What I Gave My Mother

I am doing some grief work. Proactively planning for this journey in a way I wasn't afforded after my brother's death. This is a different grief but when coupled with the loss of my brother less than 2 years ago, its all intertwined and difficult to handle some days.

So anyway - this time around, I have a little bit of an understanding of the stages and what I need to do to take care of myself. I find ways to laugh more than I did in the early days after my brother's death, when any moment of joy felt like a betrayal. I am trying to let go of some of the useless pain that will get me nowhere. That's a hard one for me. I have a tendency to hold it in until I explode which ultimately leaves casualties in my wake.

But the one I struggle with the most is the guilt. This one sent me over the edge with my brother. And it wasn't just guilt about our dynamic, it was a pervasive sadness because I believed that if he had only done it "my way", he would have had a better life, more joy, etc. "My way" conversations often led to big blowups and accusations. And Ralph never did it "my way". He did it "his way" and I had to learn to live with and honor that. And that was hard. The only thing that made it any easier was a powerful belief that my brother lived his life on his own terms. And he was okay with that. So I had to learn to be okay with that too.

So here I am, realizing I'm sitting with some guilt about my mom. Which I've come to learn is normal and expected. Unless you are the one experiencing it. Then it feels heart wrenching and all consuming. My mother and I had many "my way" conversations; far more than I ever dared to have with Ralph (partially because he often stuck the proverbial "talk to the hand" in my face). From a very young age I felt a responsibility for my mother's happiness. She never put this on me; I owned this one completely for many, many years. I knew exactly what it was that my mother needed to do to be happy. And she never did a single damn thing I told her to do. That is until the last weeks of her life (but we'll get there later). I often felt torn between my complicated family life and a strong desire to walk away and start new. Find my own happiness in a place that wasn't tainted by so much pain and loss. But I wanted to bring my mother with me, out of all the heartache and the drama. But my mother wasn't going anywhere.

I wanted her to sell the house. I wanted her to quit her job. I wanted her to say no to my siblings. I wanted her to plan for her future. I wanted her to want to make things easier on all of us by taking care of all of the details she refused to take care of. I resented her for that. And then she got sick. And I wanted her to fight. And I wanted her to try. And I wanted her to get out of bed. And I wanted her to want to live.And this is where it gets tricky....because I started to not know what is was she wouldn't do vs. what it was she couldn't do.

The "my way" conversations took on a new meaning after my mother's diagnosis. Because they were tempered in an enormous amount of guilt for all of the previous ones that ultimately didn't matter. And that's when she started to try. I begged her to get on antidepressants to no avail for the first 6 weeks but it wasn't until she told me she was afraid she would die of a heart attack before the cancer ever got her that I was able to say to her "Mom, I walk around ready to explode in fear every minute. You aren't having a heart attack. You are having an anxiety attack." She called the doctor for the antidepressants the next day. Closer to the final days, after weeks of begging my mother to get out of bed and walk around so she didn't get any weaker, she called me and said "I'm doing what you said. I keep telling myself, Carol says I need to get up and move around." At this point, she could barely walk more than 15 feet. She was dying and I thought she need to get some exercise.

Seven days before my mother died, she fell and laid alone for over an hour before anyone found her. She became delirious. Her liver was failing. And I said to my sister that day "If I knew this was the end, I could handle this. But I can't tell. I can't tell if she is just giving up or if she is dying." I found out later she was dying. I had to do alot of forgiving of myself in those seven days.

I was lucky enough to have a few hours alone with my mother 3 days before she died. She had been told she would be going home on hospice the next day. She was more calm, serene and coherent than I had seen her in months. In fact, she was so coherent, my sister did not believe me when I told her about the conversation we had that night. My mother told me she didn't feel like she was going to die. She told me she wanted to get her hair done over the weekend. We talked and laughed and for one last time, I had my mother back. And she had me back. This is where I truly believe that people who are going to die (whether they know it or not) have some unconscious understanding of what will come to be. Several people, including me, had similar conversations with my brother in the weeks before he died.

So the purpose of this blog was to figure out what I gave my mother, which is difficult in the midst of all of the things she has given me over the years. But I think that I learned that I gave my mother a looking glass into possibility; even if it was never meant to be her possibility. Like my brother, she was perfectly okay with her life. It was me who wanted more for both of them. I told my mother one night close to the end "I just always wanted more for you. I wanted you to be happy." And her response to me was "I had everything I ever wanted. I was happy." How do you argue with that?