Someone you love passes away and then the real work starts. My mom was a pivotal person in my life. I could always count on her for two things.

She was my biggest fan, and she was also my harshest critic. Living in her shadow, as a young person, was no easy task. To me, my mom was larger than life. To her, she was just surviving, the best she knew how.

I had always had a pretty close relationship with my mom, even though I found myself biting my tongue a great amount of the time. We spoke on the phone regularly, we visited when we could, and we accepted that we didn’t always agree on things. Well, I accepted that we didn’t always agree on things. My honey asked me one time, “Are you telling me that you’re still scared of your mom, AT YOUR AGE?” I was late 40’s by this time. I was like, “Yea! I’m scared of my mom! You never got rapped on the head with one of her knuckles!” I had good parents, I had the best upbringing that they were capable of offering, dealing with what their lives were handing to them. I still won’t talk back to my parents, to this day. I can disagree with them, and walk away knowing that we’re going to silently agree to disagree. My mom was never against saying, “Kids are to be seen and not heard!” RAP! (on the head with the afore mentioned knuckle)

My mom was larger than life. She saw herself as not the person I saw her as. To me, she was tall, blonde’ish, commanding attention when she walked into a room. To her, she was fat, shy and wishing to be anywhere but in the limelight. She made some poor decisions; she made some great decisions. No matter what, we always knew she was on our side. That’s not to say that there wouldn’t be hell to pay once we got home. Even with that though, I had a fear of really opening up to her about what was going on in my life. Weakness wasn’t allowed. That’s what I learned from a woman with an injured inner child, raised by a long line of women who were square pegs being driven into the round holes of their lives. We have become generations of women with big chips on our shoulders, afraid, and too proud to ask for help. Honestly, the first time my mom actually accepted “help”, no, she didn’t ask for it, it came to her, was when my brother took his life. He was her favorite. She wasn’t overly obvious about that little fact, but it was a fact nonetheless. I reminded her too much of my dad. My sense of humor, my “morning person’ness, my booming voice, my mannerisms! Even when she moved in with us in 2019, after nearly dying of myxedema (a severe hypothyroid condition that can lead to coma and death. She was inches from death), she said to me, “You are SO your father’s daughter right now”, as I was attempting to gain her cooperation in her own recovery!

The squirrels and I have digressed. A common occurrence.

Chips on shoulders is a common issue with people who’ve survived trauma in their lives. We’re expected to be strong, resilient, not complain, not whine. Just power on! And so, that’s what I’ve done, perhaps causing emotional trauma to both of my own adult children in the process. What I’ve realized in all this, is that I don’t want to be a burden on my kids. I don’t want to them to dread my presence, or pass on my phone calls, because they can’t imagine how they’re going to make themselves listen to the things I may say, or deal with my diminished self. I don’t want my grown-up kids to feel like they need to avoid being around me. It’s just that simple.

Did I feel that way around my mom? I sure did! Not all the time, not half the time, but some of the time, I had to just shut my mouth, grit my teeth, nod and smile and go do my thing.

Example: My mom had a long-standing disdain of folks who she deemed, for lack of a better, more acceptable term, “fat”. She spent most of her adulthood feeling like she was fat. (She was never fat, in the terms she was thinking in.) What I figured out later in my life, just not so long ago, was that somewhere along the line, the matrilineal line, she was told that she wasn’t going to be desirable to a potential mate if she was “fat”. Along I come, a little blonde cherub, round and cute. I am heavily Scandinavian, and I’m convinced that my body always wants to be ready for a long, cold, dark winter. My mom was 5’10.5″, I am 5’7″. I resemble…my dad. I grew up feeling like I was fat and undesirable. What I now know to be a symptom of body dysmorphia. “You’re not fat, you’re fluffy!”

I was a junior in high school, when Loretta took that picture, and…I was not how I envisioned myself! When Loretta sent me that picture last fall, I was instantly angry at my mom. I was so mad at her for her part in making me feel like a less than. Less pretty, less skinny, less all the things than my mom was. I was also shocked at the amount of unresolved feelings I had over it all. And, I didn’t say a word to her. I was just mad and resentful, for a long minute, maybe still.

