Thinking about my mom.
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive October 2007:
Thinking about my mom.
It's ten years this month since I lost her. I've been thinking about her - especially since her sister just celebrated her 90th birthday (bless her heart). I've talked with my aunt a couple of times in the past few weeks, and come away feeling so blessed that of the two sisters I got the one I did for a mom.
Someone recently sent me an e-mail asking for recipes for a church cookbook. I had fun and pleasant memories going through recipes mom had saved for years and remembering special food she fixed for us.
I'm long past the grieving/mourning stage, and my memories of my mom are all good ones and sometimes very funny. I know I will miss her the rest of my life. I can't tell you how many times a month I hear my mother's voice in the back of my head or coming out of my mouth. I was truly blessed to have her and especially to have had the six years we lived together before she died.
(If you look at my profile, she is in the wedding picture in 1984, 3-1/2 years before she died.)
Ginny, I so understand this. This past August marked 10 years since I lost my mother. Her parents outlived her, they have both passed just recently. So I have become phone buddies with my only aunt. Although I love her, I do feel like i got the best as my mother.
I do wish one day I would get past the grieving period, but in reality she just missed so much of my life. I do mourn that my children really never got to know her. However it changed my dad into a really wonderful grandfather and both ladies he has remarried are/were very good to my kids (one of them died too). So I do see that through her death good things have happened, but I don't know given a choice I would go back 
I guess you never get pass the mourning stage. My mil, was like a second mother to me, even though sometimes she drove me straight up a wall. She was just like Edith Bunker. I miss her so much now, I keep thinking this will pass...but it's not. Going anon, but it's probably really easy to figure out who I am.
Y'all are so lucky to have had a mother that loved you.I wasn't so lucky.When I was very little, I felt like she loved me.But as the years went on, she pulled farther and farther away from me. When I was little, she kissed me good night ,and seemed like a sweet woman. I soon learned she wasn't all that sweet, just quiet and shy.When I turned 5, she pretty much emotionally abandoned me...and I've never gotten over it.Life went on...way too many things to talk about now...Right before she died, she had alsheimer really bad. I sat up at the hospital over night with her.She stayed awake, talking and mumbling to herself. I thought this would be a good time, my last and only time, to "visit" my childhood thru her memories ( alsheimer victims have no short term memory,but,sometimes they have good long term memories, for a while).So I asked her some questions ,nothing serious, and all of a sudden she went off!! She said "life was never the same after that last **** child came along!" She was talking about me !! She went on to say that my daddy did this and that, because of me.My dad was a drunk, which was MUCH worse than an alcoholic.But,the part that hurt the worse was when she said" by the time I found out I was THAT WAY, it was too late to do anything about it !!!!!And that was in 1953 !!!! So, ladies ,I truely envy you all. I'm glad that y'all have such good memories.I wish your mothers could still be here with y'all, but be very thankful for for the love that she gave you  Sorry I spilled this out like this
(((HUGS)))
{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}} to all who have lost their moms.
I've been thinking about my own mom a lot recently. It's been less than 3 years since Mom died, and sometimes I still feel very raw inside, and others, it seems like she's been gone a long time.
I think about my mom a lot, too, and she's still alive. I have thought about what I will do when she dies. My parents have been married for 41 years. What on earth will my dad do if she goes first? She went into the hospital for minor surgery a couple of years ago. She was in the hospital for 3 days, and he was at a loss without her.
Ginny, when I saw the title of this post, I thought maybe you wrote it. (((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))))))
I understand, Lisa. One of the things I've always been grateful for is that my mom and I talked a lot, and just a couple of nights before she died we had one of those long talks in which we talked about some happy memories and each expressed what we cherished about the other and how much we meant to each other. I have learned that it is very important to take every opportunity you have to tell someone how much they mean to you, even in little ways. I think it must be truly awful to lose someone you cherish and carry with you all the things you "might have said".
