On the Passing of My Mother

I believe I've mentioned before that I ran away from home when I was 19 years old. I lived full-time at my mother's house at that point, as my father had moved overseas to teach ESL in China. For the vast majority of my life, I loved my mother fiercely. She was my favorite person in the whole world. My best friend. My mommy. She was who and what I wanted when I was feeling bad. She stood up to my dad and his 2nd wife on my behalf when things one or both of them said or did got my 5-year-old self into trouble. She was the reason I read at a 6th grade level in Kindergarten, and why I have always had a deep fascination with older men and romance movies. At some point though, something shifted.

I have memories very early on of her laughing at me. Of her getting angry because I wouldn't leave her alone. She dug at me for years for getting 3rd place in the 4th grade spelling bee.

Shortly after she and my father divorced, she met a man with whom she had an on-again/off-again relationship over the course of 14 years. He was an alcoholic Vietnam Veteran who absolutely hated me, but I still mourned his death years ago, because I saw him more than I saw my own father. My mother's staunch defense of how he treated both me and her, and her rationale for staying in a relationship with him were the primary reasons why I left.

In Junior High, she threatened to commit me for practicing Wicca, but then turned around and bought me a full set of Lucinda Bassett tapes when I came home from Colorado and told her I thought I had depression. In high school, she hit on my boyfriends. I began to discover that she was homophobic, and when I came out at 16 years old, and also introduced her to my bisexual boyfriend and gay best friend, her reactions to all three were shocking, abhorrent, and the last thing I ever expected to hear from the woman whose love I relied on the most. I'm ashamed to admit that I let her words come out of my mouth to the extent that I lost my best friend, before I realized just exactly how poisonous those words were. I wanted my mother to be proud of me. I wanted to be a good child. I just didn't realize until I was a legal adult that there was nothing I could do to make her happy.

I remember for years, she'd tousle my hair and call me 'Mommy's little tax deduction' as if it were funny; the more she did it, the less I laughed. She made me watch Mommie Dearest and told me over and over how lucky I was that she wasn't like that. The neighbors and mom's boyfriend's son became my de facto primary caretakers, like some inner-city version of Three Men and a Baby, except with a 9-19 year old, 3 men, and a mother who was atrocious with money.

We lived in a beautiful house, but over time, she found herself in over her head, and it got to the point of damn near being condemned. 13 cats overran the 2nd floor, and I still can't stand the smell of ammonia 15 years later. I can still smell the mildew and mold in the basement from when the septic system backed up. I can still see the overturned Caffeine Free Pepsi and Dr. Pepper cans, junk mail, and knocked-over ashtrays littering the living room floor. I can still remember the night all the utilities got turned off at the same time, and we held a candlelit tarot reading in the dining room. I remember days where the neighbor would carry over buckets of water so we could wash in the sink and flush the toilet. Thank goodness for my aunt.

My mom missed my choir competitions, but my aunt didn't. When I needed a safe place to stay, my aunt would take me in for a little while. My dad would pay the utilities up for a few months, but he knew that even as bad as that house was, I didn't want to live with him, either. I wanted my mom to figure shit out. Get her shit together. Be my best friend again. The older I got though, the more we grew apart.

We had a window seat in the dining room, with storage drawers underneath. Inside, I would find letters she wrote. I couldn't tell if they were to me or her boyfriend, but they were about how unhappy she was, and that she wanted things to change. And yet nothing ever did.

The best memory I have of her was when her boyfriend was away in Florida on business, and she let me have my N64 early for Christmas. We stayed up all night playing together. Just the two of us. She was so happy, and it made me happy not just to be able to spend time alone with her, but to see her happier than I'd seen her in a long time, as well.

I could go on, and I'm sure over time, my brain is going to take me through a lot more memories. It breaks my heart that every relationship I ever remember her being in was an abusive one. The last partner she was with died shortly after she did, and their relationship cut her off completely from the rest of her family.

