Letters to My Dead Toxic Mother (Part 2/3)
A reflection on toxic relationships between mothers and daughters.
Dear Mahdear,
In the end, I just wanted to survive in a world, you, yourself, were fighting to survive in…
That was one of my final thoughts while sitting at your bedside, watching you take slow, deliberate breaths. With each rise and fall of your frail, thin frame, I kept holding mine, wondering, would that breath be your last? My chest twisted in knots at each exhale, -I knew it was coming. For weeks, I painstakingly sat by your bedside.
With each passing day, the resentment, the sadness, and the harmful memories of physical, verbal, and emotional abuse seemed to slip away. The flashbacks of violence and verbal assaults were suddenly not so vivid. Your blaring voice in my head, the one that told me I wasn’t good enough or obedient enough or worthy enough of your love -now at a whisper. The year’s worth of resentment that always came in waves now receded into an ocean of complicated nuance.
Embattled bitterness that once stormed its way to my shores -all went still. For years I fought through those waves trying to push forward; at times, it left me shipwrecked. I can’t say precisely when, but in our time apart, after years of therapy, I understood that your abuse was never about me. It was your grief, anger (at yourself and others), and the unrelenting guilt and shame that never left you after your daughter died.
You compared us relentlessly. Out of hundreds of pictures in family albums, there was not a single one of her anywhere. It was like she existed but didn’t. There was, however, one portrait of you and her, mother and daughter, that hung in the basement. That, too, ultimately disappeared at some point.
I found that portrait while cleaning out the house after you died. I was struck by the mystery in her eyes and the uncanny ambivalence about her posture. I remember I was about 14 years old when I learned her name, Tinette. It was the first time I could put a face with that name, and it opened something up in me. It gave me an ally in what was this secret house of horrors. It made me feel less alone.
One day dad saw me drawing a picture of the birch tree in the backyard and said, “I didn’t know you could draw?” He put his head down and seemed to say, more to himself than me, “Huh, she used to draw too.” I was elated at the revelation; now I had this thing in common with this girl who was technically my sister.
Days later, when I asked you to go to an afterschool art program, you told me “no,” without explanation. Months later, I found her sketchbook while digging through some old boxes. She was a better artist than me by far. In it, she drew a picture of a cute little poodle, one I would later learn you gave away because she got a “C” on her report card. I cherished that little sketchbook for about a week before it too, mysteriously went missing. It was like you were telling me she was yours, and I couldn’t have any part of her.
As I got older I began to hear whispers of your relationship with her. It wasn’t any better than it was with mine. Yet, I could always sense the immense grief her passing left behind. Like an open wound that got infected and never healed. I never knew how to heal you, and you made sure I knew, I would never fill the void she left behind.
I now understand that I was your redo, baby. I was your second chance to get motherhood right. Yet, your constant reminders that I wasn’t her left me crippled with insecurities. No matter how perfect I was, how good my grades were, or how much I excelled athletically, I wasn’t yours. One of your favorite things to say to me in a fit of rage was, “I never should have adopted you, or I love you, but I don’t like you!” I was always left shocked, speechless, and wounded. How could you say such a thing to a child?
Sometimes you would go further by making some kind of offhand remark that I didn’t understand about my biological mother, alluding to drug use and prostitution. A few years ago, after moving back home to care for Dad, I asked about the time you told me my biological mom tried to flush me down the toilet. Instead of denying the horrifying act had happened, he shuddered with shame that you actually told me in the first place. It was the first time in my adult life I saw dad cry.
I was paralyzed with my own shame, thoughts swirling. “Wow, that was really true…wow, you really told me so it could hurt me...” You yielded your tongue like a weapon, a sword that would cut deep, and I grew up to do the same. Repeating the toxic cycle of rage and anger toward people I claimed to love. I always knew exactly where I got that from, and I resented you for it…until I began to watch you slip away.
As I sat at your bedside, I was struck by the finality of your existence. “One moment, you will be here, and the next, you will be gone,” I said. I was then struck by the realization that all the trauma that had compounded in my head, heart, and body for all these years would be irrelevant the moment you took your last breath. It was an epiphany.
The pain, the harm, the mistakes, the judgment, the deep desire to be made whole, to heal, to reconcile, to receive emotional reparations from all that had been stolen from me -irrelevant. The need to be told I’m sorry, the need for accountability. It was all irrelevant the moment I knew you were slipping away from consciousness.
Something no one tells you about the death of a toxic parent is that there’s a sense of relief that follows right after sadness and right before guilt. You’re sad because the person you love is gone, but there’s a relief that your mutual journeys are over; a journey filled with trauma, pain, and resentment.
Then you feel guilty because your brain detects a sense of peace you don’t expect or know what to do with. Before I got to the place of guilt, from feeling “at peace,” I also felt deep shame. I was ashamed I held on to that resentment for all those years, like some kind of life raft I needed to survive. What was I afraid of?
Perhaps I should have let go sooner. Maybe I should have tried harder when you kept pushing me away. Maybe I should have apologized for not choosing you how you wanted me to…Maybe I thought that if I let go of the resentment, it would be the last thing left that I had of you. Then I was reminded…
In the end, I just wanted to survive in a world, you, yourself, were fighting to survive in…
-Mishel Noor
“Dear MahDear’ is a 3 part series. Read Part 1 here. Read Part 3 here.
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