Over the last two weeks, anticipating a move from our house, I have been purging my basement of about ten years' worth of material from therapy. They were awful, awful days, those ten years, of vomiting out loads of pain and grief and anger and anxiety I'd held locked inside. For a few years now, I've been done with therapy, really really done, and a thousand times better. It was time to let go of the detritus of my therapy. As I burned the material, I watched the smoke curl upwards, and ashes drift across the grass on this beautiful day. I tried to catch some of the larger ashes, and they crumbled in my fingers.
Over the years, I have kept my mother mostly in ignorance of the extent of my therapy and pain. Let's just say that she was there when I was absorbing the pain and fear at the beginning, and the few times when I shared tiny pieces of my recovery with her, her response was not what I might have hoped. So I have completed my internal work without her, and I am glad of it.
In recent days my mother talks about feeling her own death is quite close. Not just what she has said for years, "I want to die". No, she now says that she feels she WILL die in the next days, perhaps weeks. And I see her weakness, her utter weariness, her lack of appetite, and I believe it is possible.
As I look back on that bonfire, I have been reflecting on the symbolism of the smoke and ash. It was so difficult to get to that point, but now it has been consumed so easily. It has disappeared into nothingness. I no longer need to carry all that. And my own mother, her own history, her own hopes and dreams and disappointments, her own behaviors as a mother, her own pain, will soon disappear just as quickly.
I celebrate that I have been able to spend the last five years caring for my mother without being crippled by the past. Being an adult with choices, with power. I have been able to find a way to love her, to be tender and kind. I'm so glad we've had these last five years. I've become whole.
When she does die, I'm sure I'll miss her, to some degree, but I also see her passing as a moment when I pick up the ash and it crumbles in my hands. She has no more power to hurt me. I will burn away any remnants of the grief and I will be left with some of the love that she surely intended to give me, even though she wasn't really able to love as she might have wished. But me? I will be free, with my face in the autumn sun, a cooling breeze and dear friends at my side.
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10 comments:
I'm glad you reposted this story.
It made me reflect on why my grandmother burned so much of her papers after my grandfather passed away. At the time, I wished she might have kept a few pictures for me, but I think I can better understand what she was doing for herself.
Now, I only have my father. While he's doing fine, he is declining. I can see a time where I may need to be more involved in his care. I think about that short, fragile time when he's alive and is anticipating his own death. It will be both a surreal and very ordinary moment.
Thank you Nancy for your blog. I appreciate your honesty in expressing your feelings. Many of us are experiencing similar situations and it helps one to feel less alone.
I definitely appreciate your sharing. I check your blog every day. Your careful thoughtfulness and self awareness are precious, and helpful to others.
I'm extremely grateful for the comments. I starting out using the blog as a place to record things - invisibly - but then started opening it up. This post was so much more revealing of the anguish and ambivalence I've felt. I'm so grateful to know that it fell into gentle hands.
There are many whose relationship with aging parents is purely tender and filled with nothing but love. I'm so happy for them, and even envy them. And these folks may be horrified and even angry upon reading the blog. I apologize but please know I am doing all I can to show all the love possible to this sad, difficult, weak aging mother of mine.
To the rest of us, thank you for your kindness and reassurance that I too am not alone.
Gwen -
Wow - what an interesting and insightful comment... that the death of your father will be "both a surreal and very ordinary moment".
My mother has been talking a lot about death lately - her fears of the unknown - and feeling that her death is quite close. I have tried to reassure her with all I can do and say, but ultimately, it is her death. With her (and with you), I await that moment as well, and will continue to think more about how you phrased it ... "both a surreal and very ordinary moment".
I suspect that the work you have done in the past resonates with many of us who grew up when it became possible to process life. To be able to do that BEFORE your mother needed such intensive support seems a blessing. I work everyday with people who have NOT had that backgound, and it changes their abilities to be the caregivers for aging parents. Peace to you for sharing - we who have the chance to put some things to rest (and ash) are stronger for it.
Holly
Holly - thank you for your insightful comment. How true - wow, if I had put this off until this point, I would have been completely unable to do it. I spent a few years without having much contact, time I needed to heal and grieve. But, yes, very true that my earlier work allows me to be at this more peaceful place. It's not always great, but it's OK, and we are both growing. Interesting times.
Thanks so much for your comment.
Thank you so much for your blog. I'm 60 and caring for my mother. to say she has been difficult over the years is an understatement. So much of your back story sounds just like mine. Thank you so much for your courage to share.
So many of us in the same boat, relatively speaking. You could have been describing my mother. While I applaud the catharsis of burning the materials that represent your pain and struggle, something in me grieves for the loss of tangible evidence of having existed. My mother passed through the foster care system in the 30s and 40s, and has almost nothing to show she existed.
Robin - thanks so much.
Honestly, I have already kept that material for about ten years or so, for exactly the reason you stated. It felt comforting to keep the material that said 'my truth'. It felt liberating. It was my reality.
But at some point, it became an anchor tying me to my past. It was like I couldn't reach forward to my next phase of life, my future. We are now considering what's next - a move? new adventures as we approach retirement? And I kept thinking about that bombshell in the basement. Then I had some heart trouble... and kept thinking about the bombshell in the basement. What if I suddenly died and others had to clean that out?
So, it was time. Time to release the past and make it disappear. What was burned was not anything that I would want to share. It needed to be buried. No more generations being impacted by my past. I survived, and have released the past.
That being said.. I am the family historian. (Ironic?) And I have gathered and passed along the positive aspects of my family's past. I have shared photos, artifacts, wedding invitations, newspaper clippings. Those deserve to be treasured. They are also my truth, my inheritance, and I have treasured those too.
Again, thanks to you and to ALL who have responded. It means SO much to receive your feedback.
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