On Mom and Resilience and Crying it Out
I received the call that my mother died last week while out to lunch with my team. It was our quarterly team building activity (lunch & mini golf), and as I got up from the table to return my brother’s call, I made a joke. “Someone must have died; he never tells me to call him back immediately.”
I was half kidding. The truth is, there is a specific tone to the voicemail or text message we use in our family that indicates just how serious the topic is that you’re calling about. If you’re just checking in, it’s usually “Call me back [family nickname.] Love ya.” If someone is in the hospital, it’s more like “Hey, call me back when you can. Love you.” When someone is dying or dead, it’s more like, “Call me back.” For someone who has dedicated my life to words, it is not lost on me how ironic it is that the rest of my immediate family is quite protective of theirs. It also admittedly makes me think folks are in the hospital more often than they actually are, since we don’t consistently hold to this code.
I stayed at the team retreat. I didn’t really know what else to do. My mother and I hadn’t actually spoken since 2011. I tried calling her once the tubes were removed and she was released to a nursing home after recovering, somewhat, from COVID-19. She would be on oxygen for the rest of her life–until September 19, 2024 anyway.
I felt numb. I sort of still do. I have grieved my mother for years, her absence one of the main topics I grapple with in thinking about who I want to be and how our relationship colors all the others in my life. I have cried less than I expected. Mostly, I’ve thought about how that same week, I’d begun drafting a new blog post about the story of when she left me at my grandmother’s. It was something I’d been thinking about because I’d been noodling on why people tend to assume the worst from others at work, whether it’s leaders or their immediate coworkers, and what, if anything, my anxious attachment could teach me about how we overcome this suspicion. And then she died. And I once again stopped writing.
Truth be told, I am afraid to write because I am afraid of what I feel about her most final and confirmed absence. I am afraid of feeling at peace, and I’m afraid of admitting that it was not my fault we didn’t speak. The little kid in me who used to sit on her lap while she read to me, or who would sit across from her at the dining room table and try to capture the wisps of smoke from her cigarette, is still wondering both when she will come back and when she will leave again. I am wondering if I will ever not feel the tug in my chest, a yearning for someone who never could be consistently present in life. How can I trust that she will be consistently gone in death?
For as much self-doubt and shame my mother’s inconsistent love inspired in me, I also credit her with my resiliency and slowly building ability to set boundaries. She was the first person who I ever saw set a successful boundary, albeit with her children, but it was a powerfully painful lesson in what it means to choose yourself despite the feelings of others. I count myself begrudgingly lucky to have learned this lesson so young. Had I not had it modeled, I’m not sure I’d ever have been able to firmly cut my abuser out of my life. I’m not sure I’d have been able to do the years-long work to understand how the traumas of my childhood were ruining my ability to connect with others, and leading me to hurt other people because what I knew how to do was hurt, not love.
I did cry today. I was doing yoga (with Adrienne), and on day 18 of the flow I’ve been following it was already scheduled to be a meditation day. This annoyed me. I didn’t want to meditate. Today, I wanted to be busy (although I took the day off). I wanted to stretch and forget. Instead, I sat cross-legged on the yoga mat while my cat cleaned herself directly in front of me, and took shallow breaths. I noticed the tug on the ever present knot in my chest, and forced myself to inhale harder. That was when I cried.
I cried because she was gone, and I cried because I am safe. I cried because she is safe, and because I can let go of her. I cried because she was my mother, and because I need her.
Stay curious-
Rachel
