By Claire and Mia Fontaine
It is its own religion, this love. Uncontainable, savage, and without end, it is what I feel for my child.
Claire and Mia beautifully wrote this memoir about the challenges they faced – alone and in their relationship. I am completely moved at their ability to reconstruct their relationship. I often think about at what point does a relationship goes passed The Point of No Return.
In this memoir, Mia (and her mother) struggle with residue left by her “old father”.
Clair says:
I also use to think that nothing, short of death, could be worse than my little girl molested, and that only angels worked miracles. Oh, what I have learned. Listen: a man takes a child in his hands and does things, rams their little life like a freight train. He casts a spell. But the devil’s miracles are both wondrous and sly, because he lies low, he bides his time. Far in her future, this child will defy physics, will herself become freight train, conductor, tracks, and target. She will lay her head on the tracks, keep one foot on the pedal and head straight for herself, laughing, calling it freedom. No mother can break that spell. Nothing but to lay my head down beside her, to be there when the end comes as I was there in the beginning and for every little sufferance in between.
This spoke to me with such force it’s almost impossible to put into words. I have not been molested as Mia has but I understand their relationship. Some of the dialogue between Claire and Mia could reflect some of the conversations between my mother and myself. Now being a mother myself, I am beginning to understand the other side of the coin. The struggle of a daughter and a mother… I experienced this throughout the book.
Another part sticks out for me…
Accountability is not about blame, it’s not about being wrong, it is about owning the choices you’ve made, or are making, that create the results you have in your life. And you do create everything in your life.
This statement goes beyond abuse and any other tragedy. There is no way around it: this is present no matter what anyone has been through.
I highly recommend this book. I borrowed it from the library but am seriously thinking about picking up a copy. It’s good to have a reminder that a relationship can make it through hell and back… if the work and effort is there.
