I’ve read that when someone dies the mourning tends to be straightforward if the relationship was a happy one. If the relationship was not a happy one, then the mourning tends to be complicated. By dad died in 2007. I had a great relationship with my dad. I miss him very much and often have dreams where he is alive and I often wake up in the morning thinking he is still alive or hoping that he is still alive. But mourning him has been straightfoward — I have been very sad.
My mom and I had a complicated relationship. When new(er) people to my life ask about her, I say that we weren’t close. But that’s not entirely true. Saying that you’re not close with your mother conjures up images of people who don’t talk. Whereas mymom and I talked several times a week. We just weren’t emotionally close.
Like many women, my relationship with my mother was complicated by the fact that she didn’t understand the life I chose or the choices I made. Didn’t understand, and as far as I could tell, didn’t approve of it. And while she did her best to be supportive when she could be, she also didn’t hide her disappointment that I didn’t live a different life, the one she would have chosen for me. Not a conversation passed that I didn’t hear about it…
So this weekend when other people were celebrating Mother’s Day, or mourning their mom’s, I was having a little pity party. Thinking of how much I disappointed her, and how much I resented her constantly putting me down and how sad it makes me.