Mother's Day - a journey

I have had a love-hate relationship with Mother's Day for almost all of my adult life. From the moment I realized that my own mother was - shall we say - not the best mom in the world, and vowed never to be like her, Mother's Day has been fraught with feelings of anger, shame, jealousy of those who had "the best moms in the world", and confusion about how I should feel about the day - and the role. And her.

When my mom was diagnosed with dementia in 2016, and gradually forgot what she had "done to me" - the confusion grew, the existing emotions were an exercise in frustration, and there were more feelings: hatred for the disease that was making her more and more helpless, guilt that I couldn't forget my childhood like she did, and much, much more. All the while, the 2nd Sunday in May was a day I would always dread. I would even make one post early that day and then leave Facebook alone as I didn't want to read all the gushing messages and posts from people whose mothers seemed so much more saintly to them.  I railed against the idea that the "saint" was what others saw, while I got to see what she was like behind closed doors.  I could see both sides in her, but nobody would believe my version of the woman. Nobody, that is, except my older brother, who saw things up close and personal.

I knew all along that she would never change - that she never once thought she did anything wrong. I knew that she would always treat me like I was six years old. What I didn't realize until a few years later was that her own emotional development - through her own trauma of being the victim of child abuse - was stunted. I was raised by a grown woman with the emotional maturity of an 8-year-old. That stark realization, which I came to in therapy in 2019, freed me to see her for the woman she had become in her dementia. All the masks were stripped away and she showed who she really was to everyone, not just to me. She could be so kind, and in the next breath, critical and cruel. But it was still hard to watch. It was harder to listen to people excuse her behaviour by saying, "It's the dementia." 

When my older brother died in February 2020, I lost someone very important and dear to me, whom I still miss terribly. I also lost my only witness, which was just as hard for me. However, I came to understand that it didn't matter what used to be, just what "is". She could no longer recognize me when I went to tell her about Bro. To her, her daughter Judy was six years old, not some sixty-ish woman. And her short-term memory only lasted for about 5 minutes on a good day. By the end of the visit, she asked me how Bro was doing. I couldn't bear to see her grieve all over again, so I said, "Better than ever, Mom. Better than ever." 

And then came the day that she passed away. April 2, 2023, around 8:40 pm, the phone rang, and a nurse told me that my mother had died.

I didn't know how to feel. At first, I thought it was some cruel April Fool's Day joke so I checked my watch. No, it wasn't that. In a fog, I thanked the woman for telling me, and then started going through the motions of the only surviving natural child of someone who has died. Funeral arrangements, phone calls to inform extended family, travel plans, and write-ups occupied my mind - as did the inevitability of preparing to greet the people who would come to the visiting hours and to the funeral. I don't know how I would have gotten through all the preparation without the help of the funeral director, Erin. She was a God-send.

The overwhelming sensation I felt (and still feel) was relief. She was out of her emotional pain, with a perfect memory, re-united with my dad who had died in 1993, and with both of my brothers (the oldest died in 2010 and Bro in 2020). She also knew everything that I was feeling and had felt. For the first time, she understood me. I can't describe how that felt. It gave me ... rest, I guess. Peace.

The funeral was amazing - but surreal. I decided to let people believe about her what they wished, without making her special memorial about me. I wrote up a biography speech for the pastor to read at the funeral... a list of her accomplishments, things that folks there would remember her doing. I learned that so many people loved her - and that I loved her, in spite of everything.

Mom and Dad on my wedding day in 1981.
He was nibbling her ear.

Mother's Day last year felt like a blur. I was still processing some pretty heavy emotions and realizing some new and interesting things about myself. Now, I imagine Mom being the person she always could have been, totally healed from her own childhood trauma, and able to love and be loved without shame, without false modesty, and without fear. It comforts me. It lets me love the good about who she was, to honour the sacrifices she made, to remember the good times.

As Mother's Day approached this year, I also realized something else. I wasn't dreading it. Strange how that is. Instead, I had come to understand that all these years, I was robbing others of the joy of wishing me a happy Mother's Day and keeping them from celebrating ME as a mom. Wow. 

I've been freed. I can't explain much more than that.

No April Fool

 I'm not a great fan of April Fool's Day jokes. Most are pranks played at someone else's expense (a practice I consider cruel and spiteful), and so I weather the day hoping nobody does anything disrespectful. 