The result of all those complicated feelings at that age, set me on a path that I have some regrets over! I made choices that I’d like to think I wouldn’t have made if I’d felt better about myself.

The dysmorphia has lasted long into my adulthood. For.no.good.reason. I had a habit of seeking out validation, at nearly any cost. It drove me to getting married as an 18 year old, thinking I had things all under control. I didn’t. We didn’t. It’s nothing short of miraculous that I managed to marry a nice guy and our kids have turned out well, in spite of all the mistakes that were made. We grew up and realized were were two diabolically different people, and decided to go our directions. We’ve both done well, in spite of all the mistakes we made. Luck? Learning from mistakes? Divine providence? Maybe a little bit of everything.

My mom spent years apologizing to me for things she said when I was younger, especially after we lost Mike to suicide. I accepted her apologies but guess what. I didn’t believe her. Why? I don’t know. What I can tell you is that the damage was done. As much as she cheered me on, she also said things like, “You have a busted man picker”, “You look great!” (I was easily 20# heavier than I was when she first said the things she did, when I was a teenager. How does one believe it now, when it was never addressed previously. At some point, I just had to believe that she meant it in her own heart. I know she had regrets over things she’d said to me. It didn’t cure my conflicted feelings, but it made it possible for us to have a relationship.

My daughter and I had a long conversation about this picture, because I called her, nearly in tears, just so mad, and asked her if I had made her feel that way about herself, and if so, I wanted to apologize so hard. She assured me that no, I hadn’t made her feel small about her appearance. Other things maybe? But, we’ve processed much of that *stuff* and continue to do so. That’s how humans should do!

I’m a forgiving person, to a fault at times. I’m seriously a strike three and you’re out sort of human. Not even a burn me once type of person! I feel like I have a good reason for this. You see, I lost my little sister without making things right with her, and that will be a life lesson that sticks with me forever. If I have to swallow my feelings, and my pride, to some degree, to retain an important relationship, I’ll do it. There is a small space reserved for those lost feelings though, and sometimes that space, like a bubble, rises to the surface to float around for a bit, before losing buoyancy, and heading back to the depths of my subconscious. This means that I’ve developed the ability to let bygones be bygones…with those I love. It’s just not worth it to hang on to this emotional baggage that holds us back, slows us down. I’ve had to forgive both of my parents for things they’ve said and done, and not apologized for. I think, as adults, we have to do this, or we just can’t have relationships with our loved ones. We’re held back by our grudges. I’m not saying that you don’t forget what happened to cause the grudge in the first place. I’ll always be on guard with some people in my life. But, in most cases, It isn’t worth it to me to hold a long term grudge.

My mom had been living on our property for 5 years when she passed away. When we lost Mike, I always knew I’d be mom’s sole caregiver at some point. (It’s his turn now) Having a grudge against her, for past transgressions, wasn’t going to work if we were to share space the way we did. And, I loved my mom. I wanted her approval, still to this day! So, what I did, rather hand nurse an old grudge, was to accept that she was flawed, like I’m flawed, like we’re all flawed. Accepting that she was flawed enabled me to love her unconditionally. It freed me from holding a grudge against her for things that she picked up, behaviorally, as survival techniques, in her own youth. (Surviving our upbringings, now that’s for another blog post, eventually)

I feel like I’m getting over the part of losing my mom where I’ve been so mad at her for not being forthcoming with me about her health issues. Did she know? Did she really hide it from me? There’s so much I don’t understand. What I’m learning is that I don’t have to understand. It’s not really my place to even ask to understand. I know I could have helped her through this transition, made it easier on her, cleaner, somehow. But, in the end, it was her, and as the person who said they would take care of her, until she didn’t need it any longer, it’s my job to accept what she wanted for herself.

So, then the cleaning commenced. First her space, then my space, then my headspace. She took up a lot of room up there! It’s been a process, and I’m working my way through the stages of grief. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but today, I can feel the progress. Most days now are more forward moving, and some are still a step back. Losing Saffire in January really set me back. I was at square one in my grief recovery.

I’m back to making slow progress, one baby step at a time.

~D.

Sidenote…I started this post in early February. It’s been a process.

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