When Grief Won't Come

A friend of mine knocked on my door with some sad news. Her mother had died.

As I sat beside her on the couch, I felt her sadness like an embrace. It wasn't just the tears that imparted her pain. She seemed to deflate before my eyes, as if something that kept her upright and moving forward was no longer there.

She left, I hope feeling at least a little better with the chance to let her emotions run the halls of our long friendship, I thought about my friend's heaving sadness at the loss of her mother. And I thought about the relief I felt at the loss of mine.

How do you handle the death of someone who is impossible to love? Certainly, there is gratitude for raising us after my father died when I was three. But finding memories of the good times is like picking through a box of broken glass.

What I do remember is a strikingly beautiful woman who could charm, but a woman who was immature, self-involved, critical, jealous and competitive. She was a woman with a refined talent for darkening the brightest moments.

There was the time I told her that the love of my life and I were going to be married. Her response: "I'll believe that when I see it." After returning from a lunch with a cousin, she went on about the cousin's daughter earning her Ph.D. I asked if she had mentioned that I had been accepted to a very prestigious grad school to which I had applied. She said "No, we really didn't talk about you."

She delighted in pitting me and my sisters against each other: a word here, a broken confidence there, enlivened by a few mean-spirited distortions. She managed to keep us all in her orbit, without ever drawing close to each other. It's a distance that remains today.

It's said that grandchildren are the beautiful thank-you gift you get for making it through your own children's teenage years. One response to my 11-month-old son was: "Are you sure he's not too fat?" As our children and my sisters' children arrived and grew older, trips to grandma's house were never a time to show off first steps and funny tricks. They were just a responsibility.

Over the years, these moments - the hurts, disappointments, the slights, the anger - accumulated like deep, wet snow on an unstable roof.

And then she was sick. And then she was gone.

Grief is good. It's honest and cleansing. It's the thing that allows you to move on. You want the sadness, and you want it to linger. But sometimes, moving on is just too damned easy.

Comments

[Owlygirl]

How strong and wonderful that you can look at it from a safe, emotional distance. I'm sorry you went through that and happy you withstood it. Thank you for sharing this with us. It will trigger a lot of feelings for not a few people. My best to you now.

[joeytomatoes]

Excellent writing. You stated exactly how I feel when my adopted father died recently and exactly how will feel when my adopted mother dies.

I choose to use the 'easy button' and will not waste one more moment of my life seeking their approval and running the tapes thru my head over and over.

Well said.

[nkfire]

This is what happens when you have a Borderline Personality Disordered mother. As a therapist, i see the adult children of these parents who lure them back in with a sweet word just to trap them back into the spiders web to abuse them some more. what always amazes me is that the adult children stay loyal and even make these obligatory visits rather than just divorcing them completely.

[midtown]

Peggy,

I agree with Clinton. And I like the snow analogy because at least it melts and feeds new spring flowers, like your kids.

Some people are not meant to be mothers. They're meant to be single and be comfortable in that. Our society doesn't allow it, however. When was the last time you EVER heard of a bunch of married women honoring their single female friends with the equivalent of a shower (baby or wedding)? When was the last time you EVER heard of a bunch of married women honoring their single female friends by helping them once a yea doing the things around the house that their husbands and kids do for them?

Never.

[brooklyncitizen]

Well respecting the feelings as they are is important rather than having an expectation.

Grief is a funny thing and our parents' passing is a difficult thing. Forgiveness is about one's healing more than being about the one that has wronged us.IT is good practice and is easier the more we practice it. Nelson Mandela's writes about forgiveness in a very profound way.

[Steamboater]

I felt the same way about my father, although by the time he died he was a vegetable and couldn't hurt me any more. I felt nothing when I visited him at the nursing home. Growing up, I was constantly called a sissy because I didn't like baseball or any sports. I also heard his constant refrain of, "When you grow up, join the army; it will make a man of you". Needless to say that by the time I did grow up, my self-esteen was at zero. Maybe somehow he suspected I would grow up gay and it seethed in him. He was a periodic alcoholic too and would chase me with a knife and I would have to slam the bedroom door closed and hold it tight so he wouldn't come in. I witnessed him beating my mother twice. Once he really tried to kill me. I couldn't talk about this for many years and haven't even spoken to my sister about it. There were some good times but the terror times were what keeps in my mind. It still haunts me to this day and I'm 63. I suppose his behavior would be excused by some because he was ill. I don't feel that way. He impacted terribly on my life and I don't forgive him. When he died, it was a relief.

[singermuse]

Anyone out there with a "bad father" story?
All these responses seem to demonize mothers.
I know it goes both ways. But maybe it's because mothers (whether because they wanted to or were societally forced to and then never had the training for) are the ones that children are most exposed to. Too many women in the last few generations were "forced" to become mothers because that was what was expected of them and then they did a crappy job of it. Not every woman would be happy being or should become a mother. Nor should every man become a father, but that is what has been expected. No surprise that some "flubbed" it.

[akhmatova]

I shall store this piece for when the day comes and I learn of my mother's death, because it expresses everything that I already feel. She is still 'alive' but her manner, behavior and ways became so painful that I had to cut ties for my own well-being. I admire that you were able to have children and be different. I did not manage that part.

[Arithrianos]

In my religion grief is regarded as a symptom of egoism and lack of unconditional love for the dead. Not that it is abnormal at all, since most people suffer under the tyranny of egoism and lack of unconditional love. Really mourning is about loss of what you never rightfully had in the first place. None of us is owed any more time with anyone at all, but of course we assume we are, so we grieve our "loss". Since you don't seem to have the idea of "loss", there is not much to grieve.

[dyannne]

I agree 100 percent with Clinton. Thank you for writing the truth. I imagine many can relate. I know you're not the only one!

My mother was terribly critical of me, especially in later years. The only thing I ever did right was leave my husband whom she hated. And she didn't like her grandchildren either. She would say the nicest things about her step-grandchildren, but my boys, well their hair was too long and that was enough to withhold her affection. She would say the ugliest things to me. I remember crying for hours after one of her visits. I learned eventually to make our visits really short. She lived several states away and when I saw her once a year it was over dinner in a restaurant for an hour. My mother was a model of what I didn't want to be to my children, and I've succeeded. Three of my four children live near me and I see them all the time. My fourth and I email and call and visit now and then. Our mothers were the losers. Sad but true.

[karrezza]

Well, thats my fear. That this is where I will be at my mom's passing. Grandkids were cherished from a distance, tripped and slapped in person for being kids. To be kept out of the way so adults could talk and drink.
Accomplishments of us were cherished on fleeting occasions in emails, never in person. Now all 4 kids strain to keep healthy relationships amongst eachother while she is the internal link of hate between us all, with all the pitting against each other. I take away from this article that I am not alone in this experience and have comfort in that.

[Clinton]

You know, you're quite fortunate to be able to honestly recount the truth. Imagine how it would be for you if you were too afraid to face it. And the fact that you are willing to write this is to your credit.