I have not written since I connected with my mother over a month ago. I think it took me a while to sit with the feelings and process them. That, and I've been busy with a new job and the stuff of life.
Around Christmas I heard that my mother was in the hospital in Boston with pneumonia. For the first time in a long time I knew I could reach her and it would be in a secure and supported environment. This is important for several reasons. First, readers of my blog may remember that when I've talked to her in non-supportive environments and ask super invasive questions as "What do you plan to do?" she has overdosed due to my lack of faith in her. Second, when I have to go through an enabling gatekeeper I have about half the time gotten an earful of shame and guilt "What a bad daughter you are. You should man up and take care of your mother." Like I haven't tried.
Fun stuff. I didn't want either scenario. So here was a chance to call and have the totally bored hospital phone staff transfer me to my mom. I called.
As the (as expected) totally bored sounding hospital phone worker found my mother's name, my heart was pounding and she just transferred me to her. Little did she know what a huge moment she was a part of. I haven't talked to my mother in years and I haven't started a conversation with her in even more time than that.
My mother answered. Just like that, we were talking. I was flooded with a million feelings and I could not quite breathe. Here was my mother, found sleeping in the woods with a dangerously low body temperature. Here was my mother, a woman I love and worry about deeply. Here was my mother, a person I have, for better or worse, great chemistry with...such chemistry has kept me coming back like a moth to the flame even when it has almost undone me.
I have missed her, I was sad, I was happy, I was angry and frustrated, I wanted to swoop in and save her, I wanted to hang up and make sure she didn't have my address. I wanted everything and I wanted nothing. So I just had a conversation where I was just present with her.
I did this about four more times over the course of the next two weeks. We had two conversations that were beautiful, honest, loving, and protracted. No matter what happens, I am grateful for those moments and that connection.
The last conversation I had with her was several weeks ago now. She was transferred to a mandatory inpatient substance abuse treatment center, and from there, on to a way station for a half way house. She called me from said way station. She was eager to leave...even with no better plan...and such has been her story for the last many years and how she ended up being a person drinking vodka in Harvard Square at Au Bon Pain and sleeping in the woods.
The phone connection was terrible. That last conversation I just kept saying "we don't have a good connection, mom, our connection is bad." We ended the call and I haven't heard from her since, though I tried. I have the partial makings of a care package I was fixing for her with no where to send it. (note: assembling a care package for a homeless loved one is a somber act).
But then I was driving home from work a few days later and realized the sad truth to what I kept repeating to her in that last call...our connection is bad...oh yes it is. There is chronic static on the line.
I talked with a couple friends in the last few weeks about this situation. I reflected on her life course and its impact on me and my life. And I realized something that is not earth shattering in its profundity, but was a moment of clarity nonetheless. She is always running from demons. She always has been.
Whether she was reaching for a goal (getting her PhD, writing self help books) with a manic like obsession, whether she was moving to a new state (old state was full of mean people), whether she was swapping out new friends for old, she was running.
Now, I am not sure if she is running-- but this time into alcohol-- or if her demons have caught up with her. All I do know is I wish this wasn't her reality. I love her and I wish for more for her. And, even though the connection was often not great, I was so happy to have a moment with her.
