Orbiting the Mother Ship

As I wrote in my post '50', this Christmas I will be observing the 50th anniversary of my father's death the only place that I, in good conscience, can this year - at his graveside 1600 miles from my current home.  I will leave Christmas Eve morning, arrive in the city of my birth midday and spend the rest of the day absorbing said fair city.  In the evening I hope to attend Christmas Eve service at the church near my hotel.  Christmas morning I will take the subway to the cemetery.  I am, in an odd way, really looking forward to this pilgrimage.

I have not been, however, looking forward to informing my mother of my plans.

I bought my ticket back in May.  Waited months to tell my children that I would be making this trip alone and assuring them that I will be home Christmas evening whereby we can still have a meaningful celebration.

But I have been extremely hesitant to tell my mother...because my gut was telling me that her reaction would most likely NOT be favorable.

And it wasn't.

I took off a half day of work today to take mom to her opthomalogist's appointment.  I have been doing these appointments with her lately because her eyesight has gotten so bad (cataracts - which she has always REFUSED to have removed - and now macular degeneration.)

On the drive over she was telling me all about her recent bouts with insomnia.  How she lays in bed at night unable to sleep and how she starts rehashing old stuff in her mind.   OLD STUFF.  Situations that happened decades ago.  With people long dead.

"I'm thinking that I would have done some things differently"

Hmmm...

"Interesting" I thought to myself.  Mom had NEVER EVER intimated that she was ever remorseful for anything she's ever done or said in her life.  She just never seems to have that reflective quality.  She does, however, usually turn everything to her advantage, i.e., circumstances and/or other people precipitated her bitterness with life in general and her reactions therefor.

In short, mom is not a happy person.  Never has been.  Of course, she's had a lot of crap in her life to deal with but haven't we all?  Isn't that life?

So I'm setting you up with the picture of mom.  She's never had friends - well, one from high school that lives 1000 miles away that she talks to by phone once in awhile.  But NEVER any social connections.  No neighbors to laugh with, no friends from 35 years of working, no friends at all.

And family?  Mom finds fault with those who are left.  Her only nephew, my cousin N, she hasn't seen nor spoken to him in about 20 years.  I maintain a close relationship with him and it pains him that she doesn't want anything to do with him.

"I don't know what I did..." he sadly told me a couple of years ago.  I assured him that it was nothing that he did.  

I don't fare much better.  I made peace a long time ago that my mom was not going to be my friend.  Nor my nurturer.  Nor my cheering section.  Nor my place of comfort.

Yep.  Mother didn't mother.

Anyway, you can kind of get the picture.

So today I am listening.  I try to be to my mom everything that she is not to me.  I really do...because I am all she has.  And it is hard because, boy, she sure does know how to lash out and push the old buttons.  Back in my younger days I could go head to head with her and debate a point.  A point, I might add, that I was to never win.  If a person cannot discuss something rationally you can never have any kind of thoughtful resolution.  It took me quite awhile to learn that one.

She wouldn't go into detail about just what she thinks about.  She did concede that some thoughts have to do with my father...and her mother and father...and my stepfather.  Individually, of course, not collectively.

Well I could think of a couple of times when she was downright cruel to her mother, my grandmother.  Like the time my grandmother, who must have been in her late 70s, was - thinking that she had done something very responsible and caring - informing my mom that she had had a will drawn up and that C, mom's older sister, was the executor and that everything would be split 50/50.  I remember my mother was incensed and berated my grandmother for not choosing her, the younger daughter.  Her reasoning?  Who knows?

Or maybe mom was thinking back to the time when my grandmother had very gently questioned her about her impending plans to remarry.  I'm not sure exactly why but my grandmother was concerned over mom's plans to marry the man who would become my stepfather.  Oh I remember that 'conversation'.  Mom hit the roof.  She and I and my grandmother were riding in our car and mom stopped and ordered my weeping grandmother OUT!  Yep.  That was horrible.  I was eleven and my heart was breaking at the scene of my beloved, tiny little grandmother dejectedly getting out of our car and my mother screeching off.  That little scene got Grandmother, Aunt C and me UNINVITED to the wedding.

So, yeah, there are some things that I bet weigh on mom's mind...and heart, apparently.

And did I mention that mom is horribly afraid of death?  And I bet she figures out a way to cheat it!

So after the appointment we went to dinner and I figured I would finally tell her.

"This year Christmas is going to be a little different" I started.

And I proceeded to tell her my plans.

The great thing about mom is that she doesn't hold anything back.  You know exactly WHEN you've stepped in it.

She sat across from me smirking and slowly shaking her head.  The 'condescending shake' is what my son likes to call it.

I explained that I would be home in the evening on Christmas Day and we could do dinner then.  Not a good idea - too late.

'Well, maybe I'll take a trip somewhere too'

UGH this is not a pleasure trip...not a vacation.

'Well I have NO desire to relive that day'  And so on and so on the recriminations continued.

Not surprised.  Why did I hold out any hope that she would understand...or empathize...or just support me in this decision?

Nope, it was all about her.  Just like it always has been.

Then sitting there at dinner she did precede to relive the day.  How my grandmother and Aunt C were expected at our apartment for Christmas dinner and how she was preparing and my dad was MIA.  She just figured that he was out on a tear.  At 11:00 a.m. the county cop called and very matter of factly asked if she owned a '63 Falcon and if (NAME) was her husband and that he was dead.  Killed in a head on collision in the wee hours of Christmas day.  How the Times-Herald reported that she too had been killed in the accident because her shoes, which were in the car, were strewn about at the scene of the accident.  How wonderful her place of employment was to her (the only positive thing she had to say in the whole dissertation).  How my Aunt C and her son, my cousin N - my mother's nephew who she so selfishly will no longer associate with - went to the morgue and identified my father.  NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO GO TO THE MORGUE ON CHRISTMAS DAY.  Cousin N was 24 years old - the age of my daughter.  I cannot imagine.  How she didn't remember much about the first few days except that my father was given a military burial - gun salute and Taps.  And how my father's family left right from the funeral to drive 12 hours back to their home state.  She faulted them for this but the truth of the matter was they all probably had hourly jobs and in their meager existence time was money.

All about how she felt.

No mention of me.

Of course not.

And she wonders why on earth I want to go there.

I want to pay my respects to my father, something that I have never been encouraged nor allowed to do. If I cry at his grave site-- I'm overdue.  I want to face my grief. I want to continue my journey in reconciling that grief.  I want to continue to progress and love and feel and have emotions.

Basically I don't want to be my mother.