Letter to My Daughters

Dear Readers,

I’m grateful to my daughters for giving me permission to share a recent letter I wrote to them. To respect their privacy, I’m not using their names.

“Dear girls,

Every single day I think about each of you,  pray for you, and thank God for letting me be your mother!

You already know that I’ve come to see my mothering of you in a far different light than when I was actually raising you. Back then, I couldn’t see my missteps and serious errors of judgment. I was too busy and, as I now understand, I was also keeping my eyes tightly closed to avoid the light.

I decided to write this letter to share one specific insight I had while reading The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate. Not sure if you read this powerful book. The author writes about the big and little traumas of individuals, families, societies, and the world—where they come from, how they influence our lives, and how we can heal.

My insight wasn’t new, but the the memories became painfully clear while I tried to answer the questions Mate poses to his readers. I don’t share this insight with you as an excuse, rather for understanding. I have already told you how deeply sorry I am for my failings…it is humbling to look back and see things through my current lens.

Let me take you back to the 1982.

You were very young, and we had settled in Florida where I started my medical practice at age thirty-three. I felt qualified as a doctor but intimidated to be the medical director in a small, new radiation oncology center. Most of the doctors were men, and I felt a strong need to prove myself as their equal. Yes, I needed to be a good doctor. But I also needed to show the other doctors I worked hard, as hard and as long as they did.

Today, I finally understand the insecurity that drove this compulsion—how I had been taught the supreme value of work and productivity as the measure of my worth.

My memory is now clear of the many days when my doctor work was really done, but I didn’t feel I could leave and go home to you. I would tell myself, “A doctor might call. What would he think if I had left by 4:30pm?” I recall sometimes leaving my hospital-based office to go on the wards to make social visits to inpatients who were no longer receiving radiation treatments. While these visits were appreciated by the patients, I was primarily making these visits so I would be seen working in the hospital when the other doctors might be rounding on their patients and might see me—maybe they would even refer a new patient to me. I remember wishing I could just go home early, but recognizing that it was in no way possible. I had to stay at work.

I was compelled by an unrecognized deep force.

I had to be seen and recognized as doing my work. This drive took precedence over my maternal need to spend the maximal amount of time with you. My eyes tear up as I write this, but that’s how it was.

I am so sorry. I can only hope that insights and understanding like this are helping me be a better person overall and especially a better mother to you, my now very grown-up children.

Through the years, it has been a great honor to share bits of my journey with each of you—about my reading, writing, Centering Prayer, groups, and therapy—and I’ve greatly valued your wise input. Reading, writing and praying have helped me to understand my need to be more honest about my real motivations and willing to delve into the cause of any emotional reactivity I feel about certain people or beliefs—such as the “deep force” I described earlier.

Anyway, as you know, I am a work in progress. Each of you keeps me honest and challenged in good ways. Thank you for that. God bless each of you.

Love, Mom”

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SUGGESTIONS TO READERS:

1. Consider reading Gabor Mate’s The Myth of Normal, a valuable resource about stress and trauma, why we are the way we are, and how we can heal and become whole once again.

2. Ask yourself if some “deep force” like I described might be controlling your thinking or behavior without you being conscious of it? Detecting this type of unconscious influence is not some 3-step intellectual process. If you really want to understand yourself, you have to make yourself open and available for the process to happen. I’ve concluded that dedicated silence each day to listen to yourself, your body, and God is required—something that was entirely absent from my life for years.

3. Your emotional and physical reactions to certain people and what they say or do are a valuable resource, if you pay attention to them. Pause when you start feeling agitated about something, when you notice your chest or jaw tightening. Or when first become aware your mind is reeling with negative thoughts about what you are observing. Take several slow breaths. Reframe your observation. Or say a prayer. I’ve described how my on-the-go-prayer helps me to interrupt this type of unhealthy thinking. Being mindful of your reactivity and taking an intentional step, like the ones I’ve suggested, will interrupt a negative spiral of stress, anger, or judgmentalism. This pause gives you the opportunity to try and understand WHY you became so reactive in the first place.

You’ll next hear from me in 2024. I wish you a blessed Christmas and happy holiday season!

Love, Donna

EXTRA:

In case you missed it, check out my personal essay about a dear friend who taught me so much—Cherish the Gift, published by Pulse—”voices from the heart of medicine.”

Update about our new Centering Prayer Group. Preparation and planning continue, and it now looks like we will be inaugurating both a daytime and an evening weekly meeting in the Hyattsville/College Park area of Maryland. Full details will be available next month.

Dr. Donna Chacko promotes health of body, mind, and spirit through her website (serenityandhealth.com), her blog, her podcast/vlog series Pop-Up Conversations on Health of Mind, Body, and Spirit, and programs at her church. She is the author of Pilgrimage: A Doctor’s Healing Journey (Luminare Press, 2021), a recent best-seller on Amazon, 2022 Illumination Awards Gold Medal Winner, 2022 Reader Views Literary Award Gold Medal Winner, and 2022 Catholic Media Association First Place Awards.