My mother's life and perspective on the world often give me pause. I suppose it's not a surprise that we see things very differently as our experiences have been so different. With my dad she had opportunities to travel over much of the continent and even the world, but in truth she's led a fairly sheltered life. She went from being her parents' daughter to being her husband's wife in a time when women were mostly defined as wife and mother. Now, in her eighties, she is finally living on her own and, for maybe the first time, getting up each morning and deciding what she wants her day to be.
Though she's always had an open mind towards others less fortunate than herself, her life has been solidly middle class, cushioned mostly by comfortable means and a family without major long term dysfunction. I don't mean that she hasn't had troubles, but she always seems somewhat astonished by the obstacles I encounter in my own life and the fact that I cope with them without a major nervous breakdown. Maybe what astonishes her is that I've handled so much alone, when she always had my Dad to help with the heavy lifting in life. I look at her life and see a pretty normal stay-at-home mom, whose interests seemed to revolve around her husband's and didn't often diverge. Over the years I know she belonged to book clubs and had close friendships with several women who became important parts of her life, but every time any of us tried to encourage her to strike out on her own, go back to school, decide what she wanted to be when she grew up, she always deferred to my dad and they made only joint plans for their future.
She, I suspect, often wondered why I wrote about my dad and not about her, back when I had a profile of him published. I could never bring myself to tell her that though I love her dearly, I sometimes have trouble thinking of her separately, as opposed to as part of the couple—my parents. And that fact always made me sad. I know she worries about me and is grateful for the care Paul, Alicia, and I have shown since my dad died 2 ½ years ago, but she remains a bit of an enigma.
To this day I don't always feel like I know who she is inside. I know she still enjoys playing tennis with her friends, and chatting with her building mates on Sunday afternoons. I know her quirks and preferences in clothing and jewelry, but I don't know what shows she watches on TV when she's alone. I know some of her favorite recipes, but absent medical restrictions, I'm not sure what her favorite foods would be—except for ice cream. I don't know what kind of books she likes to read when no one is watching—or does she still read what she thinks is “nutritious literature,” because Dad and his friends would've read it? If she wrote in a journal along the way I've never even had a hint of what would be in it. I still wonder sometimes about the past, too—why she never seemed to react to my children like most grandparents do (even before the serious problems surfaced with each) and why she has never seemed to truly understand that I love them all. I long ago grieved the loss of the children I imagined I would raise and tried very hard to learn to love the ones I had. She's always kept a sort of emotional distance from it all, and I never knew why. Dad's reaction, mirrored in Mom? Not knowing how to react to disabilities she'd never faced before? Embarrassment trying to describe it to her friends? Emotional self-preservation? I have no doubt she's attached to me, and more recently to my husband, but to my kids??? I just don't think so. Strange. Most of my friends have parents who changed their lives to be nearer to grandchildren. She prefers them at a distance and always has.
Families are always a bit of a mystery. We are connected in such intimate ways and yet so separate. Perhaps her greatest gift to me has been her encouragement and praise for whatever new venture I stepped into. I know my own inner strength comes from my upbringing, and that my strong will and stubborn streak probably didn't make me a particularly easy child to raise. I was critiquing and debating the grownups as far back as I can remember. I know when I succeed, I make her proud, and I know that even when she doesn't understand my choices, she tries to support ME. Not all families can say that. It's a lesson that has helped me love my own children even when I don't always approve of or understand the choices they make either. Theirs may have more drastic results than mine, but the principal is still the same.
And my mom never expected my life to mirror hers—another gift. From the time I was young, I was expected to BE something (besides a wife and mother) and to create my own path. I certainly have done that. Making her proud of me always mattered and she always wanted me to think for myself.
I'd venture that she knows me very well, having seen me grow over my whole life. She's seen my values expressed through my choices and actions, values I developed at home. Along the way, I've shared my poetry and my other writing with her, but I just have never really known what she thought about so many things. My parents presented a united front for so many years that I find it hard now to think of them as separate individuals, as other than a unit of two. Once or twice in the past two years, she and I have had really deep and heart to heart talks. But now sometimes Irefrain from expressing my own concerns because I want to protect her from worry. Without Dad, she seems more fragile. Maybe it's age related, maybe it's an mistaken impression, but the roles do seem to be reversing more of late.
My mother is a big part of my life, even now, even though we're geographically apart, but her inner life remains always a bit of a puzzle to me.
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