Letters to My Dead Toxic Mother (Part 3/3)
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…
And that’s really the whole of it, isn’t it? Everyone everywhere is just simply trying to survive -all the time. If I take myself out of the equation and look back at your life, I would find a person, a woman, a child who had to suffer the indignities of picking cotton on a sharecropping farm at the age of 7 years old.
I would see someone who survived over 20 years of segregation in the deep south of Georgia. I would see a woman who made her way North, with her child, during the great Black migration of the 60s. Only to face racists up North, who tried to petition against the purchase of our family home. I would see a woman who suffered verbal, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of a husband who did not love her with the care and kindness she deserved.
A husband who wielded his toxicity with fury and rage at the slightest inconvenience. A husband who was also a womanizer who carried on multiple affairs in front of your face, barely having the dignity to hide them. No wonder you turned around and yielded that same venom to the children in your care. Whether it was your first Daughter, foster children, or me, you took out your pain, in an all too familiar cycle of abuse, that still exists in many households today.
I regret it took 3 years after your return for our relationship to mend. I regret more that it took you getting dementia to forget the grudge you held against me. I guess as your memory and bodily functions faded, so too did your resentment towards me. There’s an irony in the fact that it took your fading memory for us to settle into what resembled a loving relationship, even if it was one-sided to a degree.
Some days you would forget who I was, and I would have to remind you. I would say, “It’s me, mom, your daughter.” -blank stare. Then I would say, “The one you adopted.” You would beam your high cheekbones to the sky. It was the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. You would look at me lovingly, fix my hair, or straighten my necklace, a natural maternal gesture as if you had done it a million times before.
It always felt foreign when you touched me but I accepted the gesture no less. Your hands in my hair were not a feeling I had encountered in nearly 20 years. I could only surmise how much you knew it was “me.” Were you hallucinating that I was your first daughter? I never knew, and at that point, it didn’t matter.
I knew that reconciliation would never come by that time in your illness. I accepted that nonclosure is the closure that was meant for me to contend with, wrestle with, and boy, did we go toe to toe. Some days I would just cry, tears streaming down my face as I parked at a doctor’s office. I would usher you in with care and attentively take notes of everything the doctors said.
I would then ask at least 10 questions afterward because I did research days before in preparation. I took care of you as if not a day was lost between us. I’m proud of that fact, but it was not easy. My therapist said my time by your side was “my finest hour.” I concede that as you died, I triumphed. I did not let the emotional wounds you left me with fester or metastasize.
Instead, I took our collective experience and remedied a potion of love, empathy, forgiveness, and grace and healed my own heart. A potion I never thought possible while you were alive. A lesson I never thought I would learn, a lesson you didn’t know you were teaching.
Your death taught me that the power of grace and forgiveness can be transformative agents of change…but, you have to choose it. Many hurt people are walking around in the world today because they are choosing not to forgive, extend grace and move forward. I didn’t want to live my life with that burden after you were gone, so I made a different choice; I am writing a different narrative for myself.
In my life story, I focus on your humanity instead of the pain that marked much of our relationship. I can now see you for the whole complex person you were. I realize now that I was just a tiny part of your larger story in life, and what happened before me, I was never responsible for. I understand that you chose the dark cycle of abuse as a survival mechanism, whereas I am choosing to end a generational trauma with my light.
I could easily use dark times in my own life as an excuse to be a monster toward people around me. I could resign that the universe has conspired against me and only think of myself -but that is not who I am, that is not part of my story.
Over this year, I have been able to reckon with what I thought was lost between us and have been able to appreciate what remains. I might have been without you for over a decade, but you were always a mom, till the very end. You reminded me of that during your finest hour. It came the day before you passed away.
As I was sitting over you, holding your hand, you suddenly turned your head in my direction and raised your right arm. Alarmed by what seemed like an involuntary gesture quickly became apparent. You were reaching for the twisted necklace around my neck. You couldn’t reach it; raising your arm that high would have been a feat, so I boiled over in tears, leaned in so you could feel the necklace between your fingers, and wept.
That singular gesture had always been about love after all; I’m eternally grateful that was the last moment we shared. I needed no other confirmation after that. A gesture so pure, powerful, and necessary for my survival. I did not doubt my worth or value or place in your heart.
At that moment, I was your little girl in a grown woman’s body, receiving the reconciliation I always longed for. In the end, I just wanted to survive in a world you, yourself, were fighting to survive in…and with your finest hour, you gave me the courage to not just survive but thrive.
Thank you MahDear, “My Favorite Girl”
With Love,
Your Daughter,
Thank you for taking the time to read my piece. “Dear MahDear’ is a 3 part series. This final piece has been published on the first year anniversary of her passing. I invite you read Parts 1, and Part 2 if you haven’t already.
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