Reflections on Grief

My relationship with my mom wasn't the close, almost sisterly relationship I longed for and envied other mothers/daughters for having. Even so, I loved her so much and have never experienced such a deep loss. If I live as long as my maternal grandmother, who died at 97, I will be without my mother for 45 years! I can't imagine it. The thought of never again seeing my mother's face, never hearing her voice, never hearing her laugh, never puzzling over something wacky she said, fills me with sorrow. How will I get through the mother's days and birthdays and holidays without my mom?

A mother like no other

With the loss of my mother, I feel like I am mourning three women - the one I put on a pedestal in my little girl innocence, the struggling single mom whose behavior frustrated me in my teenage years, and the complex and mysterious woman I eventually learned to love and accept for who she was.

We almost lost Mom three years ago from liver disease that resulted from type II diabetes. She spent the rest of her life in a nursing home, under the loving care of my sister Cindy, an RN. That three years was a blessing to me. Although I did not get to have many quality conversations with Mom because of her disease, I had time to sort through unresolved resentments from my childhood and to forgive her before her death.

Before Mom died, I knew that my grief would come with regrets. I regret that I did not spend more time with her. I regret that we did not have a closer relationship. As one of eight children, I did not get a lot of individual, undivided attention growing up. As an adult, I distanced myself physically and emotionally. The physical distance was the result of my moving and settling where my husband wanted to live - more than 500 miles away. The emotional distance was a sort of defense mechanism, I suppose. By distancing myself emotionally, I wasn't as bothered by things my mother did that I could not understand.

But no matter how much distance separated us, there are things I never forgot. Mom was the one who took care of me when I came home at five or six years old feeling miserable with the mumps. Hers was the face I saw when the doctor put me under anesthesia to take my tonsils out. When we moved into a house that was so dusty from remodeling that I couldn't breathe, Mom was the one who hugged me and said, we'll find a different place to live - even though we had only just moved in.

But oh how Mom frustrated me as a teenager! Mom and Dad had recently divorced and we had even less money to live on. We went on welfare for a few years. I was so ashamed! Mom made my sisters and me buy groceries with food stamps and I resented it. I also thought Mom was too impulsive. The summer that I turned sixteen, she sold our house and moved us to another town so she could be closer to her boyfriend. That relationship fell apart. She bought an inexpensive house for us to live in but a few months later, decided that we should move to Topeka because the furnace didn't heat the house well. So we moved again in the middle of the school year and moved back again the end of my junior year.

I can look back now at my teenage years and appreciate that having spent almost 40 years caring for children (her siblings, cousins, and her children), Mom was probably desperate for some "me time." Mom had to make decisions for a large family on her own. She carried a lot of weight on her young shoulders. I can also see that even if she made wrong decisions at times, she did the important things very right. All of us kids grew up to be well-adjusted, kind, responsible adults. And we know how much we were loved.

I feel guilty for not calling Mom more and not spending more time alone with her when I visited family a couple of times a year. I wish Mama were here now so I could talk to her and tell her that I forgive her for the mistakes she made, the choices she made, that I held against her for too long. I hope she knew how much I loved her. I take comfort in knowing that a few days before she died, when my brother asked her if I visited her the weekend before, she remembered my visit and said that I lift her up. Mom, you lifted me up too!

As I saw Mom's health deteriorate, I mourned the loss of the vital woman she used to be. Mom had so many good qualities. She was gentle and kind. She was creative and resourceful. She was generous and self-sacrificing. No one was better at turning a house into a home. She liked to decorate and to rearrange the furniture. She liked to move; I think we moved 13 times when I was growing up - sometimes more than once in a year. She had a great sense of humor. She loved to sing. One of the favorite silly songs I remember her singing  was I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see if I was looking back to see...

Strolling to the beat of a different drummer

My uncle Fred wrote a fitting tribute to my mom when she died.

We all go through life, marching to the beat of a drummer, to keep us moving along our pre-determined pathway. For a lot of us, our drummer is one-part drummer, one-part Drill Sergeant, who sets cadence with a "Move it, Move it, Move it." Barbara marched to the beat of a different drummer, one who was more like a far off Indian, slowly beating a Tom Tom drum with a rhythm more like: "Take --- the --- time --- to --- smell --- the --- roses. You --- only --- pass --- this --- way --- once."

It's true. Mom lived life with a laid-back, un-harried pace and a laissez-faire attitude, not worried about what tomorrow would bring. She didn't enforce the daily routines that most mothers do. During the school year, it was big sister Cindy who got our morning and bedtime routines going. Mom wasn't much of a planner, certainly not financially, much to my consternation. While other women had two or three kids, Mom didn't believe in birth control (not the pill anyway). Her philosophy was: God will take care of you. He won't give you more than you can handle.

With us kids, Mom didn't have a lot of pre-conceived notions about how we should behave or who we should be, though she taught us to be kind and considerate of others. She was in tune with each of her kids' unique personalities and accepted us as we were. She gave us room to be ourselves but also played to our strengths. Cindy was motherly and liked to take charge, so mom let her be our little mom. I was always responsible and obedient. I remember the time Mom bought a used vacuum cleaner around my birthday. She told me it was my present (we didn't often get one) and it was now my job to do the vacuuming. She sweetened the deal by assuring me that I was the one she could count on to do it right.

Uncle Fred wrote about what it was like for my mom to grow up as the only girl with eight brothers. I've always been curious about her upbringing because understanding the hardships makes it easier for me to understand her.

My sister, Barbara, had the fortune or misfortune, of growing up as the only daughter in a family that eventually had eight sons. She got some special treatment as the result, but it was not totally good (in my opinion). She also fell under more scrutiny by our Dad. Dad was heavily involved in Church matters and had some old-fashioned ideas that the church advocated...like:

• Avoid all things that are "worldly." 

• Spare not the rod and spoil not the child.

Us boys, normally paired up (me and Gene, Gary and Joe, Donnie and Phil, Mark and Stan) and we did not spend much time in the house, especially in the summer months. Barbara did, and that was OK, but Dad was much stricter on her than on the boys. Her manner of dress, the things she could do and couldn't do, her dating, etc. got a lot of attention... a lot more than I would have been comfortable with. He watched her like a hawk. Any fellow who looker at her, also got watched by my Dad. To me that wasn't fair. I would have resented it. Still she did just fine. She just did it her way.  

When I hear stories of my mother's childhood and how strict and untrusting my Grandpa was with her, I think to myself, no wonder she didn't want to be constrained. No wonder she lived life her way! She had a lot of kids just like Grandma but she was her own woman. She was independent.

When I was in my thirties, Mom apologized to me for something that must have been weighing heavy on her mind. When I was seventeen years old, she was seeing a guy from work and left me to take care of my younger brothers and sisters, sometimes overnight. When I decided not to have kids, she thought it was her fault for putting too much responsibility on me at a young age. Of course, I told her my choice was not her fault. I didn't want to take the chance of being single parent because I saw how hard it was. I wanted stability and a strong marriage. But I also learned from my mother how rewarding it can be to be self-sacrificing.

In looking at my own life, I see how it parallels my mother's life even though we chose such different paths. Both of us were the third child in a large family. I had my time of innocence and my time of rebellion, before finally settling into the woman I am today. I am quiet, soft-spoken and gentle. I am independent. I am my mother's daughter.

They say there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Grief is a heavy sadness, a deep ache in my heart. Knowing that I will never see my mama again is so hard even though I knew that day would come eventually.  My friends tell me that a loss like this changes you forever. They say someday I will find my "new normal." The finality of death is hard to get my heart around. Mama, I miss you.