Dear Michelle Mackin,
I read you're "A letter Of Love for My Mother"
How blessed and fortunate you are to have been allowed to love, and to be loved by your mother.
My mother abandoned me and my little brother Erik 1944 during WWII, and left me with my alcoholic father, and May 1945, WWII done with, his drunken behavior became so bad that my brother and I was taken away from him by force and placed in a boys home.
I was never allowed to love, or be loved by my mother, and few to none can, or will ever be able to understand and comprehend that missed part of my life.
In my book, Memoirs of an Immigrant, I wrote my last chapter about me and my mother, simply calling it "AFTERWORD"
I now believe I should have named it: A Mothers Love, Missed Forever.
And so I have submitted this admittingly sad part of my life to SearchWarp for all to read, and is intended as a continuation of my response to your letter.
All that said, thank you for sharing your letter with me.
Very Sincerely,
Olof
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A Mothers Love, Missed Forever. |
AFTERWORD
Maybe I should have written what follows into my introduction, or I should not have written it at all. However, I have chosen to say it now and then you can all judge me.
As you have read these memoirs, many will say I have been cruel towards my mother. However, and before you do, let me remind you once again how my mother abandoned me, and my little brother Erik during WWII in 1944 when I was eight, and Erik six years old. Then in 1952 when I arrived in Sweden, she made sure to tell me that it was all my father's fault, that he was a no good bum, a drunkard, a bastard, everything bad, and more then once she told me I was "raped into the world."
This then was my dad, and to you, Mom, if I have done you wrong within these memoirs, please forgive me.
In 1942, you managed somehow to get my brothers, Bjarne, Kjell, and Sven to Sweden.
In 1944, during WWII, you moved to Sweden also, but left Erik and me in Norway, and I have asked you numerous times: Why?
In 1998, I flew to Sweden to clarify the past, but you refused to reply to any of my many questions, and turned a deaf ear to me. Why?
"What did Erik and I do to you?" or is it: "Anything I did to you?"
I have begged you. Why Mom?
What do you want me to say?
What do you want me to do?
Or were Erik and I the black sheep in the family. Why Mom? Why?
This is cruel, and I admit it, but what follows is a very revealing synopsis of me versus my mother.
February 1987, my mother flew from Sweden to visit my brother Clas, in Florida. She stayed with him for two weeks and then flew to Newark, NJ, and stayed with my brother in Bloomfield for one week.
March 16, 1987 she returned to Sweden.
That evening my brother Kjell called me at my home in Denville, NJ.
"Hello brother!"
"Hello. And how are you?"
"I just brought Mom to Newark airport."
"Excuse me. Say that again."
"I just brought Mom to Newark airport."
"I don't believe this."
"You don't believe what?"
"Are you telling me that Mom has been in the United States?"
"Yes. She has been with me for one week."
"And she could not even call me?"
Now my brother becomes perturbed, and it is now that I learn how she had flown to Florida, then to New Jersey, and back home to Sweden. Soon after I received a letter from Mom in Sweden and I replied as follows. (Translated from Swedish)
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the letter.
You asked if I was mad at you.
I am not mad, just disgusted and hurt. You arrive from Florida and stay with Kjell in Bloomfield, 15 miles away, and not even a phone call or a postcard to tell me so.
Mad? No! - Just hurt.
You tell me you tried to call me, but you could not find my phone number.
You could have asked Kjell who was sitting next to you in Bloomfield, and that would have solved that problem.
Mad? No! - Just hurt.
From day number one, I have tried to make myself noticed, at times by giving and sharing, and as I see it, my mother who bore me, and gave me life along with Dad and God above, don't even care.
You have told me many times that I was raped into the world, and that my father was a bastard, and this of course would make me an outcast and a bastard also.
I don't believe for a minute either statement fits me.
My wife loves me, I know my kids respect and love me also, and personally I don't think I am such a bad guy.
Mad? No! - Just hurt.
Kjell will call me to say hello from Mother, and Clas would do the same when he was around. Where the hell are the letters and private talks with Olle, your son who was born smack in the middle of the seven sons you gave birth too?
Do you realize that this is the first letter I have received in, – truly, I don't know? Three years? Four years? Then you ask me, if I am mad?
No! I am not mad, just hurt.
It is written: "Thou shall love thy Mother and thy Father."
And I ask God for guidance.
Love, Mother, is many things so wonderful that not even I can comprehend the meaning of the word, and the one thing I shall always do for my loved ones. May I never, good or bad, communicate through one and not the other.
You write to all my brothers; you write to Kjell, you write to Bert, you write to Clas, to Kjell, to Bjarne, to Kjell, to Clas, to Sven, to Kjell.
Where are the letters to me?
In your letters to Kjell you write on the bottom line.
"Say hello to Olle and his family."
If you want to talk to me, then do so, but not through Kjell or Clas.
And then you write about loneliness.
I know loneliness more than any one of all the Eriksens, and please do not argue this statement. We have all been lonely at times, however: Chew on the word loneliness.
Remember me and Erik in the boys home for seven years?
That is loneliness.
Think of Dad. That is loneliness, and God knows I love him, good, bad or indifferent. And one thing about Dad; he never knocked you or blamed you for anything bad. He only thinks the world of you.
And by now, Mother, tears are flowing from your eyes onto this letter. Let it be so. It is written that the shepherd rejoiced when he found his lost sheep, and maybe I am the lost sheep, as far as you are concerned.
I want to care, communicate, and know that someone called "Mother" does the same.
You send postcards and letters to Kjell and his children on their birthdays and at Christmas, etc. The same goes for Clas and his family.
Don't my wife and I with our children fit into this picture also?
Or am I really an outcast?
Dry your tears and smile with joy. Then tell the world you received a letter from your lost sheep, and they will rejoice also, if love has its way.
Signed,
Olle and family.
And so it is, and always has been, and like I said before.
There is my, versus my mother's relationship in a nutshell, and I ask again:
"Mom, what did I do to you? I would like an answer. Please?"
Sad to say, I know you will never answer me.
You passed away Christmas Eve, 5:15PM, December 24, 1999.
And may you and Dad, Erik and Clas rest in peace forever more! |
