There are a few posts that I have dreaded and the next few are among them.\u00a0 I have been thinking about this for at least a month; pondering, writing and rewriting in my mind.\u00a0 I have been writing about my Mom\u2019s illness this summer and it has been good.\u00a0 But I came to a sudden stop.\u00a0 Because I knew that I had to write this.\u00a0 The last post was supposed to be this one but I avoided it, just one more time.\u00a0\u00a0 This time I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The facts, dates and research are somewhat easy to write.\u00a0 Even though the memories are very painful, it is much easier to write than the emotions.\u00a0 I hate crying.\u00a0 I hate crying in front of people even more.\u00a0 And writing out the emotions of my Mom\u2019s illness is like crying in public.\u00a0 I feel so vulnerable, so exposed.\u00a0 But, it needs to be done for me to move on.<\/p>\n
When my Dad was killed just before I was born my Mom wasn\u2019t able to breastfeed.\u00a0 In the first few days it was discouraged due to hormone issues and medications that she had been given.\u00a0 But even after those initial frightening, horrible days we weren\u2019t together much.\u00a0 She had a farm to help run, lawyers, trials, grieving, among a million other things that she hadn\u2019t planned on.\u00a0 I honestly don\u2019t think she knew what to do with me.\u00a0 I represented the hopes and dreams of a future that was never to come.\u00a0 Her parents were there and helped take care of us.\u00a0 So I bonded with my Grandma and later Auntie D more than I did with my Mom.\u00a0 My Mom and I never regained that bond.\u00a0 We both knew that us having very different personalities was not the only issue in our relationship.\u00a0 We never actually discussed it; we didn\u2019t seem to need to, even on her death bed.\u00a0 Our lack of bonding had been a necessity of the moment.\u00a0 And once I was old enough to understand what had happened around my birth I understood that she had no choice.\u00a0 But her lack of choice didn\u2019t, and doesn\u2019t, take the hurt away.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have a choice in any of it.\u00a0 I was an innocent child who not only would never know my Dad; I would never really know my Mom.\u00a0 The woman who was to be my Mother was taken from me.\u00a0 She was changed in such a basic, cellular level; her hormones, brain chemicals, physical appearance and personality changed.<\/p>\n
I was and am so thankful to have other Moms to fill in the gap.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know where I would be without them.\u00a0 My Mom was sometimes threatened by these other mother figures but I think she was thankful for them as well.\u00a0 But as thankful as I am to these women, I had always somehow hoped that my Mom and I would magically grow this bond and be as close as other mother\/daughters.\u00a0 There is the \u201cwhat if\u201d; no matter how many times I told myself how unhealthy it was.\u00a0 When it comes to our parents it seems that we all become eternal optimists holding out hope.\u00a0 Would my Mom and I have been close if my Dad had lived?\u00a0 Or would we have still clashed and this way I got my \u201cother\u201d mothers?\u00a0 Did I actually gain by losing?\u00a0 We will never know these answers and I\u2019m working at coming to peace with what I did and do have so I don\u2019t have to ask \u201cWhat if\u201d as much as I used to.\u00a0 When she became sick I had every emotion possible swirling around me.\u00a0 As much as I had known that day was coming it is still painful to be looking at the end.\u00a0 Not only of my Mom\u2019s life but also at the end of the eternal hope for that magical bond.\u00a0 Would we come together just in time?\u00a0\u00a0 Would we have enough time?\u00a0 Could we accept each other after all these years?<\/p>\n
I knew there was a cost to both scenarios.\u00a0 If we became close while she was sick it would only be to lose her all over again.\u00a0 But if I ran away instead and didn\u2019t at least try what regrets would I have?\u00a0 Could I live with myself?\u00a0 Could I walk away from a relationship with my Mom even if it was fleeting?\u00a0 Could I handle the pain of either choice?\u00a0 Again, this was a choice that wasn\u2019t really a choice. \u00a0\u00a0I had no choice.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t walk away.\u00a0 And I have no regrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are a few posts that I have dreaded and the next few are among them.\u00a0 I have been thinking about this for at least a month; pondering, writing and rewriting in my mind.\u00a0 I have been writing about my … Continue reading