Yes, I was very blessed in my parents. We were poor, and I didn't know how poor until I was 16 or 17, but it seemed like we always had enough of what mattered and my parents worked very hard at building a good, happy family. My dad came from a very dysfunctional family, and my mom's mother was a nasty person almost all of her life and did nasty things to my mom (nothing physical, but nasty, sneaky things). So my parents decided that since they didn't have families they liked, they would build a family they could be happy with, and they did. It could so easily have gone the other way - a lot of people who have unhappy relationships with their birth families carry that over into the next generation. So I am and was very lucky, and very blessed. I am also blessed in that I have three fine sons who care about me and like me, so I have been lucky enough to make enough of the right choices and to carry on the task my parents started.
Don't think for a minute that I haven't made a lot of wrong choices - I have. And had a reasonable share of hard times. But on the whole, I have been blessed in my life.
I think a lot of it came from something a psychiatrist said to me when I was in therapy for the first time for depression. I was complaining about my parents, and he asked me if he thought my parents had deliberately tried to make me unhappy. I thought for a few seconds, and said, no, of course not. Well then, he asked me, why are you still blaming them? That was my first lesson that the past was the past, I couldn't change it, and I should put it behind me and stop clinging to it. I know many people have very painful pasts, and I cannot tell you how sorry I am for people who weren't as lucky as I was. But I do know that as long as I carry around my anger or resentment against someone or something that happened to me, I can't get past it and get on with my life. One saying that has been very valuable to me is that hating someone is giving them rent-free room in your head (and your life) - which seems rather pointless when one thinks about it.
I was complaining about my parents, and he asked me if he thought my parents had deliberately tried to make me unhappy. I thought for a few seconds, and said, no, of course not. Well then, he asked me, why are you still blaming them? That was my first lesson that the past was the past, I couldn't change it, and I should put it behind me and stop clinging to it.
Ginny, do you realize how wise that is? MANY people never get to that point in life. I carried a lot of that same sort of baggage - mine was anger and resentment - towards my parents and our upbringing - or lack of, as my sisters and I decided we were feral children - we were left alone in the wild (suburbia) to raise ourselves. My Mom was an alcoholic, and after she and my Dad divorced, she really couldn't have been LESS involved in our lives. True, she went to work every day, she provided a roof over our heads, food for us to eat, clothes on our backs - we certainly were not well off, but we had all the necessities. But she was just emotionally *not there*.
I carried that around for many years and vowed I would NOT be that kind of parent to my kids. So I went overboard, as is typical in any adult child who feels their upbringing was lacking in some way, and went to every single parent/teacher conference, every single open house at school, every awards ceremony, every baseball game, dance exhibition/competition/revue, every talent show, etc. As much as my Mom wasn't involved, I was determined to be totally involved.
Then when she got sick around 2000, I had to start seeing her as she was. And since she's been gone I've really come to terms with everything.
Your last comment - One saying that has been very valuable to me is that hating someone is giving them rent-free room in your head (and your life) - which seems rather pointless when one things about it - is so true.
My story in a nutshell is this: My mom had emotional issues - apparently she was molested when she was young - she came from a family of alcoholics, she married my Dad, presumably to escape her life, HE came from a really weird background - his own mother had her own set of phobias and fetishes, and together, they made the worst match possible. Two highly intelligent people with wonderful educations and seemingly all the potential and promise in the world - married, had 3 kids and things quickly went downhill. My Dad was a doctor, he was gone a lot, we lived several states away from my Mom's family, she missed *home*, she couldn't handle the pressure, she drank, they fought, they split up for good when I was 11 and she moved us back to Louisiana. She had to become a self supporting single parent and she couldn't parent the way kids NEEDED parenting.
So for years we all carried that around - resentment that we didn't have the Mom we SHOULD have, or wanted. I got past my anger at her and directed it at my deceased Dad and my grandparents, believing he, as a doctor, and they, as her parents, should have gotten her help for her problems. But then I realized, back in the 50's and 60's, mental issues/illnesses/abuse/molestation were all things that were kept secret; help was not as readily available then, and the help that was available, was not considered *acceptable*, it wasn't something that was talked about, it was an embarrassment and you were labeled.
I finally gave up the blame game, I realized that they all did the best they could do, with the tools they had to work with, at the time. Which is really all ANY of us can do.
I stopped dwelling on all the things she WASN'T, and started remembering the good, positive things about her, and all the things that she WAS.