This year, nobody did. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

On the evening of the next day, I got a telephone call from a nursing home out of province telling me that my mother had died. I checked my watch for the date. Nope. Not April 1st. 

The next few days, I worked with the funeral home director and with loved ones to plan and arrange my mom's funeral. It turned out better than I expected, and although the occasion was sombre due to the reason for the gathering, it was good to see everyone again, and I was surprised at how many showed up for the service.

In the time during and since the initial rituals of grief and saying goodbye, folks have been kind and tender. And I have been okay. Probably more okay than I would have thought. 

Free photo by alexman89 at Pixabay

As we prepare for her burial in a few weeks, I've done a lot of pondering about how I've spent the last several years trying to be heard and believed about my lived experience as her daughter; even though I love her, it was not an ideal relationship for many reasons. And I've finally realized that people are going to believe what they want to believe about her (and about me) no matter what I say or don't say. With that realization, there comes a bit of ... peace, I guess. 

We all have that part of ourselves we only show to those closest to us. And I know that my mom did the same. Most people viewed her as a saint (in the sense that she should have been canonized...) but nobody knew what happened behind the four walls of our little house. Nor would they have believed it. 

Nor does it matter any more. She understands now more than ever how I feel, how I felt, and all the multi-faceted complex emotions that implies. And somehow, I am starting to understand the relief involved in the little saying, "April Fool!" when the joke is over - that the horrible thing that someone did or said wasn't what it appeared to be after all. That the truth is now revealed and the cruel joke is over.  

She can rest. And I can rest. And from now on, there is no more April Fool.

Only the truth. Just knowing that is enough for me. 

Life lines

The last time I talked to her, she was so amazed and pleased that I had called, so worried that something bad had happened, so relieved when I said that all was well.

Of course it wasn't ALL well, but she didn't need to know that.

She talked about her daily life - struggles with the medical profession, aches and pains, worries about family concerns and conflicts, the latest news about this person and that one. There was nothing earth-shattering; she was just sharing her normal everyday stuff. We talked for almost an hour then. In that time, she told me the same stories four or five times... and I let her. She asked the same questions of me two or three times, and I answered her each time. She really didn't remember the little details like what she did or said five minutes ago, so why would I get annoyed? 

She's perfectly sane, perfectly lucid - it's just that she forgets. She's 84 after all. 

Photo "Serpentine Pathway Stones On A
Park Lawn (concept)"
courtesy of arturo at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

And today I called her and she was surprised and pleased and worried and relieved all over again. She asked the same questions, told the same stories, and I listened. And we reminisced about good memories from years gone by. 

Sometimes, when we do that, I learn stuff I never knew before ... good stuff.

I learned a little bit about what it was like when she was a young mother and she and Dad bought a part of their landlord's house and literally sliced it off and moved it down to land they'd bought down the hill. She described how several of the neighbor men put the structure on rollers the size of huge logs and just pushed the house slowly down the road and brought the back roller up to the front and slid it underneath the house ... what an exciting adventure it all was for my older brother who was about three and a half years old at the time, over six years before I was born. 

In times like that, when she loses herself in a story I've never heard before, my own bad memories - and there were many - fade away. They don't vanish, but they go into the background. She hasn't remembered those bad times in years anyway, and would deny they even happened. I used to think it was important for other people to know the truth of those years, but somehow it doesn't seem that crucial anymore. I know what happened; that should be enough for me. And although the ripples from those things do still affect my life now, forgiveness has acknowledged them and not sought retaliation. Compassion and kindness has taken the place of anger and resentment. Mercy has triumphed over judgment. I don't take credit for that; that credit goes to a Power higher than I, a Love far greater than my own.

So I listen to her. I listen and I learn. I let her know some of the things I am doing, the realities I live with now - not enough to worry her, but enough to let her know that I have a life and responsibilities of my own, and that even in the midst of them, I still care enough to call her and listen. 

"The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places," wrote King David. (Psalm 16:6). He was talking about the paths and the boundaries that made up his life, the relationships he had, the circumstances he faced, and all that made up the substance of his life. Life lines. Not as in foretelling the future, but as in looking back on the path his life had taken and seeing how all those events and decisions had turned out. 

