Sunday, June 10, 2012

Missing Mother


On the eve of my mother's first posthumous birthday, I realize that the real grieving for her is over, but the real missing her will never be. When a loved one suffers for a long time, close survivors experience a guilty sense of relief at the realization that their pain, and yours is over. My grief took the form of self-doubt and second-guessing: Did we make the right decision in moving her to assisted living in the last months of her life? Did we miss the signs that death was imminent and consequently failed to provide what she wanted most - to die at home, watching the birds at the feeder outside her front window? Did we fail to address her psychological needs because we were so fixated on her physical needs? I'll never know the answer to these questions and in letting go of my grief about how her life ended, I am most comforted by the words my sister-in-law, Angel spoke to me early last summer. Reflecting on her own experiences with the death of her parents she told me to learn to accept that no matter what I did, there would be regrets. And so I have. Missing mother is another thing. I was an only girl and sometimes that resulted in her being both mother and sister to me, especially at times in my adult life. I hadn't thought about this for awhile because in her last years of failing health she wasn't able to take long conversational walks with me, or shop endlessly for the right shoe, or even swap recipes or a good read. But when I see healthy, high-functioning women in their 80s and 90s, I can't help wishing that for us. Yes, I have an abundance of happy memories of my long and satisfying relationship with my mother and like the multitude of sympathy cards said, these memories do erase the pain of those last weeks. I'll be pouring over photo albums and scrapbooks tomorrow as I celebrate her long life, and realize how blessed I really am to have had her for 88 years.