On Mother’s Day, I find time to spend with my mother in my heart, thoughts, and prayers. My mother died five and a half years ago. I miss her, but I also keep her close. The world is impermanent, but my mother lives on, both in my life and those she touched.
Even in her last couple days of life, as she lay in a coma, and my brothers and I sat with her body, silent except for the belabored breath of a woman whose body had only a few left in her, her passing was not a tragedy. Her passing was a beautiful completion of a life that had been both excruciatingly challenging, and heroically transformed.
Today, I celebrate Mother’s Day as a true celebration. I may not have my mom here with me, but I had her. And I would take 36 years with a great mother, rather than a lifetime with a lesser one. Nature took my mother’s life earlier than I would have asked for, but she can never be taken from me.
In my memories of her, it’s been important that I remember all of her – all of her strengths, as well as the shortcomings. I think the relationships with our mothers are particularly challenging. I don’t mean between us and them, but internally, within. ourselves. It’s important to acknowledge that challenge, as when a challenge is made aware, it can be confronted. And when not, it can fester.
Mothers gave us life! Think of the sacrifices mothers make for their children. It’s truly astounding. Yet, they also fuck up. A LOT. And those mistakes live with us, become patterns, play out in our careers, our lives, our future relationships.
For years, I was my mom’s golden child. The first born son to a Jewish mother. When I told her a friend in school got money for getting straight As, my mother told me, “I would expect nothing less from you.” That was quite the vote of confidence, but also quite a burden for a 15 year-old boy to cary. And the praise she heaped on me, meant there was less available for my brothers, a reality that strained my relationship with them for years.
Other times, if she wanted me to do something for her and I refused, she would show more affection for my little brother, and then point out out how much he loved her for doing her bidding.
When my brothers and I confronted her about these things, she was defensive. She didn’t want it to be true. She didn’t want to have caused pain, or show love more for one child and less for another. But she did. She was human. She erred.
And that’s indicative of this complex relationship.
I wanted to please my mother. I wanted her to be happy, safe and cared for. I wanted her to know I loved her. And she wanted all those things from me, too. And in that relationship, I see now the seeds planted for challenges I would face later in my life.
My relationship with my mother bled into my relationships with women. From the way I chose the girls I dated, to the the woman I first chose to marry, to my fear of hurting my wife (or any other woman, for that matter) and then trying to protect her feelings (only for the exact opposite to happen).
Part of being given life as a human, is being given pathologies.
I don’t say any of this as a negative – it’s life. And life isn’t negative. It’s wonderful, but it’s also difficult. And I think it can be really hard to acknowledge that. It’s only easy to acknowledge when the suffering caused my our mothers tips the scale and it feels unbearable. But for most of us, or most of the time, the relationship isn’t that simple. We want to ignore the bad, or reduce it in our minds, and highlight the good and positive. And the area where it wasn’t that bad, but still caused us pain, we are all too happy to gloss over.
Life can be hard. We all go through times, and most of us have wondered, at some point in our lives, if it’s all worth it. No better proof than the fact that, per the CDC, suicide is a leading cause of death in America. For this hard life, we’re supposed to thank this woman who brought us into this shit, and then made mistakes that hurt us forever?
I’ve wondered – maybe that’s part of the origin of misogyny. We are alive because our mothers carried us in their bellies for 9 months, pushed us out of a hole way too small for our huge heads, and then made sure we ate, had clean diapers, and fought like hell to make sure we didn’t die. But then she worked out her unprocessed pain, trauma, and difficulties on us. Who better to blame than the person who made sure we made it far enough to learn about pain and unhappiness.
But hating mom isn’t an option for most of us. So we find an ersatz to put all of our anger toward mom and the world – and women are a great representation of mom.
Perhaps, if we can be really clear about the complexity of our relationships with our mothers, we can be honest enough to deal with our anger at being alive in a healthier way.
In sharing all of this about my mother, it could be construed that my life with my mother was more of a challenge than a gift, but that’s not at all the case. I am full of love for my mother, I am so grateful, and I miss her. She was the person I called when I had big news or when I was coming off a career victory that had tested my abilities and resolve. I could brag with her and it didn’t feel like bragging – because to her, it was just music to her ears.
She was a truly great mother. I mean, she was mine. She gave me life. She nurtured me. She loved me unconditionally. She would truly do anything for me. And toward the end of her life, she gave me (and my brothers) the best gift she ever could have given us – transformation. Not only a willingness to grow, to change, to throw off the shackles of her pained past, but to actively engage and acknowledge her mistakes. She did the best she could, which at times was out of this world powerful, and at times deeply wounding. I can’t paint my mom as a perfect being – she was human, after all, but she was my perfect mother.
My mother was beyond vital to my being.This is true for all of our mothers, both inherently and implicitly. But they are also instrumental in our challenges. All of that is a gift, as long as we can recognize that and then deal with those challenges so they don’t undermine our strength, but become the training equipment we need to be strong in our lives.
Happy Mother’s Day, mom. And Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who grew us in their bellies, pushed us out, kept us alive when we were too helpless to survive without you, and then proceeded to oscillate between the poles of beauty and chaos. You gave us the perfect playing field upon which to thrive, one where we have the tools we need to succeed, and a formidable opponent (in our own pathologies) to make sure we keeping fighting hard for a victory that will make you proud.