So what to say about Mom?
It’s been said you die as you lived, and maybe that’s true, up to a point. I think it was for him. But sometimes, maybe, as you die, you finally reclaim your power…
She had been waiting to die since Dad had passed away. Yet she made her way longer…almost 9 years long. And over those years, she evolved. And became her own person even as she slowly declined.
She did surprise me with how she created her own life and routines when he wasn’t there to push her around anymore. And she didn’t fold. Maybe she just finally picked up where she had left off before she married him.
While there had been painful years of that frozen detente between us, those last 2 years as she grew closer to death were the best we’d ever had. And it was in her death process that maybe we reached some connection. At the very least, for me, being there with her through her death was a gift.
There is a sadness, though, too, an ache for me that has always been there, and will now remain forever – her “absence.” Time has run out now to ever know that mother’s unconditional love. And trapped within her battered psyche were the answers to questions I was never allowed to ask, and that she would never answer.
Her answers…the treasure trove I have longed for my whole life are now lost to me forever…and probably were to her as well toward the end. So there are questions I will never have HER answers to. And I will never know HER thoughts on so many things.
Now, it’s been said that beginnings come from endings. Her end birthed a whole new phase of healing, growth, and learning. It birthed much deeper therapy, processing, wrestling with who she was, and what I felt about her. And it birthed my need to write this book.
So, after her death, after the relief and sorrow, the earthquake arrived, flushing out all the ghosts I still needed to confront….
The Undiscovered Country
In the next section, The Undiscovered Country, I will share that healing journey and the things it has been teaching and giving to me. There are many areas I will speak of, but one will include “Mom,” which has been the source of so much pain and issues throughout life. Regarding Mom, I will reflect on:
The history:
- She had been bludgeoned as a person by decades of domestic violence and emotional abuse at the hands of my father.
- He further betrayed her by sexually and physically abusing me for 28 years, something she had to “not see” to survive, something that nearly destroyed me, and something that did destroy any healthy mother-daughter bond.
- She could not, or would not, protect me.
- We spent a lifetime struggling to love each other amidst an ocean of unresolved emotions and pain that were locked behind a wall of silence.
- And in spite of all that…I loved her. “Mommy” is a primal bond.
Just a few of the questions on my mind:
- Why was it possible to hold the pain of that life history, still have empathy and love, and care for her as she died?
- What did that process teach…about both of us?
- Why could I forgive her, but not him?
- And ultimately, is there meaning and redemption in any of it?
- For that matter…what is love, truth, hope, and redemption?
Soul Mosaic 
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