Cauldron Anthology Issue 9: They Who Were Spurned cauldron9finalproof | Page 14

Perhaps we cannot topple the towers of men’s inherently self-protecting institutions with
one movement, but we can change the bed of our ocean. The foundation miles below the surface on
which we raise our daughters—and the behaviors we exhibit to our sons. To clothe our girls with
the armor of inviolable dignity. A dignity so deeply ingrained that it doesn’t question for a second
whether a sexist slight or an outright assault is somehow invited, inevitable, deserved.

If we can change female self-perception, change our archetypal myth from a sinful, secondary
Eve to a fully participatory Goddess in the Godhead, no behaviors, however beastly, can bar our way.
This change in self-perception would change how we enable our daughters, enable us to forgive our
mothers.
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In my mother’s 2003 journal, her scrawl fills just a few pages. She describes the medical pro-
cedures she underwent to discover her diagnosis. She describes her physical pain. She describes my
father’s despair. She insists—over and over, whipping her faith into a froth—that believing in a mir-
acle from God will save her. When it became clear no miracle was winging its way down the God
pipeline, she stopped writing.

I’ll never know her inner thoughts about her disappointment in her God—or in herself. I’ll
never know her process in coming to terms with death. And I’ll never know what she believed about
me: whether I was on my way to hell for refusing her religion, or whether my daughter heart re-
deemed itself in her mother eyes.
Again, she mentions me only once, to say I was a good support for her.
I wrap these few words in tissue paper and stash them in my heart. They will have to suffice.
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Cauldron Anthology