So it has been a while since I've written. Not a ton has changed, but time has gone by and that has made somethings feel different regarding my mother.
Since I last wrote I decided to write my mother a letter via snail mail. I am never sure if I will hear from her again and I become convinced that every call about my mother is the call informing me that she has died. Given this, I decided to, while I had her address, tell her everything I would want to tell her should this be my last communication.
What did I tell her? I told her I loved her and that I am not sure she can see the ways her illness is hurting her and that I hope for wellness for her, but cannot guarantee anything on my end...I get too hurt.
I heard back from her via snail mail, with a letter addressed to my husband's office as I was not comfortable giving her my home address (realizing that then I would feel panicked, even 12 states away, that she might show up at my safe place, my home). She disregarded all of the more meaningful parts of my letter and responded about how life was now for her, and waxed poetically about me and my family and how lovely we are.
After the anger passed at having been substantially ignored, I decided to write to her and I even did so via email this time. Instead of continuing to try to change her, try to help her, try to show her the cracks in her reality, I just responded politely. I sent her the kind of email I might send a distant relative after a long hiatus..."my daughter is 3 now, she is spirited and funny..." and so on. I even attached pictures of the kids and one of all of us. I sent it off.
Two weeks passed and then I received a two line email indicating that she liked the pictures and was busy with interviews so she did not have much time. She would be in touch later.
That was 2 months ago.
At first I checked my email more frequently wondering if now was the later she meant. I dreaded/hoped to hear from her. I hoped a miracle had happened, I dreaded what I thought was really happening and any continued involvement on my end. And after a while I got busy with the stuff of life and time passed. When I open my email I am not wondering if I will hear from her anymore.
So, why the title of this post? Why am I thankful? I have tried to write this post off and on for the 2 years I have been writing this blog. Here is the thing: even in the midst of this present day heartache, she did a few things right. She did somethings amazingly right. She was sometimes brave and bold and big-hearted. She was sometimes the mom I want to be.
It is this part that I have a hard time reconciling.
And if you have read my blog, I'm sure you know why.
Today I recalled such a thing she did beautifully right. When I was 8 or so, my mother took our book of fairy tales and switched all the gendered characters. Instead of Beauty and the Beast, it read Handsome and the Beast. The idea of that story being about a handsome, sweet prince helping a grotesque and difficult woman is substantially different from the classic. She gave me the gift of these new stories and the gift of seeing the crack in these norms that serve to shape us all.
So, today I sent her an email thanking her for this. I have no idea if it is a working address anymore or if it will illicit a response even if it is. But I've spent so much time dwelling in either escaping the negative or fortifying my boundaries from problems that it feels refreshing to spend a moment basking in a good memory.
Sometimes it is comforting to not over think a thing. So I will not go on, but I will just say that was a good thing she did. Thank you Mom, for that and for so many other things that I rarely have the opportunity to think about.
