outside, but deep inside there was a little girl on her hands and knees, crying and just wishing somebody would take care of her. She always needed to feel loved. That was why our bond, I think, was so close. I would always hug her and tell her I loved her, and cook her meals and drag her from bed to bathroom to make her throw up.
“For a couple of months after she passed away, I have to say I couldn’t think of anything good that came from her,” she continues. “I couldn’t think of any nice things she’d done, or anything about her person that had been pretty neat at all. But I know my mother did a lot of good. Once the haze started to clear, I was able to grab hold of the things flying in front of my face and stare at them and figure out what they were and why they made me feel a certain way. My mother’s death basically released me. It gave me freedom to do things I’d never have been able to do.”
When an abusive mother dies or leaves, her daughter’s chance for reconciliation also disappears. As long as the mother was present, the possibility of reunion, however slim, remained. For a daughter who clung to the hope of an apology, a reversal, or a payback for all the lost years, the dashed potential is another loss that needs to be acknowledged and mourned. Her mother will never say, “I’m sorry.” She’ll never quit drinking. She’ll never find the therapist who’ll help her change. She’ll never, in effect, become the mother she never was. But she’ll also never be physically able to abuse her daughter again.
Here It Comes Again
Several mornings a year I fight the impulse to crawl back under the blankets and hide. On those days, the calendar is not my friend. July 10, my parents’ anniversary, is the first, followed closely by July 12, the day my mother died. Then comes her birthday on September 19, which gives me a brief respite before the holiday season begins. One month later, while I’m trying to figure out how to revise the Roman calendar to catapult myself straight from October to January, the card stores and supermarket set up their holiday displays, reminding me we won’t be flying anywhere again this year, and that whatever
Thanksgiving we have will be haphazardly fashioned with friends in California, 2,600 miles from the place that still shows up in my dreams as “home.”
I used to pretend these days didn’t bother me, even tried to ignore them at first, but the insidious thing about anniversaries is that the psyche always knows they’re there. Our internal calendar doesn’t let them just slip by. Thirty-two-year-old Eileen, whose mother died when she was three, wrote to me about the intense sadness she always felt when she saw sunsets. She physically avoided them for most of her life. Driving home one day, she finally decided to watch one and experience the accompanying emotions. In doing so, she remembered that after her mother died, she frequently ran away from her father’s house at dinnertime and sat on a curb, watching the sun set and waiting for her mother to appear and bring her home. After making this connection, she went to mark the event on her calendar—and discovered her mother’s birthday was the day she had finally chosen to watch the sun go down.
Certain days or times of the day, week, or year can act as cyclical triggers, resurrecting grief responses. Holidays, crises, and sensory reminders can bring up the old feelings again, too. Therese Rando calls these “STUG reactions,” or subsequent temporary upsurges of grief, and points out that intermittent periods of acute longing for the lost loved one are part of the normal mourning process. When we can anticipate their arrival, as in the case of distinct calendar days, we can take steps to prepare. At a time when collective ritual has lost ground to individual concerns, we are free to create our own traditions. Thirty-one-year-old Addie, who was nineteen when her mother died of heart failure, used to dread
“For a couple of months after she passed away, I have to say I couldn’t think of anything good that came from her,” she continues. “I couldn’t think of any nice things she’d done, or anything about her person that had been pretty neat at all. But I know my mother did a lot of good. Once the haze started to clear, I was able to grab hold of the things flying in front of my face and stare at them and figure out what they were and why they made me feel a certain way. My mother’s death basically released me. It gave me freedom to do things I’d never have been able to do.”
When an abusive mother dies or leaves, her daughter’s chance for reconciliation also disappears. As long as the mother was present, the possibility of reunion, however slim, remained. For a daughter who clung to the hope of an apology, a reversal, or a payback for all the lost years, the dashed potential is another loss that needs to be acknowledged and mourned. Her mother will never say, “I’m sorry.” She’ll never quit drinking. She’ll never find the therapist who’ll help her change. She’ll never, in effect, become the mother she never was. But she’ll also never be physically able to abuse her daughter again.
Here It Comes Again
Several mornings a year I fight the impulse to crawl back under the blankets and hide. On those days, the calendar is not my friend. July 10, my parents’ anniversary, is the first, followed closely by July 12, the day my mother died. Then comes her birthday on September 19, which gives me a brief respite before the holiday season begins. One month later, while I’m trying to figure out how to revise the Roman calendar to catapult myself straight from October to January, the card stores and supermarket set up their holiday displays, reminding me we won’t be flying anywhere again this year, and that whatever
Thanksgiving we have will be haphazardly fashioned with friends in California, 2,600 miles from the place that still shows up in my dreams as “home.”
I used to pretend these days didn’t bother me, even tried to ignore them at first, but the insidious thing about anniversaries is that the psyche always knows they’re there. Our internal calendar doesn’t let them just slip by. Thirty-two-year-old Eileen, whose mother died when she was three, wrote to me about the intense sadness she always felt when she saw sunsets. She physically avoided them for most of her life. Driving home one day, she finally decided to watch one and experience the accompanying emotions. In doing so, she remembered that after her mother died, she frequently ran away from her father’s house at dinnertime and sat on a curb, watching the sun set and waiting for her mother to appear and bring her home. After making this connection, she went to mark the event on her calendar—and discovered her mother’s birthday was the day she had finally chosen to watch the sun go down.
Certain days or times of the day, week, or year can act as cyclical triggers, resurrecting grief responses. Holidays, crises, and sensory reminders can bring up the old feelings again, too. Therese Rando calls these “STUG reactions,” or subsequent temporary upsurges of grief, and points out that intermittent periods of acute longing for the lost loved one are part of the normal mourning process. When we can anticipate their arrival, as in the case of distinct calendar days, we can take steps to prepare. At a time when collective ritual has lost ground to individual concerns, we are free to create our own traditions. Thirty-one-year-old Addie, who was nineteen when her mother died of heart failure, used to dread
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