How I Will Remember My Mother

My mother has taught me many things.

One of them was to live in fear.

For years symptoms of agoraphobia have lingered somewhere in the background of my life, trying to keep me down. The cause of agoraphobia remains unclear but it is believed that a major role played is environmental factors. I know exactly where it came from.

I inherited it from my mother.

My mother suffered from frequent panic attacks and severe anxiety. As a child, I have witnessed many of my mother’s panic attacks. It was traumatizing not knowing when and where will my mother experience her breakdown.

I never knew how to reassure her or calm her down. Often strangers came to my rescue. These episodes made me stop spending time with her and made me estranged. My sisters suffered too.

I will never forget the only flight I have taken with my mother. Just seconds before the take-off, she was overwhelmed by an intense feeling of fear and extreme nervousness. Her heart raced while eyes scanned the plane for escape routes.

She started speaking of death. She turned to my father and told him that the plane engines will explode. He tried to reassure her. She demanded we leave the plane.

Her reaction scared passengers on board and the flight attendant unzipped herself mid-take-off to come and speak to her. Eventually, she calmed down.

On the way back we all traveled by train and it took us 14 hours.

My mother was a loner. She used to spend a lot of time in the bedroom. My father traveled frequently and we would not see him for days.

She also talked to herself and even answered back. She knew he was being unfaithful to her. She wanted to leave but could not. She often tried to pick “boyfriends” for my sisters. None was good enough.

The boyfriend she picked for my oldest sister turned out to be a cheating bastard. My sister is just returning back to him. I wonder why she can’t just leave him . . .

My sisters tried on several occasions to move away from my mother. They were stopped. She was certain that their lives would better with her in the country of her choosing.

After my mother’s death — my sisters finally moved away. To my knowledge, they are happy. Just before my mother’s death, she stopped talking to me and my sisters. She slept a lot and spent all her time in the bedroom, protected from the reality she despised.

My mother became a hoarder.

There was a little altar in her room where she gathered sacred objects — candles, bracelets, statues, old family photos and other crap. My father stopped sleeping in the bedroom. He had late-night calls with his mistress in the living room.

In my early twenties, I saw very little of her. Somehow I started forgetting how she looked. On the day she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer I found pictures of her when she was young.

I never knew her while she was “young” as she gave birth to me in her late 40s.

I was told by my father that I was “ the only hope” to save my parents’ marriage. Perhaps they lied to me, as the youngest children are led to believe they’re invincible and important because no one ever lets them fail and get hurt.

The picture of the younger version of her did not resemble the person she had become. She was a spitting image of Gollum. The bedroom was her cave while my father was the “precious” ring.

She tried so long to hold on to their relationship which has failed way before I was born. On the eve of her death, she tried to call my father — he did not respond. She died in the arms of her own mother, who was 95 years old.

I often wonder who was my mother? The mother I knew was a very insecure, unhappy and fear-driven lady.

At her funeral, I finally met her friends. They spoke of a woman I have never known. They spoke of strong, intelligent and fierce woman. A woman who traveled the world. A woman who practiced as a lawyer.

A woman so wild and beautiful that no man dared to approach her. No man could level with her. The woman I so wished I had known.

“What changed?!” Her friends got silent . . .

I think of my mother often. My mother used to criticize me a lot. Nothing was ever good enough in her eyes.

Speaking five foreign languages. Becoming a published author at 20. Teaching at famous universities. Doing charitable work. Working at most profitable companies. Saving animals . . .

She was unreasonable, too strict and demanding. At those times she wasn’t herself. She expected more, more and more. Because she knew I could deliver.

Now I know that my mother has taught me many things. One of them is to do better. Better than her.