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Over Coming

Finding Our Way Back

By Gisele Published 3 years ago 7 min read
3

Five years had passed since we last spoke. I was hurt. My dad's passing had brought out the worst in her, in all of us really. We were raw and vulnerable from grief and our emotions got the best of us. Still, it is at times like these when you want to be able to lean on your mother for support and comfort. She did not have it to give and we were all struggling.

There I sat, phone in hand, remembering a recent conversation with my sister that had changed my perspective on the matter. “We all have had our issues with mom” she explained “but she is old now and needs us and at the end of the day she is still our mother”. She was right, it was time to put my grievances aside.

This would not be an easy call to make. It would mean taking the first step when SHE was the one who hurt me. “She should be the one reaching out to apologize!”. However, the reality is that was never going to happen. My mother comes from a different generation. Raised on a farm with seven siblings just after the great depression and through the second world war, she was old school and knew what it was to go without. She was raised during a time when your feelings were not as important as getting food on the table.

In all fairness, there was her side of the story to consider. My parents had been separated a few years earlier by my dad's choice. She was dealing with the grief of losing a man she spent a lifetime raising a family with, and all that goes with a marriage that spans decades, and a man that also caused her pain and whom she still had anger towards. They had become friends again in his last couple of years, sharing dinners and helping each other out. They were family, and at the end of the day they knew each other better than anyone else could. However, she never really forgot the heartache of the separation.

She was also hurt by not hearing from her youngest daughter for the five years following his passing. The daughter who always took mom's side when the others would be disgruntled towards her. I was close with my mother when I was a child. Being the youngest, I had her all to myself during the day while my sisters were in school, one on one time they didn't have. This also labelled me “spoiled” for the rest of my life, but that's another story.

Humbly, and somewhat reluctantly, I dialed the combination of numbers that would cause my mothers phone to ring. I could only imagine what her reaction would be to hearing my voice after such a long hiatus. The phone rang three times before she answered.

“Hello” a familiar but more frail voice spoke. “Hello Mom, it’s me” a familiar but more mature voice responded. There was a pause. “Well hello” she said in a surprised tone “how are you?”. I awkwardly respond “I am fine”.

The initial formalities were needed to get over the shock of what was happening. As the conversation continued I decided to be honest and say exactly what I needed to say to her; to let her know why she hadn't heard from her daughter in five years. She listened, I finished, there was a moment of silence, then my mother asked me how the weather was where I was living, and that was it. That was the best I was going to get from her and for the first time I was mature enough to accept it. That was Mom, for better or worse, and we loved each other even so.

From that point on there were exchanges of cards on birthdays and holidays and the occasional phone call. My daughter and I finally made it out for a visit, it had been 10 years since I was last home. This visit changed me. We were all aging; the nieces and nephews were now young adults, the aunties and uncles all a little grayer, and me and my sisters all with a few more wrinkles. I was so close with my aunties growing up and here they were all in their 70's and my mom, the eldest, had just turned 80. My mom was 80 years old! That is when it all hit me and I realized how much of their lives I had missed. They were all so accepting and loving towards me, and a family that I had once thought of as something I needed to get away from, suddenly became very precious to me. It was then I made a vow to visit once a year. I did not realize in that moment, however, how much the world was about to change and that I would be unable to visit my mother in her greatest time of need.

It started with a broken hip, then a heart attack, then a lump and some surgeries. My mother spent most of the first year of the pandemic in the hospital and I was unable to go for a visit. Fortunately, I was able to stay in contact via video chatting, as many of us learned to do as we adjusted to living life from our homes and seeing loved ones through a screen. The trips I had planned to take to go visit my family were canceled and we all learned to live with a lot of uncertainty.

There were moments in that year when we didn't know if she would be ok. We did not know if she would ever be able to return home to the life she once had. Was it time to put her into assisted living, we contemplated, or a care home? In her last hospital visit we were not even sure she would leave at all. She had become frail and confused and was no longer the independent lively elder we had become accustomed too, it was someone who seemed to be nearing the end. There were hours of phone calls with my sisters who were, much to my gratefulness, able to visit her in hospital and care for her at home. The daily updates and calls were my only way of being there and through this we all became more bonded as a family.

It is in times like these that we are reminded of what is truly important to us in life. I came to realize that the estrangement I felt was with my whole family, not just my mother, and that it was me who created it. They stayed home for all of the weddings, baby showers, holidays, illnesses and funerals, and I left. I needed to find my own way in the world and seek a better life than the mundane routine existance I had criticized them all for living.

It is also in times like these that we begin to reflect on the past and to see what was given and sacrificed. I began to remember the closeness I had shared with my mother as a child. The way she would carry me in her arms from the car all sleepy after a late night visit at my aunts house. I remembered how she watched me play on the living room floor while folding the laundry, and the hectic family dinners that she prepared night after night, even after going back to work full time. I remembered how she loved to read; it was one of her few escapes from the constant demand of taking care of a family. She wasn't a perfect mom, but she did her best, and endured a lot. How ungrateful we must have all seemed to her at times. I began to understand why she grew to be resentful and felt unappreciated.

I am happy to be able to say that my mother miraculously recovered from her illnesses and is back at home living independently again. She doesn't get around like she use to but she does manage to walk down to the mail boxes where she still sends me cards for my birthday and holidays, with a little money in them, so I can buy myself something nice. I am also happy to say that I can now see what a kindness this is, and that I am able to show her my appreciation by giving her a call to say thank you. I can still hear the surprise in her voice every time she answers.

Family is family, that is what I have learned from my mother. No matter what happens in life she will always be there for me, maybe not in the way I had once expected of her, but in the way that she can. What more can we do for those we love but be there for them in the way that we can. Moms teach us unconditional love because that is what they are, and through being loved in this way, we learn to do the same for others.

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About the Creator

Gisele

Gisele loves all forms of creative expression and pulls from many different modalities for her inspiration. Living in the heart of the mountains she is also greatly inspired by nature.

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