And being satisfied ... and content. And perhaps even surprised.

I am.

Fully fledged

In the life of a young bird, there comes a stage when it gets its flying feathers. Over time, the baby fuzz is replaced by firm feathers - including wing feathers that will be rigid enough to ride on air currents and support the weight of the bird. 

Until that happens, the baby bird spends more and more of its time - still in its nest - flapping its wings, exercising those muscles. Yet it still can't sustain flight. During the stage in which the adult feathers grow in, the bird is said to "fledge," and when there is no more fuzz, it is called full-fledged, or fully fledged. 

Sometimes a bird, even though it's been practicing in the nest and has even managed to lift itself up into the air a bit, still seems to want to stay in the nest; perhaps it is afraid of falling. Eventually, the baby fuzz that's been falling out will blow away from the nest and the rough sticks get more and more uncomfortable. 

Thanks to Jeff Ratcliffe at
www.freedigitalphotos.net for his
photo, "Eagle In Flight"

Before long, the desire to leave the safety of the nest is stronger than the fear of falling - and the bird takes that leap of faith into the invisible, making short flights to the ground, up to branches (or in the case of an eagle, rock ledges), landing on neighboring trees or other suitable perches. At this point, it doesn't leave the protection of its parents but continues to learn to use its wings and to feed itself by watching its mother and father. It only takes a few weeks to learn these skills. Many birds do maintain that family relationship. The family group is a great source of security. And some - just fly away to establish their own territory.

I guess that lately, I've been going through that transition period where the young one has left the nest but is still somewhat dependent, learning all she can to be self-sufficient, strengthening her wing muscles. It's a thrilling but frightening time (for both of us!) and both my daughter and I have been learning a lot from the experience. So far, she's traveled across the country nearly to the other side, lived in someone's car (with them and later with their permission), found a job, faced transportation issues to and from work, shopped for a second-hand car, hunted for an apartment, ... and the list is ongoing. While she's been having all these experiences thousands of miles away, my heart has been traveling with her, praying for her, supporting her, talking her down when she's upset, suggesting options when she's been out of her depth. I even talked her through preparing a chicken dinner for a lady who let her stay with her the first of this week! (And I'm not sure who was more pleased with the results - her or me!)

As someone in recovery from control-freaking and from obsessive care-taking, there's a fine line between letting go and abandonment, just as there is between being there for my child and trying to make her choices for her. It truly is a process where I, like she was when she was in my nest, have been growing my own feathers. 

I can see the day quickly approaching where she will have learned enough to be able to be self-sufficient. I am so proud of all that she has accomplished so far, and I believe in her ability to make it on her own. It's a process for her and it's a process for me too. As I support her in this transition while slowly letting go and allowing her to make her own choices and reap her own consequences, I grow another feather myself. 

And yes, I've been doing a lot of flapping, even some short hovers, and - admittedly - a fair bit of squawking. ;) 

Before long though, I'll make that leap myself - out into the unknown - and find that the invisible is strong enough to carry me too.

Caught unawares

It was 2:40 p.m.  I'd spent the day doing housework, listening to music, watching TV... nothing spectacular.  It was a day like every other day before it and like many days after it would be as well.  

I heard the roar of the school bus going up the road.  "Won't be long now," I murmured to myself, a slow smile on my lips.  

Five minutes later, the storm door slammed.  I heard a thump as her kitbag hit the floor, a couple of flubbling sounds as the winter boots came off and rolled a bit - and, wait for it - everything drowned out in a sound that was so common now that I didn't jump anymore.

"YYYYIPPEEEEEEEEE!" she whooped at the top of her lungs.  

I smiled.  She'd held herself in all day at school and it just HAD to come out.  

She's what a lot of parents might call a "difficult" child. I'd say rather that in comparison to other children, she's always been "more." More perceptive, more intuitive, more intense, more sensitive, more adventurous. I can't say that nurturing her hasn't been a challenge when she and I are so different in personality, but I CAN say that she has brought a never-ending source of variety and spice to my life.  Her positive attitude, her faith, her humour have brightened my days and inspired me, even given me strength to face some of the hardest times in our lives. There have been times that I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't been there to say that everything was going to be okay.  

And it was.

