… I’m not asking you to move on or forget it, but these are better days
… to be loved like a song you remember even when you’ve changed. ~~ Brandi Carlile
When I answered the phone that morning, I already knew she was dead. Nothing good ever comes from a phone call at 5:28 in the morning. When I left the night before, she was near death… always “near death”. I guess in a hospice facility that describes everyone — “near death”.
But still, that morning the phone rang, and I already knew. I answered it anyway, my sister said, “she’s gone”. I don’t think I said anything, maybe I just hung up, maybe I said okay, maybe I said I’m on my way. It wasn’t a shock and yet — it was, it was a shock.
I collapsed under the weight of the knowledge of forever being without a mother. I collapsed under the weight of all the things I needed her to tell me, all the things I needed her to listen to, all the things that wound my mind and my stomach in knots. But that was it… time was up. No deathbed revelations, no deathbed confessions, no deathbed secrets revealed — she was gone.
I’m sure my mother isn’t the only mother who could make ice water run through your veins with her glance. I’m sure she isn’t the only mother whose perfectly placed sigh could bring an abrupt end to any conversation. I’m sure she isn’t the only mother who could make you question your decisions as a competent 40-year-old as if you were 10 again — I’m sure of these things.
I’ve often wondered if people who get the news of someone dying in a sudden car wreck or a massive heart attack can process the news easier — probably not. But, waiting 15 months for the inevitable to happen is tiring… yes, I’d say it’s tiring. You think you’ll wait for the perfect time to say the words and to hear the words and you screw your courage and decide tomorrow will be a better time. There’s always tomorrow.
I drove to the hospice facility immediately — I was already showered and dressed, it’s not like I was sleeping that year she lived with me. A baby monitor in her room allowed me to hear every creak of the bed, every cough and nose blow, every turn of the page, every trip to the bathroom, every quiet calling out of my name for help — for a year, so… why sleep? I was always waiting for something to happen… waiting, always waiting for something.
I felt relieved to not be the caregiver and, of course, guilty at my relief.
I felt a new disconnect from things holding me back, not that my mother was consciously holding me back from things I needed to do, but her care was always fully on my mind.
Or maybe, she was holding me back.
The months, the years since her death have been a confusing time.
My body still fights sleep, it still wakes at the slightest creak, it still listens for my name.
My mind wandered and did backwards flips and tangled itself into tight knots of questions and confusion. My therapist must have been one hell of a girl scout because she has untied some horrendous knots in me.
The friend I looked up to more than any other person — my knots crept into her life… those knots, they weave their way around everything near like kudzu taking over a once manicured backyard. You cut one away and another grows twice as big… a noxious weed invading every crevasse.
It was a confusing time.
A time when it seemed the knots would stay forever — the knots of my mother, the knots of my friend, the knots of my failures, the knots of motherhood and womanhood and becoming a better me… the knots of another Mother’s Day.
Seems like a perfect day to help untie each others knots.
Mothers are a confusing lot, aren’t we?
We learn from our mothers, we attempt to recreate that amazing strawberry cake, that enchilada casserole we had at Christmas all the while cursing ourselves under our breath because we even try. We vow to be our own person. We learn to control the sighs and the icy glances, the all too familiar judgements.
Motherhood should be a collective. We have a much better chance of figuring it out together than we ever would alone.
This Mother’s Day, my children and I will eat out and go for a walk and I’m sure there will be a trip to the bookstore and we’ll go to the lake and feed the ducks and we’ll laugh and we’ll enjoy that time and when we get home… we’ll all retreat to our own corners and a few of my knots will untangle and a few more will loosen.
I don’t plan on being on my deathbed wondering if I was a good mother — I am always becoming a better me… these are better days. The stories I take with me won’t be worth confessing and the confessions I make will be well worth a listen. I won’t look at my kids and wonder if I sighed too much or judged too many outfits and boyfriends and girlfriends or used my icy stare too often. They won’t tell me anyway, of course. Who tells their mother things like that on her deathbed? They’ll wait and they’ll tell it to a therapist and the therapist will untie those knots… (maybe that’s how we can tell, the number of knots that our children have in them and the time it takes to untie them… maybe that’s how we’ll know) then they’ll write a post in their blogs about motherhood and its perils and its triumphs and how the bond between mother and child endures many things and maybe they’ll even post it on Mother’s Day… but, I know I am loved like a song they remember. Still… I wonder what it will reveal about me and my knots.
Beautifully put, as always.
Thank you.
heartfelt hugs always…. of the things we learn
and the things we let go of
when we are ready
♥ HUGS
Thank you June. Beautifully put.
Knots or evidence of knots in the woodgrain make the wood more interesting and sometimes more beautiful.
🙂
Yes…,🙂 thank you.
No matter how it ends or how we hear about it, it changes us forever. I believe mother and child is the most complex relationship of all. All we can do is pick through and use the parts that help us keep going and keep loving. xo
Well said my friend.
Dear Becky, Thank you for sharing this. Yes, it’s amazing what we carry forward, often unconsciously from our parents. Sure, you got knots, but remember, knots, while infuriating as hell to unravel, also makes the rope strong, and reliable. Beautifully written, as usual.
