves, and had done so. They had decided based on all the hearsay and gossip that had been drilled into them by their Father, his Family and community. I had heard the gossip myself, it was the usual shit.
The mother, was no longer as religious and was now 'fortunate' enough to be regarded as disgracefully wanton and irredeemable by all the community gossip-mongers.
It takes very little in a community for the super-religious to band together and provide heavy duty lawyers for the Father. They can produce 'experts', and will all justify denying support to the mother, based on her imagined 'transgressions.' They will do all of this to save the tender souls of the children, from the devil that is their mother.
In this case, her littlest child, who was just five and still immune to the labels bandied around by the ever 'wise' Rabbi's , had courageously gotten up and said,
"I will stay with my Mommy!"
The little girl knew her true Mommy was the best in the entire world. She felt her Mother's tender, warm hands and heard her loving words. She loved their bedtime story ritual, and the patient way her Mother helped her get dressed in the morning.
She did not notice what clothes her Mother wore or what food she ate, who she talked to or her level of observance. That was not relevant to her, not yet at least. She saw her mother for the person she was, not for the facade she was supposed to have maintained.
So far, she is still with her Mom. Little brave girl.
This is not the only story like this. In a religious community, those who stop being religious, are subjected to the most vicious of gossip. It does not matter that the Torah prohibits slander and gossip. Those laws can be conveniently overlooked in the name of social peer control and management.
Another friend of mine, is having a vicious custody battle as we speak, because of her gayness. Labels of psychiatric illness are being bandied around, and as always the implication of being immoral and oversexed.
Her biggest problem is her ex-husbands' insistence that her children attend a suitably Orthodox school. He will not pay for anything less then 'black hat Orthodoxy,' but they will not accept the children there, because of her being gay and not sufficiently religious.
She has been told to try and hide her gayness better, but as everybody in the religious community knows it already, that would be futile not to mention unfair. News of this kind, always spreads like wildfire within the community.
Her husband fundamentally refuses to allow for a compromise, and the battle is dirty and wearisome.
When I came out as gay, the reaction of many was 'How could you do that to your kids?" At first I offered a sincere explanation to them.
I went out to coffee with one woman who asked me that question. "How could you?"
I said, "Look, I tried to live the life for as long as I could, seeking other explanations or remedies to make things work, to no avail. Living a life of lies has a way of destroying a person from the inside. I knew that if I came out, it would unleash a world of hurt on those I loved most, so I waited until it grew unendurable.
Two weeks before I came out, I remember standing in a hotel corridor on the seventeenth floor, seriously contemplating jumping off. I knew without a doubt, I could no longer survive like this. The only thing that held me back, was my children. I realized then, no matter who or what I was, it was better for my children to have me there with them, then the alternative.
I myself, will forever be bereft from losing my father as a child.
In his case, he made the decision to endure futile and painful treatments for terminal cancer, just to have the chance for a little more time with his children.
Do you think it would have been preferable to my children, that I had chosen to die?"
The woman glared at me stiffly, it was clear what she felt.
Wordlessly I got up and walked out, throwing my coffee in the trash.
What kind of God and what kind of religion would rather tear children from their own Mother in the name of beliefs? I cannot imagine what Mothers day is like for them.
I cannot imagine what every day is like for them.
