Patricia Rose in Exploring the Ad Infinitum-Continuum Galaxy

Relief.
That’s what I feel.

My mom died on January 13th.
It’s finally over.

Snipped from a chat with Tab (one half of my no-longer-together gayboyz):

”i’m okay-ish, i guess. had some time to think about my mom and her life. trying to focus on the good stuff she gave me - which wasn’t much - but there ARE good things. i’ve also been discussing with peter - how she’s just … gone.
she no longer exists.
the energy that was her has been exchanged. her chemical and physical makeup has been dispersed. instead of a big emotional scene that’s all sad and blubbering - i just like to think her atoms are… free. it’s kinda cool.”

She’s no longer suffering and, according to my oldest sister Janet, my mom was suffering - in pain and very frightened to die.

No matter our history and the supreme difficulties we had connecting as mother and daughter, I didn’t want her to suffer. She died a fairly grisly death and I don’t wish that on anyone, ever.

I’ve sifted through quite a bit of the rubble - and this was long before she actually died. I said goodbye to her over two years ago - the last time we moved her, out of her apartment and into assisted living.
Except she didn’t know it was goodbye.

At the end, my (other) sister, Carolyn, asked me if I wanted to call her and say goodbye, over the phone. At that point, my mom was in and out of consciousness - heavily drugged and mostly unaware of reality. Carolyn said she would hold the phone up to my mom’s ear, if I wanted.

(But, with no pressure from her - she was simply giving me the opportunity to choose - without any judgement on her part. Which I really appreciated. I give her a lot of credit. She’s been pretty understanding and supportive. I wasn’t expecting that.)

Because: this was it.

I declined.

I told Carolyn to give our love and we were all thinking of her.
That’s all I could do.
That’s all I wanted to do.

Seems there’s no protocol when a parent dies.

I waffled a bit when her death was imminent.

Am I doing the right thing?
Am I being a horrible monster of a person, daughter, sibling?
Am I punishing my mother for her many mistakes?
Am I being a hateful, immature, unforgiving bitch?
Am I going to be crushed by guilt and regret and despair because I chose not to call her at the end?

This is IT.
No turning back.
Decide.

For the last two+ years, in my day-to-day life and in my mind and in my heart, she was already dead. I had to draw that final line for myself. I could no longer be a part of her life. It wasn’t much of a stretch for me, really. It wasn’t like we’d always been super-close and “best friends” or deeply connected in any real, meaningful, life-altering way. For much of our relationship, I could barely stand to be in the same room with her. We just… weren’t a good match. Personality-wise, politics, values, choices, etc.

Plus, it was just bad timing.

I was an accidental pregnancy - it was 1970, she was 35 and the others (my four older siblings) were all school-aged while she worked full time and continued to battle my father’s insanity.
Plus, it was a difficult pregnancy and a very traumatic birth where both of us nearly died. Emergency surgery and blood transfusions and lying comatose - it would be three full days before she held me for the first time.

We didn’t bond.

Needless to say, the fucking nightmare that was my “childhood” also didn’t help matters. It was abuse and neglect and chaos and chronic instability - there was no room for us to connect. My relationship with her was fraught with harsh judgements and vast misunderstanding. And ridiculous demands and guilt and pressure to perform. And crazy-making manipulation and pouting and disapproval. In addition, she was needy and very self-absorbed/narcissistic and man-crazy and high!stakes!drama! was the norm.

It was exhausting being her daughter.

Later on, she DID redeem herself, in many ways. She was a pretty kick-ass grandmother to my kids. She was very loving and affectionate and helpful - especially when they were wee-littles.
Grandma Pat LOVED her some babies!
It softened me a bit toward her, then.
Her mothering left a lot to be desired but her grand-mothering was pretty good - I’ll give her that.
And for all her insanity, she often loaned me her last 20 dollars or her car and she would take the kids off my hands, in a pinch, no questioned asked. She also tried, in her own limited way, to encourage me and often bragged about me - how smart and creative I was - to anyone who would listen. It rang hollow to me for the most part - but I do know, she was proud of me and wanted good things for me.
And there were times when we laughed together - she would WHOOP with laughter and threaten to pee her pants if I didn’t stop. And we both really loved writing and reading and music and… housewares! Just about every single birthday or Christmas gift from her was new mixing bowls or a serving set or funky dishtowels or a cookbook and my favourite thing of all… my Kitchen Aid mixer - which helped me perfect my totally-fucking-amazing baking skillz, yo.
Thanks, Mom!

And I do have the capacity to feel compassion toward her.
She was a deeply flawed, floundering, complicated woman.
She was tough, scrappy, whip-smart, frustrated, mentally ill.
She made do and did what she could with very little support, encouragement, resources.

We’re actually quite similar in many ways… loath as I am to admit it.

I dunno.
I sustained a lot of damage - and I still carry a (literally) staggering load of it to this day.

Shortly after she died, I randomly came across this article and it helped:

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/02/abusive_parents_what_do_grown_children_owe_the_mothers_and_fathers_who_made.single.html

So, yeah.
She was cremated and if Spring ever comes again, the plan is to gather the siblings and scatter her ashes in Georgian Bay - her favourite place (and mine, too) on the planet.
The kids took it well. I’d kept them in the loop as she declined. They knew she was on her last legs. They have many-many good memories of her and I reminded them that they were free to approach her death in whatever way they felt comfortable. Sean was in contact with her but Jake and Drew chose to step back and just let it happen.
Like me, they’re relieved.

Her death has freed me in a way. The seemingly endless waiting-for-her-to-die part is finally over. I had hoped it would be less painful for her, but it wasn’t. Nothing I could have said or done would have prevented that outcome.
It’s more like: she’s no longer hanging over me like a spectre - I see her more clearly now - now that she’s dead. She was just… this person - who happened to be my mother. I wish it had been different for both of us - that we’d been closer, that we’d been more loving toward each other.
But it wasn’t and we weren’t.

Acceptance of what is, is all I’m left with.

I feel like can finally let it go because she’s finally gone.

What a relief.