So now when I think of her, I think of the things that made her happy, the things that made her smile, the things she did to make US happy, and how much she loved her grand kids. I forgave her for her shortcomings and appreciate the things that made her special, and no matter what she was or wasn't, she was my mom - the only mom I'll ever have, and I am still learning that she truly DID teach me GOOD things that I will pass on to my kids, and I can live with that.
AS always Ginny has some amazing insight. What I am most thankful for is that I figured alot of that out YOUNG. My mother and I were not friends growing up. I was very unhappy, she was sick (ms) and life was hard. But I was too young to understand hard and just not nice. Well I had an older brother who just fell apart and my parents really struggled with this. I felt so left out. One day, I just realized that you know we have to love our kids for who they are, and a parents absence and silence doesn't haven't to mean absence of love. I sat down with my mom and just spilled how I felt (i was 18). And it was a huge change for us. They really were so caught up in their issues and lives that they really didn't see that I wasn't okay. But I know they did the best they could with the info they had. That whole what were their intentions thing was a huge life change for me.
I really encourage those of you with parents with issues, to figure out how to get past them. That might letting them go. But for many of us, it is letting go of our expectation and take them for what they are worth. Most parents really do love their kids, and just make stupid mistakes. We can't change them, but we can change us and how we let them affect us.
I so appreciate these posts. Yes, my mother and I go back and forth but it is so much better. My mother was living with bipolar disorder for most of my adolescence. My dad worked out of town and I was the oldest. I bore the brunt of the depressive issues, mood swings. We weren't poor, at all. Yet I thought we really were struggling to eat. My mom would cry and say she didn't know what we were going to do if I said I needed deodorant or something. I moved out young and have had many of the issues that can come with that. I spent years hating her everytime I faced a struggle. I'm glad she's better but it's been hard to see her with my siblings and wonder why I couldn't have had it like that. I undertand why things happened the way they did, but I did have quite a nerve wrecking experience just living with her those years. I'm in a better place now. I didnt' want to bring up the bad times once we really started having any type of relationship again. I didn't want to rock the boat. It happened, we had a few long, emotionally draining talks. I don't know if my resentment will ever fully go away, but it's not directed at her anymore, more like the unfairness of life. It doesnt' rule me anymore though. It is so freeing to let go of all that hate and anger. Things happened the way they did for a reason. My mother is my mother and I only get one. If nothing else, I'm a better one because of her.
Good for you, Karen. I know, from some of your postings, how much you struggled with your relationship with your mom, particularly when you were having to be the "good daughter" when she was hospitalzed for and gradually dying from cancer. And you also, Kaye, for being able at the young age of 18 to actually talk with your parents about the pain you were feeling.
Look, I know there are toxic parents and toxic family relationships - and all of what I resented about my parents never came anywhere near that level. But even if your parents were neglectful, alcholic or otherwise addicted, played favorites, or were indifferent, if you continue thinking about that and hating them, you are letting them continue to control your life. If your parents were actually abusive, that is incredibly difficult to move beyond and almost always takes a lot of professional help, but I suggest it is worth it so that you can live your life as a person enjoying the present and planning a future, instead of letting your past control your life. Otherwise, it colors your relationships and interferes with your life in so many and such negative ways.
One of the things mom and I talked about two nights before she died was her mother and her relationship with her mother. At 82, with her mom having died 3 or 4 years earlier, my mom could still not let go of her unhappiness about specific things her mom did and the whole relationship. (And my grandmother was often a really nasty person who did sneaky nasty things.) I have always regretted, on mom's behalf, that she was never able to move beyond that and that at age 82 it was still coloring her life.
I think the bottom line is this. Obviously, when you're a young child, you cannot possibly grasp the specifics of *why* your parents are the way they are, and why they react or treat you the way they do. But as you mature, if you have the strength and desire to try to communicate and make them aware of YOUR feelings about your situations, then kudos to you, that's a huge step for anyone.
Once you become an adult, it is basically up to YOU to resolve those issues within yourself. ALL of us have some issues with our parents, from very minor or trivial, to serious issues that have caused emotional harm that affects our lives and relationships.
