A year ago in May, I took another stab at having direct contact with my mother after agonizing for years. She had just turned 87.
I realized my communication skills had greatly improved along with my ability to manage difficult people. In the 33 years since we spoke, I’d talked to thousands of employees, many of them feeling victimized and wanting relief. Other than managing my own emotions, my mother was no different and in all likelihood I could handle her. I got her current phone number from my brother. Anticipating possible responses to my call, I was fully prepared if she was hurtful to say, “Do you really want it to go this way? It’s your choice.”
I set up my iPad to record while I called her on speaker phone. I wanted to record the conversation because I might not have another and wanted analyze it if it went off track. She answered with a simple, “Yes.”
What does one say after several elapsed decades? “Hi, Mom. Its Joceile.”
“Oh, hi,” and we were off like we’d never stopped speaking except she was nicer to me. I guess the certainty that I could disappear forever was motivating. She’ll always be on probation with me. It’s possible she knows that. We’ve never discussed why we haven’t talked since 1989. Certainly, she’s never asked. My standard for any interactions with her is that she not be mean to me or say mean things about my grandparents.
Remarkably, she hasn’t been mean. We’ve confirmed that neither one of us has any wish to hurt the other. If one of us needs to change the subject, we both have agreed to do so. The passage of so much time is palpable. Neither of us says it shouldn’t have happened. For me, it had to happen so I could begin to heal. I could not have contact with her and maintain my path toward mental health. I don’t know what it meant for her.
I’ve spoken with her a dozen times and recorded the calls. She repeats herself. She dwells on the past with an emphasis on the way she’s been wronged but is easily redirected. However, facilitating the conversations is tiring. She talks continuously and doesn’t ask questions about me. The calls stretch longer than I plan. I still crave the contact but it is an empty calorie. I still take a hit. If she asks me a question, I’m allowed a sentence or two before she’s off again as if I’d never spoken.
I’ve had her email address and established a unique email for her to use with me so our correspondence doesn’t pop up in my feed unless I purposely check it. My contact with her is of my choosing. She has a landline and hasn’t asked for my phone number. Primarily, we’ve fallen into an email only relationship. It’s less exhausting for me.
I have asked her every question I can think of about her life and our family history. I’ve mined as much as possible but it comes through her filter with uncertain reliability and difficult interpretation. I sent one interesting email story to my daughter who responded, “I’d love to know about this so maybe you can interpret it for me someday.” I looked at the paragraph. I understood it but I hadn’t realized it was in my mother’s code. My daughter hadn’t grown up with her. I wrote a translation as best I could so Alex could have the story.
My mother’s most meaningful activities appear to be praying to god, shopping at Value Village, and talking to dead people. She has visitations most notably by her mother. I don’t begrudge her these. She has very little that gives her joy.
In July of last year, I drove the 55 miles to her house for a visit knowing it could be my last. In the past, she was a hoarder. A clean one, but I had to follow trails between stacks of items to get from room to room. She’s lived in a single wide mobile home for nearly 40 years. Remarkably, her extraneous belongings are gone. I didn’t know hoarders could recover. She’s been giving things away for years to people she thought would appreciate them. She can tell chapter and verse of any recipients that didn’t appreciate an item with irritation. Her house is spare, neat, comfortable, and as open as possible in a mobile. I’d forgotten that the mobile was pink, her favorite color, and any optional accessories are also in multiple shades of pink.
The remaining physical reminders of her life were carefully curated. The very few displayed pictures are of her mother and father, my father, brother, Zack, and I when we were young, and Zack’s children. She’s eliminated her two subsequent husbands, my daughter, my Granny, who was her stepmother, and anyone else who she believed wronged her. She’s full of wrongs.
Visiting her did enable me to see how prominent my brother is in her life. This is not a bad thing. He has always been the first person she calls when she needs help. He always shows up. It did help explain why I didn’t feel very important to her. Next to her bed is a picture I drew of my brother when we were both young. It’s actually better than I’d remembered. My tiny signature is at the bottom but nothing more to reference me. There’s very little to be seen in her house related to me. This realization helps me understand my place in our family. Boys mattered. Girls didn’t. My grandparents were the exception.
She frequently remarks that she can’t wait to die but that even god won’t have her. I don’t know if this is an invitation for me to protest or simply a statement of her belief. Regardless, I don’t engage. I can’t alleviate her suffering. I do recognize the old pull to try to help her make her life better. I’m old enough now to know it’s a losing proposition. People like my mother are bottomless pits of need. She never felt loved and cared for as a child. Only one person can fix it. It’s not me. My mother has never been able to face her demons. Death will come. She’ll meet it like she met life—angrily and resentfully. It’s her business. My love for her doesn’t change that.
I’ve sent her postcards of my lake pictures over the years. She says she thoroughly enjoys them. Now, my photos make up the bulk of my emails to her. She responds in enthusiastic gratitude. I try and send as much pink as I can. In her world, there’s no such thing as too much pink. I send her whatever I’ve taken every couple days. It’s an act of love that doesn’t hurt me.
Recently, her email responses weren’t getting back to me. I don’t send more pictures until I get appreciation from the last ones. My brother helped her figure out the problem.
I wrote, “Zack says your email is working but you haven’t responded to my last two. I’m not sure what’s up. I’ll send more pictures when I know you are getting my emails.” She always types in caps.
