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| On the death of my mother 1252 Views |
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I spent the Saturday before Mother's Day sitting in my mother's hospital room as she was preparing for death. She died one week later. As I sat there reading a magazine article, as she slept, celebrating motherhood, the article asked the question what advice, story or question would you want to share with your daughter. Reading the words of those faceless mothers and daughters, I knew I would never have that conversation with my own mother. Our relationship had been a tortured one- a result in part of the demons in my mother's past and the resulting toxic energy she used to nourish me and my brother. Something she was never able to avoid.
Several months before she died, at the urging of her sister, I was summoned to meet with her so she could make her peace. I had several years earlier shook off as much of her toxicity as I could and had little contact with her since then. But, I once again became the dutiful daughter for a few hours allowing her to attempt to cleanse her psyche of her past. She opened closet doors that should have been left closed. Her need to share with me the dark past did little to change a relationship that had grown dead to me years ago. As I listened, it confirmed what I had learned through many years of pain and anguish that she was a prisoner of her past and it had shaped how she would be a mother from beginning to end. I was painfully aware of her shortcomings and my inability or care to build the bridge and help us cross together to a safe haven.
I am not sure if she was able to make peace with herself after our meeting but for me there was nothing different between us. We ended our conversation with the pledge to have contact free of any angst or stress. I, after all, was to revert to a roll of the dutiful daughter. If, I had had any say, as to the path that her final journey was taking her, I would have hoped it could have been different.
How? In my fantasy her recognition of her self and how it affected her inability to be a nurturing mother. Perhaps an acknowledgment of her shortcomings and owning that what she most despised and saw in me that caused her discomfort, anger and an inability to express "unconditional love" were the seeds she sowed and tended to over the years. Perhaps the optimist gardener in me had hoped that we could have weeded, pruned and cultivated a relationship that we could both be proud to have worked side by side to create. To see the vision of what might have been had there been more time. But it was not to be.
But as any child, even when you close off emotionally a part of you longs for that mother's love and acceptance. So, I spent the last months of her life tiptoeing and sleepwalking through her life. I attended to her with a detached devotion to a mother daughter relationship that was never to be. Missing were the words of wisdom/guidance passed from mother to daughter when there is time to reflect and prepare for death. She offered no guidance in how to avoid the mistakes and pitfalls of her life or how to love and cherish the people in your life. Perhaps she thought I needed no such advice. Missing was any expression of remorse of how poorly our relationship had become nor did she apologize for her neglect. It was painfully obvious that she intended to go to her death not trying to be a loving mother even for a brief moment.
After her death, when people came by the house to offer their condolences, it was surreal to listen to other's recount the loving, compassionate and gracious woman who they knew. A woman who was completely foreign to me, a woman I would have had loved to have known. Unfortunately, it was not to be.
As I move forward and try to find peace, I find it in my daughter. One of the greatest gifts my mother gave me was what not to be and I am grateful that I have a strong loving relationship with my daughter. Her effect was to force me to grow and thrive in spite of her neglect. I learned to be self-reliant at an early age, a trait that has always served me well. I learned to look at life as what it can become and to try as best as possible to free myself from the shackles and demons of one's past. Watching her provided me with the lesson to always look and walk forward and not walk looking over one's should of a past that cannot be changed. I hope she found the peace.
PEACE
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| Posted on 5/28/2009 2:23:29 PM © One Woman's Opinion |
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I just came across your article by accidnet - the title caught my eye. Having lost my own mother just back in Jaunary (and father 1 yr since) your comments were like looking into a mirror for me. My life from before birth was brought about by pain and emotional abuse.
Hence even as a young toddler I knew what I was experiancing with my mother was not as would seem the norm. I am 52 now - and I cannot once in my whole life look back and find that moment when a mothers love came forth - let alone here the words I love you. I have no memory of being held with loving arms or affection, only abuse had pain hurled at me for being me. Although me and my brother had ideas as we grew older, why this was to be this way, it was not until her death 6 mths ago when we went through parents processions that a big part of the puzzle came forth. There was much torment, pain, hurt and mainly jealousies that had driven her love life and relationships - this was more important to her that being a mother ever was. She had us late in life - product of infedelities outside her own marraige (also drink related issues which caused lots of rows) - but we were cast as the reason for her pain and suffered for it - not her actions nor others involved. She died at the age of 91 - for all my life I have been used to support her life, not have my own - I was made to feel I "owed" her for ruining hers. Yes on few days - affection did come forth, but always with a price or condidtion, never really with just genuine love.
The last four years I spent with my brother in and out of care homes with her, hospitals, Social Services, solicitors etc.(no will or insurance from either parent). I watched her in the role of transition. I vowed not to put others through such pain back many years ago - I took the role of healer, lightworker.
In her transition I sent her as much healing as I could, I still do, mainly for her to find peace in her soul, not for me. I asked her to honor her journey and let me honor mine - put the respect back into my life and hers (and father) for which they had totally drained me of.
For all this pain, for which I know I will still suffer, the one good thing that has come out of it is my ablitity now to help others with theirs - for that I do give thanks for my journey. Most times I feel very lonely, others usually only come to me for support or help to help them with their journey. Maybe there will be someone there for me, I expect there already is somewhere
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Posted by: CaroleT On 7/20/2009 3:58:43 am |
First, let me say how sorry I am for you for not having a mother's love in your life for your growing up years. It must have been so lonely for you at times. I can't imagine.
Thank you for sharing what must be a constant source of pain for you on some level. I am so glad you were able as an adult to move on, find love and become a different kind of mother than the example you were raised with. What courage you have shown. What a support and compassionate friend to others you must be.
My story is different in that I have now been made a "not important child" by my mother for some unknown reason. It is as if I don't exist after 48 years. She has chosen to focus all her attention on her 3 other children and their families and I just don't exist anymore.
By any stretch of the imagination, it still pales in comparison to the long-term neglect you suffered and the expectation that your feelings didn't matter. For me, I can't bear to pretend that her neglect doesn't bother me. I won't fly to be in family gatherings JUST to see her because I can't deal with the pain of the rejection. Duty doesn't demand that I suffer at the hands of a heartless person. I need to protect myself and my children from toxic situations, people and relationships...even if they are 'family'. I'm too vulnerable.
Thanks again for sharing how you have moved past your pain. It is good to see how others raise above adversity and very difficult situations in life. Many blessings on your day!!
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Posted by: Martha Mikel Hong On 5/29/2009 9:12:21 am |
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Thank you for sharing this intimate experience. Mother-daughter relationships are seldom talked about and they are so central to women growing up. It got me thinking about what I could have done better with my daughter - and I believe I still have some time.
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Posted by: SweetSixties On 5/28/2009 3:06:07 pm |
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