BY GINNY: Look, I know there are toxic parents and toxic family relationships - and all of what I resented about my parents never came anywhere near that level. But even if your parents were neglectful, alcholic or otherwise addicted, played favorites, or were indifferent, if you continue thinking about that and hating them, you are letting them continue to control your life. If your parents were actually abusive, that is incredibly difficult to move beyond and almost always takes a lot of professional help, but I suggest it is worth it so that you can live your life as a person enjoying the present and planning a future, instead of letting your past control your life. Otherwise, it colors your relationships and interferes with your life in so many and such negative ways.
BY KAYE: AS always Ginny has some amazing insight. What I am most thankful for is that I figured alot of that out YOUNG. My mother and I were not friends growing up. I was very unhappy, she was sick (ms) and life was hard. But I was too young to understand hard and just not nice. Well I had an older brother who just fell apart and my parents really struggled with this. I felt so left out. One day, I just realized that you know we have to love our kids for who they are, and a parents absence and silence doesn't haven't to mean absence of love. I sat down with my mom and just spilled how I felt (i was 18). And it was a huge change for us. They really were so caught up in their issues and lives that they really didn't see that I wasn't okay. But I know they did the best they could with the info they had. That whole what were their intentions thing was a huge life change for me.
I really encourage those of you with parents with issues, to figure out how to get past them. That might letting them go. But for many of us, it is letting go of our expectation and take them for what they are worth. Most parents really do love their kids, and just make stupid mistakes. We can't change them, but we can change us and how we let them affect us.
As they - and I - have said, you have to let it go, you have to do whatever you need to do for yourself, to resolve those things and find a way to be at peace with them and just move forward and LIVE your life, without allowing those things from the past to affect how you live it, how you raise your kids, what kind of marriage you have, who you are as an individual.
And - again - THEY did the best they could do, we all will probably NEVER know all the facts surrounding their dysfunctional behaviors, and WE did/are doing the best WE can do. Letting go of the negative feelings will make you a better person and a better parent. And I think the important thing in all of this is to LEARN from it, and treasure the good things that were there.
It's sort of like doing spring cleaning - you go through your house, you get rid of the stuff you no longer need, you throw out the trash, you keep the things you can use or the things you need - so you need to get to a point where you can throw out the emotional trash, and keep what is useful and positive. And you live your life, and you do the best YOU can do.
I have to say I'm not sure if I'll get to that point, to letting go of the abandonment, at least as long as my mother is alive. I agree with Wanda, you guys are very lucky to have such close relationships and good memories. I envy that!! It hurts when I hold my children, and can't remember her holding me, or when my friends call their moms for advice, and I can't call mine. I know now that she has problems, and it makes me want to be a better mom to my own kids, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. More than my mom, I miss my extended family, which she has effectively cut me off from. Even at 25, there are time I really want my mom, or need a hug, and I'm on my own.
Crystal, that makes me feel sad for you. However, you are young, and I hope in time, you can resolve this within yourself. I hope that doesn't offend you. I truly do understand what you mean, about wanting/needing your mom though. I've BTDT, and it's a painful, lonely feeling.
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Ginny, (((hugs))), I think about my Dad a lot too. He died in 1998 the week of Thanksgiving so that time in particular is bittersweet for me.
Crystal - lots of hugs.
I agree with Karen - do try to let it go, move beyond it and move on. Remember, my mom, at almost 82, was still resenting her mom and carrying with her the mean things her mom had done. And I know it wasn't good for her.
Thank you, Ginny and Karen. I didn't mean to hijack the post, it just struck me. I do try, every day, to let it go, because anger is a wasted emotion, but the longing for the love you should feel from your mom does still get to me.
You have to find a way to accept that you are not going to get what you want/need/expect from her - at least not at this point in your life. Is it fair? No. Does that make it less painful? No. But it is the reality of your situation, and you are using a lot of emotional and physical energy holding on to the anger. I really hope you can find a resolution within yourself.
I can relate to everyone that misses their Mom's and Dad's.
My Mom passed away 3 years ago and I miss her so much. Everyday I think I just wish Mom was here to talk to. Especially with my Dad being so sick. {{{HUGS}}} to all.
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