My mother is dying of an extreme form of dementia now. She is lost in ever increasing swells of forgetfulness and fear; a shell of who she was . . . a dynamic, smart, beautiful, angry, and frustrated wife and mother.
My siblings and I experienced her love, rage, and complex internal issues in similar ways with varying intensities. We each learned the lesson of anger and frustration unleashed uncontrolled in our own ways . . . but one thing we all had in common was this—we knew she loved us the best she knew how. We also knew that if we were to be balanced human beings and parents ourselves, it was up to us to break the pattern of generations of abuse and disrespect and move forward into the light.
Recently my sister and I were looking at old photos of my dad and mom together soon after they were married. How very sad. How telling the picture . . . a lovely, sad young woman smiling at the camera yet pushing away from a beaming and doting husband and dominator of her future. She had lost her dream of breaking away and finding her fame as a singer, of finding herself on her own and having the right to fly free from an angry past and confining future.
It has been hard to feel close to a mother so distant and frustrated. It has been next to impossible to understand her driving forces. And literally unimaginable to relate to the brutality she was subject to that made her the way she was.
My mother's past has shaped me. It will shape my future and will be atoned for in my willingness to break free from a mold that was brittle and brutal.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror I see her. It scares me.
