I had to run an errand to Mom’s house, waiting for the pickup guy to take away the unused medical bed from the house (now that Mom’s in hospital to stay). While I was there, surrounded by her things, I got such a sense of the bits of her life that I didn’t know. We’d gone on a trip to Belize three years back — she had clippings about other exotic places like Peru. We’d had a garden years back, and I knew she loved her houseplants, but I saw a how-to article she’d printed out about planting an herb garden. And around the house, she had two orchids in with the other houseplants — I didn’t know when she got the orchids!
My Mom’s life wasn’t easy. She fought with her parents, and didn’t get much in the way of respect or caring from her own family. I know I have an uncle, Gene I think?, but I don’t think I’ve ever met him. In her marriage, she and Dad divorced more than 15 years back, and she had a hard time finding love again. She & I didn’t have a super-close r’ship either. A bunch of her anger at the divorce ended up flying my way. It was a pattern with her, and I don’t have much tolerance for attacker-victim patterns; my reaction was to push her away and hold her distant.
So there, surrounded by her things, I had a moment of anxiety, and I thought, “What could I have done differently? Oh sweet Mom, I wish things could have been better for you.”
That’s when I started crying.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 9:18 pm and is filed under pers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to “And then the waterworks begin”
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