I know there are women who lucky enough to have had, and to still have, close bonds with their mothers.
I always wanted to have a deep mother and daughter conversation with my mom.
I look to Jackie and her daughter, Jenny, to see this happening. I know rare as it seems to be, that these relationships exist.
My mother and I did not have a connection to be envied. There was always a deep chasm of distance between us with personalities that meshed on very few topics. I know many women who experienced the same lack of friendship with their moms, although they wished it could have been different. Maybe their mothers did also.
When I was a teen, Mom and I fought a great deal, rarely agreeing on anything except that French Toast smothered in butter and Log Cabin syrup was the best breakfast food, Cary Grant was deliciously handsome, and film noir was the only way to hang out on a winter’s Sunday evening. I constantly challenged Mom’s life choices, unintentionally, by announcing at age twelve that I never intended to get married, have kids, and be a housewife—my mother’s exact choices. When my teenage contemporaries were compiling Hope Chests (does that still happen?), I wanted a dog, a beach, and a life spent writing.
It was no Wonder Mom and I Rarely saw Eye to Eye
Because Mary had a mischievous streak to her otherwise demure self, Mom would deliberately push my buttons at least as often as I pushed hers. Most likely, she also did this to me from time to time to save her sanity—if she couldn’t make humor of my childhood nature of seriousness, then how could she survive me?
Dad did what he could to control the two of us, but I wonder how many times he mentally threw his hands up in the air and physically went to the garage to get away from our bickering. Even when I was a grownup, and the clashes continued.
Mother and Daughters – We’re Complicated
Then Mom got Sick
Let me clarify. Mom was sick off and on for some years. She had Grave’s Disease that she didn’t manage properly, heart disease that she fixed with pills instead of diet and exercise, took other pills for other reasons, and was on oxygen for asthma or maybe it was emphysema or perhaps it was—she never got a clear reason for needing it.
Yet, the same woman who refused to exercise or eat right, put down her pack of cigarettes one day and never smoked, never yearned for one, again. Mom had the determination to change some things—like the time she hung paneling in the family room by herself because she wanted it done now and Dad was busy—but not others.
Like most of us, I suppose.
Like me, for sure.
Obstinate RM
Stubborn me always thinks that if we eat right and exercise, don’t smoke, and don’t drink (too much) red wine that maybe we can retain our health. I know this isn’t true—that disease will strike where it will strike—and yet I think, hey—I’m gonna give my body a fighting chance.
Mom did these wrong things, got sick(er) and I got … well … pissed at her for getting sicker. Not a fair attitude, I know. I’m not proud of it, just owning up to and telling you the truth.
The spring Dad was diagnosed with ALS, Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had survived breast cancer a decade before by a mastectomy without chemo or radiation. This spot, she said, was tiny. She started treatment, but by August was worn down.
My niece Jenny came to visit. She and my dad were best buddies. They’d email and Instant Message and cause lots of laughter. She loved my mom, but like me, Jenny didn’t “get” her. That Saturday night, we had a good visit with lots of chuckles from everyone circling the dining room table. Dad was doing the best he could as ALS corroded one function after another and Mom was hanging in there. She seemed extra tired by the end of the day, but laughing as hard as we do can sometimes wear out the stoutest soul.
The Next Morning, Mom Wasn’t Quite with Us
The Griffith family descended in a constant flow—cousins, aunts, uncles—they along with neighbors—were everywhere in my parents’ ranch house—being helpful, providing more humor, food, and copious amounts of that much-needed red wine. In and out people went, front door, back door, kitchen full, living room overflowing. They drifted in and sailed out the same way Mom did for the next ten days.
God gave our family those days for multiple reasons.
God gave those days to Mom and me so that we could heal our relationship before she went to be with Him.
And heal we did.
We lost Mom in August of 2008. The years don’t make it any easier—this loss of your mother from your life leaves repercussions like a meteor creating a mammoth crater in the middle of a beautiful summer field. You are impacted with the massive moving of your ever-changing emotions.
Surely women abused by their mothers understandably breathe deep relief when they’re gone and at one time I’d have sworn the same. But as things went, I miss the little minx. I miss the person I got to know at the end of her life. When Mom’s many guards were down and she was at her most basic, I fell in love with a woman who was kind, gracious, witty, tender, and who needed us.
Who needed me.
My presence, so aggravating to Mom throughout her life, was a solace to her during her ending days. And I clung to her physically during the dark nights in a way I could never have done during our usual daily lives.
If only we could get ourselves down to these most basic of our selves now, in this present, with the people most important to us. How would our relationships changes? How would they deepen and become more whole for us?
If right now, today, with that challenging spouse, different from you parent, estranged sibling, another not closely known relative, a lost friend … if you could be your most honest self with them, what would it do for your life? For theirs?