“OH PHOOEY! THEY ARE MESSING WITH MY EMAIL. AND I CAN ONLY TRY. STOP WORRYING AND SEND ME PICTURES…PLEASE!!!!”
I sent the next batch and added, “Please understand that part of my reward for sharing pictures is hearing from you. Without that, I’m disappointingly unrewarded. I don’t get my treat. So, we have to keep working on this.”
“I NEED YOUR PICTURES LIKE YOU NEED MY IMPUT [sic].”
Her tone is demanding and disrespectful of my clear request for parity. I don’t need input. I need appreciation for my thoughtfulness. Our needs are not the same. She’s saying to me in effect, “I still only care what I want. Not what you need.” I needed her to be my mother because I was a child and not her equal.
It’s hard to believe that even just sending her pictures is risky and comes at a personal cost. How much cost can I tolerate? I’m constantly evaluating it. It’s hard to look objectively at such a complicated personal relationship. It’s hard to put into words the terrible lifetime of pain it’s caused.
She’s paranoid and a believer in many ridiculous conspiracies. She’s not new to this. When I was young, I remember hearing quietly delivered pronouncements on “what they’re planning to do to us.” The first was an alleged question on the Census about how many doors the house had. She was certain they wanted to know how many soldiers it would require to cover our exits. I was always a skeptic. Fortunately due to the previous president’s fall from grace and her probationary status, she’s able to resist her political soapbox and willingly stops. This is another essential requirement for my tolerance in communicating with her.
She has aged just like she’s lived her life, bitter and regretful. The other day, I realized we were given much of the same hardships in life, though no one’s hardships are ever quite the same. She was born in 1935. Her mental illness is different. She appeared not to have childhood champions or maybe she couldn’t respond to any she had. Her life wasn’t wasted. She did have my brother and I. It could have been much better had she gotten mental health treatment and taken responsibility for her life. But my people didn’t do that sort of thing.
She’s a wounded animal, reactive and cornered. I understand now that there is nothing I can do to make it better. At 12, I pushed, cajoled, nurtured, supported, held, and cheerled, to the detriment of my own mental health, all in an attempt to make her life and mine safer. At 65, I’m quite clear that not only was that an unreasonable, inappropriate task, it was never mine to begin with. She was on her own then as she is now. She’s a pathetic creature. I never want to emulate her. Through the last 50 odd years, I’ve recovered and thrived. All my poor mother can do is look forward to death with deep remorse. She’s made the choice to follow this path over and over and over again. All I can do is send her pictures.
I’m so grateful to have learned she’s not mine to fix. As a child, I tried to fix her so I could have a better mom. Children don’t understand it’s not their job to fix their parents. We’re always on the hunt for nurturing which is why as adults we’ll take it wherever we can find it with potentially disastrous results.
Do I blame her for not interrupting the violence and abuse in our lives and contributing her own to me. Am I mad at her? Of course, I’m mad at her for not taking care of me and also for not stepping up and dealing with her awful life. Her life was brutal. Sadly, her old age is no better. I feel sorry for her. I probably pity her for her deeply imbedded pathos.
When I saw her, she told me she has terrible regrets and shame for her behaviors and all she can do is pray to keep her mind from dwelling on them. I know it’s her form of meditation. It would never occur to her to make amends. I did not ask her what these regrets or behaviors were. I’m certain they aren’t the ones I’d identify and would further hurt and appall me. She’s never owned her abuse and neglect in ensuring my safety. I no longer need her to. I’ve taken full responsibility for ensuring my own safety and the lack of abusiveness in my life. It was hard won and I wouldn’t hand her back the reins for love nor money.
It gives me a bit of peace to have made this long full circle back into contact with my mother. I can’t not love her and am now fully inoculated from her hurtfulness. I have but to step away. My mother has no recourse. She’s just waiting for someone to turn off the lights. I can’t control my death but I can certainly control my response to life. When it’s finally over for her, I hope she rests in peace.
* * * * * * *
As I completed this essay, my mom sent an unsolicited email rant about the state of the world, Biden turning this country communist, and all the other extreme right wing tropes. I could only agree with two thoughts in the message. The first, “I KNOW BEING A DEMOCRAT MAKES WHAT I AM SAYING AWFUL, BUT DO NOT JUDGE THE PLAY TIL THE LAST ACT…AND I DO NOT FEEL IT LOOKING GOOD…” And the final line, “OKAY, NOW YOU KNOW WHY YOU DO NOT WANT TO TALK TO ME……. MUCH LOVE ALWAYS, MOTHER.”
Actually, I have never forgotten why I didn’t want to talk to her. I have always said that my mother does not wear well. People like her initially but after a few weeks begin to see the impossible untreated mentally ill person she is. She’s never able to pretend for long. One hand offers me an olive branch while she soundly pummels me with the other fist when I reach for it. It gives me whiplash. To take care of myself, I can’t afford to focus on the olive branch and ignore the fist. The fist is just too destructive. One thing I have learned over the years is that when someone gives me a very big push it can often be a sign that they need me to step back. It’s the twelfth month of our renewed contact. I will take a break now. She’ll be 88 next month.
Reporting from Life’s front.
Joceile
4/10/23
[Pictures: Mom and I at 15 in 1973. Mom and I in 2022.]
