Those of you that know me, personally, know that my mother passed away this last Monday. As I grieve and move on, it only seems right to speak about this now — while I created this blog initially about weight loss, it has by necessity been about my mental journey in regards to how I handle everything in my life. Because, for me, these changes and reflections have been instrumental in solving the reasons why I grew into morbid obesity in the first place.
Working through these things has been the key to my long journey to rebuilding myself in ways I never expected. My relationship with my parents has been a big part of that. And while I know that this blog entry, in particular, is extremely emotional and some may leave without reading further, that’s okay. I write for me; I invite you in of your own choice, and for some, these recent entries may be too painful.
Understanding my toxic relationship with my father, and how I allowed it to alter my views about myself, was an early theme in this journey. I fought hard for too many years to please a man whose personality would never be satisfied. I craved his attention and approval, and more often than not, the result was the overwhelming feeling that I could never be good enough in his eyes. As a young adult forced into a quick switch to working full time and living with my mother instead of attending college, I had to learn quickly to insulate myself from him as an act of self-preservation, as well as limiting his desire to use me as a tool to still manipulate my mother at a distance. Emotional abuse still leaves scars; they just aren’t visible unless we choose to show them through our own actions. (And unfortunately, I’m well aware that the emotionally abused must choose to break that chain to prevent becoming that which harmed them and perpetuating the behavior.)
I learned, back then, that I do indeed have a shut-off valve. And when angered, I learned the ability to show I also possess the verbal equivalent of sharpened talons. For the first time in my life, I fought back and put up boundaries that dared not be crossed without consequence, and I was forced to repeatedly declare what my boundaries were. The good in this was that I was able to make peace with my father before his death, mostly because he was forced to either recognize and treat me as an adult or have no relationship with me at all. While that was the best possible result for our relationship, I had very little grief left for him when he died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 62 at the time — just a little older than I am, now.
I do recall some kindnesses during the 18 years he was in my life before divorce, but not many. I remember only one time that he uttered the words I had wanted to hear, and he finally said I love you the last time I saw him alive. But he never knew how to show love without words, and we all know there are a million ways to show love. Those many ways were not present. It was my mother that modeled that behavior.
On the other hand, without going through yet again what I’ve already stated here many times, my grief for the loss of my mother has been the exact opposite. Despite watching her decline over recent years, watching powerlessly as dementia stole small bits of her intelligence, her logic, her understanding of her world, and knowing I would eventually lose her, I was still unprepared. Some signs of dementia were a bit humorous; when I told her I’d finally lost 200 pounds (now 204.6), she had honestly forgotten that I’d ever been morbidly obese, despite having been through the entire process with me. I knew some of it was dementia, and some of it was a mother’s love that looks beyond the physical.
On the day my oldest brother finally died after a ten year battle with prostate cancer, we had both been expecting the news. I heard first and said I would tell Mom because I knew her best and felt I should be the one to tell her. At roughly 11 in the morning, I showed up on her doorstep with a bottle of wine, came in her house and grabbed two glasses, poured us each a full glass, and told her the news as she sat next to me on the couch. We both held each other and openly sobbed. No one should ever have to endure the pain of surviving their child. And yes, we emptied that bottle, talking it out.
She was really just starting her dementia back then, and she slowly became my child. When Covid struck, it was like having an 88-year-old teenager who didn’t understand why their life had to change; I shopped for her, we went constant rounds about planning food in advance so I wasn’t making grocery runs constantly, etc. I kept up with her doctor visits, her medications, took control of more and more parts of her life as her dementia turned a once strong and competent woman into more like a young teen. It happened in small increments, and then the recent acceleration brought on with her Covid diagnosis.
My grief is certainly for the loss of a parent that I was particularly close to; but as I write this, I realize that it feels like I’ve lost my child. Not one by birth; one by circumstance. I felt responsible for her in the same ways I felt responsible for my daughter’s wellbeing as she grew into adulthood. I felt the need to care for and protect Mom while trying to be careful not to treat her as a child, despite her decline. I have played what-if with any number of circumstances that could have been different, and I know that’s a fool’s game, but perhaps part of my journey to move beyond the immediate despair of grief. Talking it out has already made me realize some things I hadn’t, before, and that’s been good for my soul.
But the real point to this post is that over the past six weeks of enduring the circumstances that led to her eventual death, I have learned resoundingly what family really is — and so often, it has nothing at all to do with shared DNA. I have had calls, texts, messages from people who have stepped into the place of family, and I have known that every single person who has offered their help has absolutely meant it. We all know that in times of death, there are often hollow offers — we know them when we say them, we recognize them when they are said to us, and there are no ill feelings at all; merely the reflection that people feel they should say something in support. I’ve done it, too.
This has been different. Someone who I know reads this blog spent 6 1/2 hours on the phone with me. We laughed, we cried, we talked about everything and nothing at all, about our shared experiences of losing our mothers despite circumstances being different. The deep grief and loss at times like these are a direct reflection of exactly how much that person was treasured in our lives. When someone who has been through the grieving process offers to listen and even potentially open their own healing grief just a little because they offer to be there for you, I tell you it’s a gift of familial love to be willing to do that for someone else.
The people that have done this have also shown me that there’s hope down the road, that I will keep healing, and at some point, I’ll be able to pass on that incredible gift of just being willing to listen through someone else’s grief.
While I had closure with my mother and knew without a doubt that she left this world knowing by both word and deed exactly how much I loved her, and I have that closure, I know it will be a long time before I lose the habit of worrying about her. Knowing we can still be open to each other’s pain at a time when we can’t physically hug it out — that in itself is hope for a better time. We still have that within us when enduring a pandemic has made so many of us weary.
Inevitably, the way we cope in this world is about the relationships we build. Losing my father wasn’t traumatic for me, despite being 8 months pregnant and in my late 20’s at the time, because I had closed off and insulated myself from him. I grieved the loss of having a father when I came to terms that there would never be anyone that could fill that role for me, and that was many years before he breathed his last breath. But even through the grief I feel now, I have not one single regret about how much I loved — and still love — my mother. It’s a reflection of the ability to love deeply, to allow in the joy of knowing someone deeply even though at some point we all know that the pain will seem unbearable if we lose them, too.
That’s the true draw of the family we choose; I have sisters and brothers in this world that don’t share my DNA, and because of all of you who have chosen to be that family, this is my love letter to you. We are more alike than different. The only ones hurt by closing themselves off from feeling deeply about others, who cannot accept blame for making the choice to turn inward rather than to forgive and love, are the ones who will not allow those boundaries to be healed.
For me, healing has been the single most cathartic change I have seen in myself in this continuing journey, and the weight loss, while great, has simply been a side effect of the process when I originally thought of it as the entire goal. Yes, I’m in pain right now, but it’s the pain of having loved deeply, and I know the nature of it will grow and heal as well. My mother remains within me in so many ways; if I am a reflection of her in some way, I am honored by that privilege.