Life’s “What ifs”
“If only,” are such difficult words. They can imply regret or fear or restriction—or all three.
But if only Mom and I had each been honest with each other for the 49 years we were together, how would that have changed our lifelong connection? What if we’d had one good rip-roaring argument that bared our emotions and got the accumulated chaff between us out in the air? How would that have altered everything and made us better—opening the door to a close bond?
Is there a relationship in your life that you think … If only I could have one honest conversation with…
Figure out what keeps you from having that conversation and delve in.
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Lovely post. I wish I could talk to my mom, but she’s not one to talk. About anything. I have to make my peace with that.
Looking back, Jeri, I don’t know how my mom would have reacted if I had initiated a tough conversation with her. I think as with too many familial relationships, we settled into what we were and didn’t stop to think that we could be any other way. I gladly admit that I focus now on who she was in that last ten days of her life when we truly bonded rather than remembering all the tough times–which is making peace with the situation like you with your mom.
I have a great friendship with my mom. We talk and argue like friends do. It is sometimes hard to not cross the mother/daughter line with that friendship.
My sister and mom are two very different people, though. They have always either fought or maintained a safe distance to keep the issues at bay. They have opened up, thank goodness in recent years. They will never have the relationship Mom and I have. It isn’t favoritism, though, as I have thought before that makes Mom get along with me better than my sister.
People are different. As long as we respect and love our family members, I think that is what God wants. Not everyone will have that close relationship with their immediate family members do. Those of us who do, just have an added bonus.
I’m sorry that I’m just now getting to read this beautiful story!
You and your mom would be Seester and our mom. I would be your sister. Yes, that really makes sense to me. It’s just personalities and is what it is. None of us should feel badly about that.
Thanks for reading it, TJA!
Hi Rose, it is to bad it took until your mother’s illness and end of her life to work out your issues. But I am very happy that you did finally get that time to heal your relationship and get to know her before it was too late.
Yes, what could our relationship have been like? But that’s a “what if” which makes for a good novel, but not so much in real life. I’m just happy we had the healing time. Yeah to that!
I am so glad your relationship with your mom ended on a positive note. No regrets – just be thankful that you did have that sharing and healing time.
I always had a good relationship with my mom which was strengthened even more when I was sixteen and I took a year off to stay home with her. That was a time to be treasured and I am still thankful I did that.
Thanks for sharing this special post.
It sounds like a story in there for you being with your Mom for a year, Lenie. She must have been a very special lady. You’re right, no regrets. We were who we were. Just glad things turned around as they did. I thank God for that.
I have a similar relationship with my mother. Perhaps we are too alike but I struggle to accept this.
We do not know how long we have on this earth and we should live each day as if it is our last. We should be quick to say sorry (and mean it) and be willing to back down to save an argument.
I am learning that people will never be who we think they ought to be. However painful it may be, we must move on.
You are so right about that, Phoenicia. Maybe you will have a chance to change your relationship with your Mother–it’s so hard. We are alike or we’re super different and that meeting place can be difficult to find for sure.
I lost my mother that very same year to lung cancer also. She aggravated me like no one else could but I miss her so very much. I long to hear one of those endless stories that I had heard so many times It made crazy. She pushed my buttons but no one in the world loved me quite the way she did. She saw all of her children with loving kind eyes. I only wish that I was the person that I was in my mothers eyes. I will forever miss her presence in my life.
Debbie, I’m not sure “glad” is an appropriate word, but I’m glad to hear that you had that same kind of relationship with your mom–it’s nice to know I was not alone in sometimes wanting to biff her a good one and other times hugging her like there was no one else on the planet!
I am SURE that you are that person–we are too hard on ourselves!
Hi Rose. I lost my mother when I was very young, and I have no children of my own, so that category of relationship is out for me. But I do recall getting close to my father in the final stage of his life, and I was very grateful that he had mellowed enough to allow and enable that to happen.
I’m sorry to hear that, Doreen. I am very close to my niece and nephew, but like you I know that’s not the same as being The Mom. Another friend mentioned the mellowing of her dad that allowed them to get close in his later years. I always wonder if we could just let our guards down now and mellow now…what would happen. It is good that you had that time with your Dad!
I miss her so much. This was so nice to read. I love you.
Dear niece, you are one of two people–Dad being the other–who actually “managed” mom. I think she loved you and your brother so fiercely that she always wanted you around and always wanted your…let’s say approval. She knew that you loved her.
We really are sisters, eh Jacquie? I am glad that you, too, had the opportunity for knowing your mom in an entirely different light. It changed everything!
Rose this is a beautiful and touching post. So remarkable in it’s honesty. I had a similar relationship with m y mom. ee rarely got along, but in the end I cared for her in my home for three moths and she passed there. I wouldn’t trade those months for anything. Somehow, it all got put right.