Suffering Through the Sorrowful Mysteries – Single Mom, You Are Not a Guinea Pig!
Today is Friday. Catholics pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary on Fridays. These repetitive prayers are not mindless but help us keep time and focus daily on our Lord’s life. The Rosary acts as a guide. It draws us to the Mysteries of the life of Christ. The Sorrowful Mysteries include The Lord’s Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, His Scourging at the Pillar, His Crowning with Thorns, His Carrying the Cross, and His Crucifixion and Death.
This makes Friday the perfect day to dig deep on your own sorrowful mysteries.
It can be easy to get caught up in Woe is Me mode even decades after abandonment and divorce. If you feel this way, let me first reassure you that you are not alone.
I have spoken to many women who have been divorced for more than 25 or 30 years. It is common for these women to struggle decades later. Some are better at hiding it than others. Some are farther along in healing than others.
But the pain, confusion, and loss are always still there to some degree. When I first began my outreach, I was surprised by how deep the pain went even in those who had built great lives. To the outside world those wounded by divorce seem to have “moved on,” but when these spouses open up, it is not difficult to see the suffering that lies just below the surface.
These women still struggle, sometimes daily, to get over the confusion, betrayal, and, fear. They hurt over mistrust and the loss of their families.
The heartbreak and injustice of sending your sweet children off to live half their lives without you is one that seems too great to bear for many. Through no fault of their own, these single parents are forced to send away little ones, precious children they carried in their wombs close to their beating hearts, who they nursed at their tender breasts, whose knees they brushed off and whose booboos they kissed. Now these mothers are not privy to half their children’s lives.
What is worse, is that the children lose their homes in favor of “mom’s house” or “dad’s house.”
All this to satisfy the absentee parent. The father (or mother) who, like the wicked women presenting the babe before good King Solomon, prefers to parent little ones part time. The walkaway parent (male or female) gets what he (or she) wants while the innocent parent and children are left to pick up shattered dreams and stumble forward in darkness.
Courts know children suffer from broken families engage in higher rates of addiction, anxiety, and poverty. Children from these homes are more likely to face violence, illness, and suicide ideation as well as chastity and sexuality issues and out of wedlock births of their own children. This results in families formed without the Grace of Sacramental Marriage and with children continuing cycles of divorce across generations.
I have spoken to single moms who have had children die of addiction and others die of suicide. With no one to turn to for support, these women are left to carry on and told lies like, “time heals all wounds.”
I have spoken to women who have faced their own suicide-evoking demons. I have seen war weary moms whose children chose dad digging those abandonment wounds deeper into her mother’s broken heart. I have seen moms whose children have grown and moved far away. These now-adult children refuse compassion for their mother’s situation and forget any good their mom did despite the pain and swirling emotions she weakly fought back. They prefer their own resentment to a needy, lonely, elderly woman.
I have seen these women, some old and some young, wonder what is the use of continuing. They search for purpose differently after decades of fighting back these demons. They are battle scarred and exhausted.
Single moms struggle to find hope, sometimes even decades later.
I have a pretty good life and have raised five incredible young men. I am grateful and powerful and excited about the future, yet I also know there are plenty of times I see myself losing hope or falling prey to the Woe is Me Game.
Which brings me back to where I started…Friday and the Holy Mysteries of the Blessed Rosary.
Oh! And also back to guinea pigs!
Finn and Spike were the guinea pigs I bought my youngest son when he wanted a dog. I know! Don’t judge my parenting decisions! Haha.
It was during covid. I knew my youngest son needed some encouragement and something cuddly to get his mind off the insanity that threatened to destroy America and that our clergy (and lay people!) almost let destroy our Churches (Thank God the gates of Hell shall not prevail!!!). He wanted a dog, but I knew we could not handle so much responsibility.
I got him guinea pigs, Finn and Spike, instead.
Unfortunately, Finn only lasted about three years. We buried him in the backyard.
Spike, however, seems to still be going strong. The problem is multifaceted though. First ALLLLL guinea pigs do is POOP – A LOT! This makes cleaning his cage annoying and something that must be done at least twice a day so there is not weekend getaway or something. We always have to be home for Spike.
Second guinea pigs are meant to be social creatures, but Spike is all alone. I don’t want to get Spike a partner because my son has lost interest in the pets and it would not be fair to the animals to bring more into our home unless they will be as loved as they should be.
Which means Spike is alone, pooping in his cage day in and day out.
I cleaned the poop this morning and thought of how hard many single moms have it even after decades of trying their best. I thought of the moms I had spoken to and the times I want to throw in the towel myself.
And I scooped poop. Swept up Timothy Hay that had been strew around the mats. I disposed of pee-covered newspaper in favor of fresh grocery store ads.
When I was done, I tried to pet Spike but the poor little thing is afraid even of his own shadow and scampered away as fast as his tiny legs could carry his round little body. He reached the far wall and almost as quickly turned and ran back toward me, climbing his paws up the cage to beg for his daily vitamin C treat. He chewed it ferociously when I handed it over.
And I thought how sad it is that THIS is what Spike looks forward to each day.
I wondered what else he would do if he could escape the four walls around him. I wondered if he’d hide in fear or adventure out, okay with being lost and unsure of his way. I wondered if he’d make friends.
I was a bit sad for Spike because I knew all my wonderings would come to nothing. Spike is imprisoned – partly for his own protection and partly because I don’t want all that poop all over my house – and unable to escape. He is unable to hope and dream and desire. He is unable to adapt new behaviors that reflect our growing values. He is unable to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves as ways to meet new friends and increase, not just productivity, but one of the main driving forces of God Himself, creativity!
Spike is unable to do this.
But BeLoved Mama, you are not Spike.
You have power and can leave your cage, whether it is there to imprison or protect, sometimes it’s presence keeps you locked into your self and out of the big, beautiful world. Sometimes, you have to rely, not on what you want to do, but what is good for you in order to break free and begin to build a beautiful Blessed life.
This weekend, I am going to be taking my own advice from yesterday and today. I will be relaxing, praying, and working on my vision statement (yesterday’s post) and writing out what my goals are for the next five years. I will be working again to define who I want to be, who the creative, fun loving, loving, kind, compassionate me wants to be and what habits or routines will take me there.
I’d love to hear your ideas on how you have done this in the past or how you utilize what you learn now! I’m so excited to find who God wants me to be…now!
I hope you are just as excited for who God will make you into too! And then of course, I also hope you share with me! 🙂
God Bless…
Kerri
Check out this week’s Single Mom Smiling podcast episodes:
