Grief Upon Grief: The Aching Legacy of an Abusive Parent
My mother is at peace. Me? Not so much.
TW: Suicide
Every so often, I come across a social media post from someone mourning their recently deceased parent. They share that the departed was their best friend, their steadfast supporter — that they admired them, treasured their connection, and wonder how they will navigate life without them.
Their sorrow wafts off my computer screen. And I feel such envy.
My relationship with my own mother was never a Hallmark card. Instead, it was blurred lines, chaos, neglect, and a cage. I loved her, hated her, needed her, and needed to get away from her.
My grief, since her death 30-plus years ago, has been as complicated as our bond, as bitter as her treatment, and as confusing as the way she left this world.
Hard timing
And it was so confusing. How can a death be both almost expected and a lightning bolt out of the blue? My mother, the unopposable force of my childhood, my tormenter and confidante — my mother, who loomed so large in both my dreams and nightmares, whose softened features taught me compassion, whose angry eyes taught me to fear —
My mother took herself out of life as I was about to give birth.
How could she have done it? How could she have left me at such a critical time?
Was she not curious? Did she not care to know whether I’d survive labor? Whether my baby would successfully draw its first breath? Did she not ache to hold her new grandchild in her arms, trace its half-familiar features, and marvel at its perfection?
Did my mother choose that particular moment to hurt me again — a way of exerting the type of control she’d wielded during my childhood? Was she hoping, one last knife-twisting time, to put me in my place?
Or was I not in her thoughts at all? Was she just trying to flee her own pain?
There was no note. There were no answers. There was just a notification — hours after her body was found, three days beyond my due date. I had two days to weep, stagger, buck up, and brace for the birth of somebody who, I hoped, wouldn’t be touched by my anguish.
Before her suicide — this was the crazy part — my mother and I had been friends. She’d managed, troubled as she was, to support me during my pregnancy. Despite her destructive religious views, her erratic bouts of anger, her cheerleading of my father’s abuse — despite her chronic mental health issues and past suicide attempts — I’d been grateful to have her in my life. We’d been close while approaching the birth.
Though living far apart, we’d talked on the phone quite a bit. She’d called me after my doctor appointments, tracking the course of my pregnancy. She’d offered advice on diapering and the baby’s room. She’d fretted over my health. When we’d learned that my baby would likely be small, she’d shopped for preemie outfits.
The last-ever gift I received from my mother was nine pairs of Gerber plastic pants. She explained in a handwritten note that six pairs hadn’t seemed like enough, and a dozen had seemed like too many. I am certain the note was signed, “Love, Mom.” I tossed it and the packaging away.
A week later, I dug through the trash to find that note. I never came across it.
Birth follows death
Of those around me, only my mother believed I was carrying a girl. As it turned out, she was right, though she didn’t live to know it. My newborn daughter’s very first outing was to her grandmother’s funeral. At four days old, sleepy and pink, she traveled across the state, her father and I peeking under her blanket, breathless with shock and reverence.
I felt my relatives' stares at the graveside, where I couldn’t seem to shed tears. The timing of my mother’s departure had surprised others, as well.
After the funeral, we returned to the church, and I slipped with my baby to the basement. I was still learning to nurse my daughter, and it was time for her meal. I found a chair and unbuttoned my blouse. I wore a pink shirt — maternity clothes. There’d been no time to shop, but who cares?
Laughter and voices came from the reception hall. Children stormed down the dark stairs. A cousin’s child stopped to watch us, her round eyes somber, inquisitive.
“Do you know Aunt Saundra?” she asked at last.
That had been my mother’s name. I nodded, feeling my tears and milk coming in.
“Did you know Aunt Saundra’s dead?”
Afterlife
In all the years since my mother’s passing, I haven’t known what to think. Did she love me? Did she not? Was the answer somewhere in the middle?
How often I’ve wished I could think of my mother as a devoted spirit, whispering solace when I’m discouraged, pitying my despair. I believe her soul is free of pain now. I know she’s finally found peace. I wish I believed that, wherever she is, she wants good things for me.
She couldn’t manage that, though, while she was living. The bag was mixed even then. I’m still, this far on, choking on memories. She did some terrible things.
I wish I could hope to be reunited, but that thought just fills me with dread. Instead of a mother’s love transcending death, it’s mostly wounds that persist.
Someday, I realize, I’ll die, too, and leave my own children bereft. I hope their grief will be easier than mine, sorrowful but also sweet. And maybe that’s the lesson I’ve learned — or one, at any rate.
The pain we inflict doesn’t die when we do. Treat each other with tenderness.