I don't know quite how or when it happened.  I think it might have been while I was dealing with finding myself after decades of being wrapped up in other people (and not in a good way), but she just ... grew up.  All of a sudden I looked around and I was ten years older - and - so was she.  It caught me unawares.

Got this photo at THIS SITE

And now she's talking about leaving.  Not just to get her own apartment in the city, but to go half a continent away into another country.  Never mind the travel cost, the price of health care, or the rules and regulations surrounding visitors to that country and how long they can stay, or whether they can work there (I've heard the job market is fiercely competitive!) 

No, never mind all that. I will miss her presence... that indomitable, relentless, boundless optimism.  And the funny things she says and does - she's had me laughing so many times - so hard the tears stream down my face and my stomach muscles ache.  I will miss knowing about her day, her friends, her hopes and fears. I will miss watching her care for her friends, witnessing her tenacity and her loyalty first-hand.  In my mommy-heart, I still hear her coming home, shouting at the top of her lungs from the sheer joy of living, of being home.  And I wonder where that little girl went, and at what point she said goodbye.  Part of me - the part that wasted so many years - wonders what I could have done or said differently.

I hope she knows that she is loved, so very much!  I trust that she knows that her father and I believe in her, want the best for her, and will always stand our ground if we need to defend her.  I hope she understands that she can always come to us - that our door is open.  I hope that she will always WANT to come to us.  

To come home.

Let it happen

When I was younger, I had flashbacks a LOT of things that happened to me when I was a child. Horrible images, re-experiencing feelings and thoughts I thought I had buried far beneath. I was determined not to ever let ANYone get the better part of me.  Ever.  Again.  

I still have them ... just not quite as often.

But I'm starting to have flash-forwards.  Based on some more recent things that have happened.  Only this time I wasn't the victim (even though at the time I felt like I was ... a perpetual state not that long ago).  I was victimizing my kids by trying to control their behavior - through intimidation or manipulation.  

Because I'm a Christian, and because I wanted them to be as well, I would try to control their decisions by 'hinting' at the idea that they might be sinning and hurting themselves (and me, obviously) as a result.  Or I'd send them a poem that made them feel guilty for the way they were treating me (or each other.)  Or I'd quote Scripture to them.  Or ... well, you get the picture.  

The problem with that picture was that it had the opposite effect of the one I wanted.  Every time.  In fact, my kids coined a word for my behavior.  

Christianazi. 

Ouch.  That hurt.  

Still, I didn't get it. Even when they told me point blank!!  I took it as my children "persecuting" me because I was "standing up for what was right."  Or trying to "raise them right." Or "protecting" them. 

Found this photo at THIS SITE

Nothing could have been further from the truth. What I was really doing was causing them to reject me and turn their backs on everything I stood for (including Christianity, if it made me into a religious control freak) and shut me out of their lives.  I was doing it because I couldn't stand not being in control of something... ANYthing.

They hated being treated that way - as if their wishes and feelings didn't matter, just mine.  They withdrew from me and didn't confide in me (for fear of being judged/jumped all over). And they were right.  I could dress it up and I did for years: I was trying to spare them the heartache I had known by being "out there" and getting some pretty hard knocks. But I'd been unaware that whole time of something important.  In trying to protect them, I also shielded them from experiencing the consequences of their own actions.  I was hurting them, not helping them.

As part of my recovery from this addiction to controlling others, I realized one day not only what I was doing to them, but to myself for putting me through the pressure of taking responsibility for their actions, and yes, even to God for keeping my kids away from the opportunity to find Him for themselves (something He wants, very much!) ... exactly by having this "you gotta do it my [or the Bible's] way" attitude. 

I took another look at the teachings of Jesus - and discovered something rather alarming - -  actually, earth-shattering to someone who had built her whole life on trying to "make it happen" in other people's lives.  Jesus only told people who were following Him to act a certain way.  He told His followers to NOT expect other people to toe the line ... because only God can change a heart and give the motivation and the power to live life His way.

It wasn't my job to change them, protect them, rescue them, make them choose the right thing.  I was robbing that away from God!  And the result?  They ran in the opposite direction!

Can you blame them?  Nobody wants to be made to feel lower than a snake's underbelly just for having a different opinion or take on things than someone else. 

