{ Motherless Daughters } uniting those experiencing motherloss

Our Stories

Althea's Story

My name is Althea "Tiah" Shantel Barnes. I am a motherless daughter who experienced the loss of my mother several times in my life. The ultimate loss was her murder when I was sixteen (18 years ago). I have read the works of "Motherless Daughters" and am deeply touched by all of the experiences. I am currently working on my own book about the losses that I've endured.

My first lost or separation from my mother happened at the age of eight. She began to enter into very deep stages of alcoholism. This left me with the responsibility of caring for my sister who is three years my junior. I can only speculate that depression and a lack of tools to deal with her own issues of loss and despair lead her to the bottle of this disease. the second loss occurred when I was twelve. I had endured her disease for four years. Cooking and cleaning and trying to be a child and a mother to my sister was more than I could bear. I called my grandmother and packed my things and my sister and I moved with her. It took my mother three days to call. She was blacked out and didn't realize we were gone. I pin this as a loss because she never tried to retrieve us. Never protested our absence.

The final loss happened on Labor Day, September 1986. Two men she know came into our apartment, stole her belongings and shot her in the heart, close range. The reports said she fought for her life.

Now each day for the past eighteen years I fight for mine. I fight to find answers to questions which fall on death ears. I have fought to find my way back into the graces of a God that I denounced and the demise of my mom. Was this her healing I prayed for? My faith holds me together and gives me the comfort that there is none of life's pain beyond the ceasing of a beating heart and the last breathe.

Š Althea

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