The Scarlet Letter We Wear

I read a comment from a mother who had been cut off and then reconciled. She found herself at an event her child had invited her too, surrounded by new family and old family, people she hadn’t seen or met in all the years of the estrangement. And she said something I understood but have yet to live:

She wasn’t sure what stories had been told about her to all these people in the room.

Sit with that.

Imagine how it would feel, even if you’ve never been cut off from your child. Just imagine you know someone has been telling their version of a story that involves you. The worst version of you. Maybe these people know you, maybe they don’t. And then you walk into a room full of them.

Imagine how fast your heart would race. How sweaty your palms would get. How your mind would spin. How on guard every nerve would be. I don’t want to be all the things they think I am, so you apologize for everything before anyone can even accuse you. You want to stay small. You hope no one really sees you. Meek and mild. Don’t make too much noise. Don’t laugh too loud. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t hold anyone’s eyes too long. Don’t arrive too early, don’t leave too late.

Imagine the vulnerability it would take to walk into a room full of people who have only ever heard the worst of you.

That’s what mothers do after reconciliation.

We willingly walk into rooms where we’ve been obliterated. Knowing our mistakes, our shortcomings, our ordinary human failings as parents have been twisted to fit one person’s narrative - retold and retold with no one there to defend us, broadcast to everyone in the room. Because no one cuts off their mom for no reason. That’s what the world believes. That’s the scarlet letter we wear into every room.

When I was a kid, I remember our pastor preaching on marriage, cautioning husbands and wives against “venting” to other people about their spouse. Because, he said, those people carry the burden of the issue without ever being there for the forgiveness. They’re left holding the hurt long after the couple has healed.

That’s it. That’s what I’m trying to name here - except the mother is the one left holding it. She carries the weight of stories told about her in rooms she was never allowed into, to people who only know the worst of her and are never told the rest.

We don’t talk about the aftermath of estrangement, the damage that mothers keep carrying long past reconciliation, the weight that doesn’t lift just because the relationship was restored.

And still. They would do it. They walk through the door, into those rooms, exposed, defenseless, but willing. Every single time. Only a mothers love makes that possible.

God gave mothers love for our children so strong that we would stand tall and walk into any room where we’ve been annihilated - if it meant we got to stand with our children. The child who forgave us. The child we have forgiven.

The depth of our pain and the vastness of our love - there is nothing like it this side of heaven.

Standing with you between hope and heartbreak.

Nicole