Huh.  So all of my wrangling, tears, temper tantrums, and guilt-trips were for nothing. I was pushing my loved ones away from the very thing I most wanted them to embrace!!  

In one of the hardest life-changes I've ever had to make, I decided to let go and let God have my kids (and my husband, for that matter!) and to TRUST HIM to do in them what I could never do. To stop being Jimminy Cricket and stop fearing what might happen to them if they didn't follow my advice ... and LET IT HAPPEN.  LET them walk away if they needed to.  LET them make a choice I wouldn't make.  LET them experience the consequences of said choice.  No guilt trips.  NO trying to manipulate the outcome.  

Yes, be a safe place to land. YES, forgive.  But LET them be who they were, even if it wasn't what I wanted.  LET them have their own opinions on things even if those opinions were diametrically opposed to mine. They were nearly adults at the time ... I was treating them like they were still six years old.  Letting go and learning to let it happen was one of the hardest, the most frightening, and the most rewarding things I ever did. 

Today, my kids still make choices I don't necessarily like all the time.  I'm learning to let them know what I think without telling them what THEY should think.  I'm learning to enjoy them and accept them for the way they are, and not try to change them.  They have slowly started to open up to me, like flower-buds in their proper season.  I've been surprised at the amazing variety of colours I see in them, colours that I never would have dreamed were there.  

And there is something else now in our house which was so rare before, and which is happening more and more often as I learn to let go and allow life to unfold for them without trying to force it.  It's like music to me.

It's the strangest and most beautiful sound.

Laughter.

Looking for Yes

One of the techniques I learned when my children were small was a little concept known as "looking for yes."  

When I was growing up, I'd ask whether I could have this thing, do that thing, go that place.  Sometimes the answer was yes.  Most times - it was no.  Just a flat no.  No other options, nothing. If I didn't like it - and said so - well, let's just say the results weren't pleasant.

When my own children were small, I knew that the task ahead was daunting at best.  Children are pretty much BORN saying, "I want."  (What else do you think "Waaaaah"means?)  I was fortunate to find the help of a tremendous group of women who taught me that it was okay to trust my baby's signals and respond to them.  Through them, I was led to a book that became a bible of sorts for child-rearing:  How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk - by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. (Wow, I just checked and it's still available online!) -  They provided a LOT of techniques, and one of those was looking for yes. 

Source (via Google Images):
http://piecesofcontentment.blogspot.ca/2011/10/simple-joys.html

The idea was that even if you must say no to your child, you provide him with a choice or an option of what he or she CAN do instead.  Example: "No, we can't go to the corner store but we can either put on a video or do some painting." I found when I used that choice, I didn't frustrate my kids nearly as much.  They were happier more often.  They could make a choice and feel like I was not "against" them. Instead of "I can't," they learned to say to themselves, "I can."

I have used this technique as they have grown older and for the most part, it still works, amazingly. And just lately - I've begun to use it on myself to start to deal with my tendency to see the glass half-empty and to criticize before listening.  Example: No, I can't control what this person thinks, believes, does or says.  But I can listen to some music and feed my soul, or I can go do some housework (I RARELY opt for this unless I'm really angry), or I can write my feelings down and work through them, and then let go.  

Looking for Yes is working, even though I KNOW I'm using the technique on myself! It opens my mind a bit more to the idea that I am accepted and loved by my Creator.  As I do, I find I am happier, too.

Smothered

I spent a considerable amount of time on the phone recently with someone whose mother is getting on in years and is showing signs of Alzheimer's.  In the normal course of events, this might be seen as a way to give back - to care for the person who cared for you.  But this situation was different.

This woman had - out of a misplaced definition of what "love" is - abused her children: physically, verbally, and emotionally.  None of them (including this person to whom I was speaking) wanted to have anything to do with her.  Yet her church buddies all considered her to be a saint, and condemned her children right along with her as she called her kids down to the lowest - quite often within earshot of the very ones she was criticizing. 

Image from:
http://pdresources.wordpress.com/tag/online-courses/

All the resentments that this woman felt toward her child started surfacing and becoming blatant, about five years ago.  Every cruel thing she ever did and said to her "baby" was multiplied a hundred-fold as she lost more and more of her inhibitions, and her short-term memories at the same time.  "I don't know what to do," her child told me.  "I'm not well.  I have a heart condition and this stress is killing me. There's never an end to it - she's constantly tearing me down, never has anything good to say about me. Or any of her other children ... at least the ones that lived."  

