Acceptance: Another Step Out of the Swamp
Part 5
Life with my mother wasn’t easy. While I loved her, I struggled spending time with her.
I remember driving her to Boston during the morning commute in the middle of a torrential rain storm. As the windshield wipers were trying to clear the steams of water that the tractor-trailer trucks were throwing up onto the windshield, she was stretched out on the back seat of the car, talking incessantly.
She appeared oblivious to her surroundings, oblivious to the fact that I needed to stay focused on driving in order to arrive safely at Brigham and Women’s hospital for her appointment. More importantly, to me, she appeared devoid of any desire to engage with me in a shared conversation. This was nothing new.
In all of the hours of “conversations” with my mom, she rarely asked a question about what was happening in my life. Months would go by without an inquiry into the lives of any of my four children, her grandchildren.
It saddens me say this, but there were many times when I had no idea what she was even talking about. I tried, with very little success, to decode what she was saying. Was I missing an underlying message hidden beneath her ever-flowing, one-sided, stream of conversation? Had I missed a gem nestled in her words when I tuned her out?
I would cringe when her phone number showed up on my Caller ID. Phone conversations with her did become easier after I realized that I could perform mundane household tasks like folding laundry, or doing dishes, while she talked. I learned that I could set the phone on the counter, go to the laundry room to change out the clothes from the washer to the dryer, come back and pick up the phone without her ever knowing that I had left the room.
Then came the period of time when she was obsessed with the idea of me helping her to get across the country to visit her sister. This being the same sister who was married to the man that sexually abused me. She wanted me to make this visit happen, always ending the request by letting me know that, “SHE wouldn’t be sleeping at THEIR house.” Her saying this always made me want to scream, “You won’t stay there? But you left me at their house knowing that he was a child molester???”
See Shame: Swampland of the Soul
I never said these words to my mother. I would just shut down, or if I was feeling bold, I would get up and leave her house filled with frustration and anger. It would be years before I realized that the anger, frustration, and depressive feelings were separating me, not only from my mother, but away from my own heart.
Feeling these emotions were keeping me stuck in the swamp.
I craved a deeper, fuller relationship with my mom. I craved the give-and-take of a “normal” conversation. I wanted to be heard. I wanted things to be different. If I’m honest, I wanted my mother to be different.
In the last years of her life she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and moved into an assisted living home. It was then that I learned to accept that things were never going to change. That they couldn’t change, especially with her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I had to accept that she would never be the mother that I thought I wanted and needed. When I finally accepted this it became easier to visit with her, easier to love her.
When I was able to let go of the anger and frustration that I felt toward her, I had more room in my heart to love her for who she was. I was more able to accept our relationship as it was. Some days, I was even able to find a slice of joy visiting with her as her body began to slip away along with her memories.
A friend told me after my mom passed, I would give anything to have one more day with her, even if it was a difficult day from our years together. It may sound cruel, or indifferent, but I never found this to be true. I have never, in the years since her passing, longed to have just one more day with my mother. This isn’t to say that I don’t miss her sometimes, because I do. I just know that a “replay” day with my mom wouldn’t give me what I wanted.
I believe that going back and spending a day from the past with my mom wouldn’t have changed anything. It wouldn’t have had the power to pull me and my mother out of the swamp. I wanted change, I wanted out of the swamp.
Eventually, years after her passing, I did find a way to heal my relationship with my mother. And it feels wonderful.
To be continued…
With Love & Healing Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
