The Day After Mother’s Day

So, yesterday was Mother’s Day. It’s not an easy day for me, never has been. My mother and I definitely had, to say it kindly, a fraught relationship. For years, I’ve been so envious, jealous even, of friends who have great relationships with theirs. To the point where on those mother-related holidays, I didn’t want to hear about anyone else’s mom, or the fun things they were doing as they grew into an adult relationship.
As a kid, I mostly felt like the parent. I answered the phone calls, accompanied both parents to doctor’s appointments to translate, explained the mysteries of letters from utility companies or local government, basically whatever needed to be done. One of the earliest phone calls I remember taking, probably around the age of five, was to tell the electric company that the check was in the mail.
My father was easy going, affectionate, funny, comfortable in his skin. My mother was angry, jealous, quick to anger, and always ready to blame her deafness for everything that went wrong. She made things difficult at every turn, my high school graduation, my wedding, holidays, pretty much every life event. She wasn’t much of a hugger, rarely paid compliments, and whenever we complained about anything we were told we weren’t the only people in the world with problems.
Fast forward to my father’s several bouts with cancer, which he took with his usual aplomb. My mother was angry that they couldn’t do all the things she wanted to do. When he died, she was angry about that. She alienated all their friends and made up friendships with total strangers she met at McDonald’s or the gas station. Needless to say, my patience with my mother was pretty thin. But. And there’s always a but. She was still my mother and was bewildered by the world. So I continued to take her to doctor appointments, move to assistant living, took her to lunch every week. I used to tell myself I wasn’t doing it for her but for my father, who always loved her and took care of her. For my grandmother, who loved my mother with every fiber of her being and whom I loved as fiercely. I did it for my father’s mother, who despite having been dealt some bad cards of her own, was as caring, kind and gracious as any human could expect. And my father’s sister, who even though my mother treated her horribly, continued to show my mother nothing but affection and care. In fact, she was with my mother in hospice the day she died.
Those three women, my two grandmothers and my aunt, I always considered my ‘real’ mothers. They taught me everything. Other than some things I learned in the girls’ bathroom and on the playground. I even exorcised my feelings about my mother by making the protagonist’s wife in my book a thoroughly unlikable woman. But. As I was writing this contrary character, I kept saying to myself, but she still has to be sympathetic. There are reasons for her to be this way. She still has value as a human being. As a woman who struggled with an uncommunicative father, deafness, discrimination, and a lot of anger. So I did. I gave her some awful character traits, but I still tried to make a reader understand the why.
My mother’s been gone for almost five years. And maybe that’s the length of time needed to process, to understand, to forgive. When she died, my biggest sense of loss was that we would now never have the kind of relationship I dreamed of having with her. And I was angry at her for not being the mother I thought I deserved. The kind of mother my friends had. Five years later, I have come to a place where I can, truthfully, say I love my mother. She did the best she could to be a mom with the tools she had and carrying the baggage she did. She was fond of telling people she kept us very clean when we were little. It might not mean much in the big scheme of things, but in her world, it meant that she was doing the best mom thing she could. The best mom thing she knew how to do. And she often used to feed my brother and I a steak or chicken when she and my dad had fried egg sandwiches because that’s all they could afford. So feeding and bathing she did really well. And that’s good enough for me.
So on this Mother’s Day (or the day after), I say a million thanks to my two grandmothers and my aunt who made up the best triumvirate of mothers you could ask for. And to my mother, sending you much love wherever you are. Thanks for the baths, the pistachio cake and doing the very best you knew how.