From what we gather, her only legacy is the garden she dug at our old house, and the fence she built almost entirely by herself, which is still standing around the edges of the property. Otherwise, she leaves behind family members who are angry and confused by her actions. So many of us tried so many times to reach out to her and let her know that she deserved better than the men she kept falling for. Instead, she stuck staunchly to men who may have kept a roof over her head, but didn't treat her well while she was living under it, and certainly didn't treat me well at all. Eventually, we all just had to distance ourselves and be content that she was hopefully as happy as she claimed she was, in order to keep her and her partner from turning our worlds upside down.

As helpful as I've always tried to be to people, the person I always wanted to help the most was my mother. I wanted more than anything to help her open her eyes and see what she had right in front of her already. I wanted to laugh with her and play with her, and actually be the daughter she only described when she was talking about me in public, when I wasn't even around. I wanted her to believe that she was worthy of better treatment from men, and a better quality of life. I failed. All my life, the one person I wanted to help the most, I failed over and over again. While I can't say as though I miss her, since I was afraid to enter the state of Ohio for fear of ever seeing her again and getting pulled back into her twisted version of reality, I do miss what should've been. I miss what I deserved from her. Instead of random girls from choir doing my hair and makeup for concerts, it should've been my mother, but instead, she just insulted how I looked. Instead of my aunt coming to my competition, it should've been my mother, but she was too busy cashing a lottery ticket and going on a shopping spree with her boyfriend. Instead of helping me bake cookies for bake sales, I baked everything by myself while she slept on the couch (having been kicked out of her own bed by her drunk boyfriend) and then I cried in the bathroom when everyone said my cookies were gross.

It is largely because of my mother that I am staunchly in support of educating people about what it's like to be in an abusive relationship. I am staunchly in support of better healthcare and better mental health services in this country. I am staunchly in support of a better welfare system, where a single mom can work and afford childcare that doesn't force her to make a choice between putting food on the table or leaving her child in safe hands. I am staunchly in support of early detection of childhood disabilities. My mother needed help. I can tell that she did try to reach out at one point when I was younger, but nothing came of it. I was luckier. I got out. I had hoped that word would get back to her, and she'd see what kind of life was possible for her. Instead, her health and grip on reality seemed to decline further. She pushed everyone away, and then tried to act like nothing happened. We'd tried to tell her we could all see the type of relationship she was getting herself into, but she wouldn't hear it. From anyone.

I don't even want to think about what her life was like alone all those years in that house with him. I remember the night of their first date, when she came home in tears, talking about how weird and creepy he was. No one knows what it was he used to get inside her head, but it was stronger than all of us combined. She was so devoted to him, she nearly let him cost me my firstborn child, seemingly so they could continue to care for me as if I were still a child myself, all the while collecting child support and tax returns, even though I was 21 at the time.

There will always be a part of me that hates her. A large part of me heaved a massive sigh of relief tonight, realizing that she and her partner can't hurt me anymore. Can't hurt any of us anymore. I hate that my children never had a relationship with her because I couldn't let her hurt them too. I hate that she conned me for so long. I hate that she never apologized for any of it, and blamed me for not being submissive to her partner as a father figure.

I know that when someone dies, some folks say 'May their memory be eternal;' in her case, I want all memories of her to finally fall off the shoulders of everyone who's left behind. While I hope her soul has finally found peace, and that she comes back as someone or something that gets to live a healthy life, I'm glad I was able to break away from her and show the world what a parent should be like. I don't always succeed either, and I do sometimes hear her voice come out of my mouth and see her face when I look in the mirror, but I have a better relationship with my kids than she had with me, and I learned how to identify an abusive relationship and set standards for myself as well. I also apologize to my kids when I mess up, and I've NEVER let a utility get shut off. I may not have made her proud, but I thrived in spite of her, and because of the way my life was growing up, I grew and learned my own definition of right and wrong.

I know that there are people out there who knew a very different version of her, and for those folks, I can only wonder how long that would've lasted. While I'm happy that there are people out there whose lives she made a positive impact on, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge all those lives she did not have a positive impact on. My only remaining hope is that all the animals she regarded so highly received better treatment than her family did, and found good, loving homes.