My journey of awakening has been a series of struggles between two opposing forces: listening to my inner voice and intuition, and listening to the voices of others. I was born in a Midwestern farming community where women had clearly defined roles and expectations. I think my mother never struggled with listening to her inner voice—that she had no Self or voice to listen to.
Only later in life did I realize this was not true, that she filled her role as wife and mother until it became too much for her. Rather than getting a divorce, she chose to take her own life at the age of 44, and to take my five-year old brother’s at the same time. Her courage to change her life has been a powerful example for me. I vowed I would find ways to be brave that didn’t leave such traumatic imprints on others.
I was the first in my family to attend college, which opened me to possibilities not available to my mother and her generation. My father was very clear about why he wanted me to be educated: being a waitress as the only option for supporting myself. Little did he know the doors that my BS in Education would open for me.I was raised during what I now understand was the Golden Age of rural America. The second and oldest girl of five children, I grew up immersed in the rhythms of Nature. The small farm where we lived was my personal kingdom, with special houses and areas for each breed of animals and activities.
I loved traveling between these different animal cultures, each with its own smells, sounds, foods, and social activities. There were other buildings on the farm with loud sounds of machinery and men who alternately laughed, cursed and spit together. Neighbor men regularly came in their trucks to see my dad—I loved hearing their wide-ranging conversations about farming, money, politics, and neighborhood gossip. It stimulated my curious mind and felt so alive and interesting compared to the silent space of my mother’s domain.
My most difficult challenge was being confined to the house and the repetitive and lonely world of women’s work. My mother’s moods fluctuated between depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsiveness. She was happiest with me and my two younger sisters clustered around her while she sewed or was baking in the kitchen.
My happiest times were summers, when I went for months without wearing shoes. My free feet grew tough from running on rocks and the hot earth. Food from my mother’s garden filled our kitchen, canning jars and root cellar. While I knew we weren’t rich, I never felt poor.
After my mother’s suicide when I was 13, I took on her role. My natural skills for managing and organizing emerged, and I traded the freedom of my teen years for early driving privileges, premature adult responsibilities in the family, and status in the community.
No one ever spoke directly with me about the shame of Mother’s suicide and killing her own child. But I could feel it floating in the air in our community and around what remained of our family. I learned to push through this invisible fog, and looked for ways to break free of what became a suffocating life. I yearned to be in a place where her death wasn’t an emotional burden or a social stigma that defined me.