Thank you… and I love your metaphor, perfect.
Another wonderful write Becky. It was like you were talking about my mother; she did all those things as well. We were a bit too much alike, both stubborn and got on each others nerves quite often. LOL!
I’d hurt myself and was in therapy and working at the same time. Mom was staying at my older sister’s house while her room was being revamped, but she said she needed a break and so I attempted to take care of my mom for the weekend without any help. I couldn’t lift, or walk very well and every time she had to go to the bathroom, she’d start crying because she knew I couldn’t hold her up. She was a tiny thing, but my back and my arms were so weak. She was embarrassed because I had to call my big brother to come help me put her on the toilet. I cried, because I felt so useless.
I went to work on Monday morning with my sister’s assurance that she was just round the corner. No sooner had I arrived than the maintenance man grabbed my arm and said, “Come on Lizzy, your mom needs you at the hospital.” When I arrived my little brother was there. He said he’d gotten a bad feeling and had turned around instead of going to work and had practically had to knock the door down. Don’t know where my sister was, but mom had been alone. She’d had a heart attack 15 minutes after I left the house to catch the bus and he arrived in time and held her in his arms until she died. He called the ambulance, called my job and together we were asked to make the decision to either take her off life support or to take aggressive measures to keep her with us. God took care of it for us and just took her home.
I found notes that she’d written on what she wanted for her funeral and I was angry with her. She insisted that my sister and myself sing all the songs at the funeral and the wake. All I could think was, “Mom, you are so selfish!”
We did it anyway; my son ran and hid and I had to pretend to be really strong through it all.
When I arrived home the night of her funeral, I stood in my kitchen and cried. It was so quiet. No piano banging away in the living room, no tortillas on the skillet and I knew I wouldn’t have anyone to argue with. I fell apart and my poor son had to take care of his mother. In spite of our differences she was my mother and I miss her every day.
I wish I’d been with her at the end and yet I’m glad I wasn’t. My brother has yet to sort through his knots. She died in his arms and that will forever haunt him.
After her death I started asking my son, almost on a daily basis, “Honey, have I been a bad mother? Tell what I can do to be better!” Then and now his response has always been the same, “Mom, you’re the best mother in the world.”
We’ve kept each other sane and I can talk to him about everything. I’m his friend, but I’m his mother first and he respects and takes care of me. I still ask him on occasion and he’ll say, “Old lady, you’re the best there is.”
I’m not the best mother there is, but I’m the best mother I can be and that’s all we can do. We learn from our parents and from other people in our pasts and we take the good that we learn from them and apply it to our lives. We see the bad in them and we also learn from it and if we’re smart we break the cycle and become better parents.
From your posts Becky I can tell that you are a woman who loves her children dearly and I know that your children feel blessed to have you in their lives. It’s okay to question yourself at times, but remember that there is no such thing as a perfect parent, only a human one and all you have to be is the best you can be. Don’t worry about anyone else
Sorry for the long comment, but I had to share (my way of loosening the knots) and just wanted to tell you that I admire you greatly. Be blessed.
http://elizena-lovingmycreator.blogspot.com/2012/05/extraordinary-strength.html
Thank you so much for sharing your story here, I am honored that you did. I so appreciate you and your kindness.
What brave, beautiful, heart-touching words. Thank you for sharing your precious heart, Becky.
Sending you love.
Thank you Julia. Writing and sharing are always easier when I know you and people like you are hovering around.
my relationship with my mother was never like yours but i have had a close relationship with my daughter and… as good as it is… i’m sure she has knots, too. all any of us can do is our best.
sending bunches of *Love*
& endless *sparkly squishy hugs*
♥
Thank you sweet Dani.
I’m going through the dying-by-the-inch thing right now with my Mom and it is, indeed, so hard and then you wish it would hurry up and happen and then you feel guilty. But, I worked hospice or in hospice-like environments nearly all of my nursing career (almost 50 yrs) and everything you describe is so familiar and so normal as it seems we all deal with those love/hate relationships with our mothers. From what I know of you, I suspect you are a very “aware” and caring Mom. I do remember a patient who just hung on and hung on. Finally, I asked her daughter if there was any unfinished business she knew of and the daughter told me how abusive her mother had been to her. I asked if she had ever told her she forgave her, so she went in and said what she had to. Within moment the lady died. This was a powerful experience that I won’t forget. But it’s different for everyone. I believe that often people (who don’t experience sudden death) choose when they will let go and what needs to happen for them to be ready.
That’s a really great story, thank you for sharing and for the work you do.
When Mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, it was a heartrending moment for all of us. We new she had just a short time and in that moment any disagreements faded away and my mother’s love and our love for her were all that mattered. We think life will go on forever and those we hold dear will always be here. I guess it is the safety net that keeps us sane. Your post will touch all who read it, especially those of us who have lost Mom. Thank you for sharing. Hugs.
Thank you so much for visiting here, we all have a story, I think, and somehow they are all connected.