What’s left in the wake of a weekend

Just winding down from a busy family weekend. Sunday evening, and things are quiet.

My sister was here from Chicago. Last week was our mom’s 81st birthday, so she came up to celebrate with us. My brother lives a few hours north of our house, so all of us were able to be together to have a little picnic party for mom. My sons, and my daughter-in-law and the three granddaughters met us at a park to have dinner last night. We had a very nice evening.

My mom has really struggled the past couple of years since my sister’s death. Because she lived near my sister on the east coast, she moved halfway across the country to be near husband and I so that we could help her. It’s been a difficult adjustment for her, physically and emotionally. My mom has declined a lot in her functioning over these past couple of years. It is very hard to see, especially for my sister who doesn’t see her regularly.

This type of family time stirs up a lot of difficult feelings for me regarding my mom.  She and my dad divorced when I was in college, but my brother was just a teen. The way my brother was treated during that time makes me very angry. My brother is pretty angry about it, too, but doesn’t acknowledge it. My mom doesn’t see it.

My mom had custody, and my dad pretty much checked out of his life. My mom then moved with my brother to the west coast. He was in junior high at that time-a very difficult age to change schools. She took a job on the 3-11 pm shift, meaning that he was at home alone the majority of the time. My father never came to visit him, as he had remarried and was raising his wife’s young daughter. The new wife didn’t like any of us, so there was no option for my brother to visit my dad. My brother raised himself. My parents don’t know how lucky they are that he did not get into any trouble.

Even though she worked as a psychiatric nurse for a good part of her career, Mom has the least amount of self-awareness or reflection of anyone I know.  If there is a comment about her feelings or how her decisions impacted someone else, her dismissive response is “Oh, please!”, or “Heavens, no!” or-my favorite- “Oh, piffle!”. It never goes beyond that. My mother never acknowledges any responsibility for hurting my brother or anyone else.

My mother was always closer to my two sisters than she was to me. All of them were alike in many ways. As she has been declining over the past several months, I have come to realize that we never will be close. She will depend on me and resent me for it. I become annoyed with her when she makes her snide comments about how I am (or am not) handling something for her. We dance our little mother/daughter jig with each other, with my poor husband and children on the sidelines. She wonders (oftentimes out loud, in a stage whisper) why the kids don’t seem to come around much.

Let me be clear, she was not a bad mother to me. In fact, I had the best of her as a mother because I was the oldest child. But somewhere along the line she lost interest. She distanced herself from us as her children. I have realized that I need to let go of trying to deal with her from my role as a daughter. I need to let go of the role of mother I wanted her to be in my life. I have to accept a relationship with her as though she is a woman whose bills need to be paid, who has to be transported to doctor appointments, and who needs me to keep her company once in a while. I am going to try to let the other stuff go. I am going to try to think of her as though there is no history between us, as though she is just an elderly family member I am helping.

The hardest part of all of this is my dread that I may be like this someday. That my kids or my grandchildren may feel like this about me. One of the good things that has come from this is that I am trying extra hard to be a good mom and grandparent, hopefully someone they will care about and want to have around as I get older. I cannot imagine having great-grandchildren in whom I do not take an interest.

All of these feelings have been stomped down over the past year or so, as we have moved my mom, handled her medical issues and gotten her settled. Now after this weekend together, they have bubbled back up to the top. I have been thinking about this all day, and have been close to tears the whole evening. I feel as though I am on the right track now.

But somehow I find myself grieving for a relationship which was never there.

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