When Quakers are going on and on about way opening, my friend Sally will sometimes remind us that a clear No is as useful as a clear Yes. Sometimes even moreso. I have been thinking about Sally's words a fair bit lately.
My mom died two days before Thanksgiving, after a short stay in the ICU. It wasn't entirely unexpected; she had intractable heart problems and we'd known for awhile that one of these days she'd take a turn for the worse and not turn back. Those days in the ICU were a rollercoaster of family drama, both good and bad. On the one hand, my always-sensitive dad took the opportunity to tell me once again, as we stood by my mother's bed together, what a disappointment I'd been to him. On the other hand, my brother and I had a late-night conversation in the hospital cafeteria that was the most honest, intimate, and hilarious talk we'd ever had--a hint of what might have been if we'd grown up together in a different family.
Ever since the doctors told us a couple of years ago that there was nothing more that could be done for my mother's heart, I've been wondering how things would end for us. There are some questions I've carried my whole life: Will my mother ever say she loves me? Will she ever suggest that she is pleased with me, or proud, or even simply, for heaven's sake, approves of me? Will she ever get interested in my life and who I am?
The answer to these questions, it turns out, is No.
That's not the answer I wanted. I never could stop hoping. Since she died, I have been alternately (and sometimes at the same time) hurt, sad, angry, grieved. But I have also been relieved. Those questions, that futile hope, have been a heavy thing to carry and I've been carrying them for almost fifty years. It is, in its way, a gift to be able to set them down at last.
My brother and sister-in-law hosted the remains of the family for lunch on Christmas Eve. At this lunch, my father told me that if we didn't stop treating the Tiny Tornado as a boy, he wanted nothing more to do with me. I'd have gotten up and left right then, but the kids weren't in the room when it happened; they were having a wonderful time with their cousins, and they wanted to stay to open presents. So I cried in the bathroom for awhile, soldiered through, and left as soon as the gifts were unwrapped. "If you change your mind," I told my dad, "give me a call."
My time sense is all distorted; I can't believe that was only five days ago. I spent one day profoundly hurt; one day righteously angry; and then I woke up on the third day and realized that this, too, is a relief. My father has always been rigid, judgmental, cold. He believes that there is one right way to do things; this is, of course, his way. As recently as this summer, when I was forty-six years old, he was still trying to tell me how to live my life. One of the hard questions I've been carrying has been how I would have a relationship with him after my mother's death, since my mother has always been the mediator and the social glue in our little clan.
I have tried so hard for so long to improve my relationship with my parents. I've done it by lowering my expectations; by practicing compassion; by trying to appreciate what they were able to give me even when it fell far short of what I wanted and needed from them. With both my parents, I have struggled with how to love people who don't want to be loved, how to win the approval of people who will never give it. I've treasured crumbs; I've been wronged and I've forgiven, only to be wronged again; I've cried on Raider's shoulder; I've been foolishly optimistic and let myself be disappointed again and again. I have prayed, consulted wise loved ones, looked for hints about how to be a good daughter to my father once my mother was gone.
My father, bless him, has freed me of this burden.
What I have written may sound self-pitying. I don't mean it to. I'm not feeling that way. But I don't see any reason to pretend my parents were other than they were. In many ways, they failed me--and my brother--from the very beginning. I miss my mom very much. I loved her very much. I treasured many things about her.
But I am better off without her. As for my dad--I wish him well. I would have loved him if he had let me.