Ouch.  I know this woman, and have known her for a very long time.  And I know that what this person was telling me was true... I'd seen it happen.  Her idea of mothering started with the letter S.  Smothering.  She wouldn't let any of her kids do anything for themselves; she didn't believe they were capable of doing it as well as she could.  She found fault with anything they did to surprise her. She wouldn't let her kids work out their own problems between themselves - she had to take over and forbid confrontation of any kind. She was the only one allowed to get angry.  And when she got angry - she beat them.  Hard, fast and continuously.  Over and over again.  She threw the most twisted guilt trips afterward, saying look what they did, that they bruised her hand when she had to "spank" them.  How sick is that!

And now she is losing her autonomy and railing against it - and against anyone who reminds her that she is more and more alone.  It's so tragic.  All because she just would NOT let go, she would NOT let her kids grow up and be independent.  So afraid that she would be abandoned, she ended up creating the very thing she was so afraid of.  Yet she sleeps the sleep of the just, secure in her knowledge that she "did the right thing." And she garners the support of those who have no idea what she is really like, as they stroke her ego and say, "There, there dear - nobody could have done more for those ungrateful children of yours than you did..."

How very, very sad.  
Please.  Please look for the signs of abuse ... and confront it.  You'll be doing the children a favour.

The beginning of motherhood

A few years ago, a doctor was doing surgery on a pregnant woman's uterus to correct a defect in the placenta or some such thing, when the baby reached out and grabbed his finger. The child was only about 20 weeks along, not considered a "viable fetus." Yet that one experience convinced the doctor - who had been "pro-choice" before - to join the "pro-life" camp.

I know that we believe firmly in the church that life begins at conception. It's difficult to argue for abortion faced with the kind of evidence in the photo. I'm told that the doctor was deeply moved by this experience and became a pro-life advocate. I'm not sure if that's really the case or not.

But something about the whole abortion debate bothers me. Don't get me wrong - I believe that abortion is murder. That's not in question at all for me. But I believe that there is a disconnect in the church between this belief and the actions of some of its members.

Let me explain. I was pregnant with my first child - about as far along or farther than the woman whose child is pictured above. It was Mother's Day. When the pastor asked for mothers to line up to receive a carnation to honour their position as mothers, I - believing that life begins at conception - stood up.

Someone tugged at my sleeve. "Sit back down," this person said. "You're not a mother yet."

Not a mother?? Hadn't I been feeling the life inside of me moving? Wasn't my body nourishing my baby's body and helping it grow? Wasn't she keeping me awake at night already? Haven't I already made sacrifices for her? Wasn't I already moving in such a way so that she wouldn't feel trapped under me? (I slept on my stomach before becoming pregnant...) Wasn't I already getting to know her likes and dislikes? (big band and classical versus rock music, etc.)

I protested, saying that I was SO a mother. The person said to me, flatly, "You're not a mother until after the baby is born." Point blank. Just like that. I couldn't believe my ears.

Hm. So it's not a baby until it starts to breathe, is that what you're saying to me? I thought. But I said nothing. I was too shocked, hurt and bewildered by the whole experience. It took me several years to get over this and figure out what was behind that kind of statement.

So my point is this, I guess. If we're going to picket the abortion clinics (something I personally wouldn't do to someone who was that much in distress that she would brave the ridicule, accusations, and sarcasm of "Christians" to find some way out of her painful situation) and stand against abortion - let's be consistent!! Let's treat a woman who is pregnant as carrying a real person inside of her body ... and acknowledge that this is just as much motherhood as when the baby is born and we have to put clothes on it to keep it warm (and - as so many do - hand its care off to someone else for awhile when we get tired of looking after it: pregnant mothers don't get to do that).

Let's shed "superstitious thinking" - you know, the kind of thinking that refuses to turn the page on the calendar on the 31st of the month and has to wait until the 1st before flipping up from June to July - the thinking that fears "tempting fate" or some such nonsense, and let's think through and truly live from our convictions in such a way that it affects what we do ...and say.

Let's quit just talking about loving people as they are, and just...
DO it.