I Flew to see My Mother on her 82nd Birthday

Am I the one that caused her to have a stroke?

During the month of July, as I was typing post after post about the nightmare it was to be raised by my mother, her elderly body was gearing up for a small brain bleed.

Let me just say right now - she’s okay.

As okay as an elderly woman can be near the end of a life riddled with anxiety often manifesting as paranoia.

I visited her right before the stroke. I stayed in her guestroom during the days leading up to it. I bought her a fancy birthday cake with shiny gold numbered candles. Twice, we ate at her favorite Mexican restaurant. Her neighbors dropped by, we took drives into the country, and I drove her to the doctor. We walked her deaf, geriatric, equally paranoid Bichon Frise, around the 55-and-up neighborhood she lives in outside Portland, Oregon.

My mother uses a cane. Sometimes she stumbles. Sometimes she stops to sit on the curb.

From the curb, she whispered about the neighbors she likes, and the neighbors who like Trump. That was the distinction she gave, and we gossiped at length about it. Before I reached for her gnarled, arthritic hand to pull her to her feet for the walk home, she reminded me, with a wicked grin, that I’m now old enough to live in her neighborhood.

We talked about my kids, about happy memories from my childhood (yes, there are some), and I told her about my memoir. She asked 47,000 questions, which I tried to answer truthfully.

She asked me what I thought had been wrong with her back then.

I tread delicately when she asks this, or any other time our conversation veers toward the dark shadows of the past. I want to be honest, but gentle. She is old. I have found healing and I have zero desire to punish her.

So I told her I thought that back then, she’d been emotionally immature.

She listened, thoughtfully.

I flew back to Maine the next day and then got the call about the stroke.

I only get out to see my mother once a year. It’s not enough, but it’s all my budget currently allows. My brother lives near her and feels the brunt of her aging.

Whenever I plan a visit, my brother urges me not to tell her I’m coming until a day or two before, because she loses her mind with excitement. She calls him at work every five minutes to talk about plans. I believe this because she calls me at home in Maine, just as frequently.

Sometimes this makes me feel like a shitty person for writing the things I write about her. Because, although my brother and I still see traces of her scary young self in her voice inflections and facial expressions, the old lady she’s become is not the terrifying woman who raised us. She has grown. She has softened. She has evolved.

In recent years, I’ve watched her really try to show up as her authentic self in this world with whatever baggage she’s still carrying. I say, whatever baggage, because even after all this time, it’s not entirely clear. Or, it’s not clear to me how the things she has shared are what turned her into the person she used to be.

But who am I to judge? I grew up with a full refrigerator and access to the best medical care. My parents sent me to private schools and took me to Europe. Three times.

And hell, I’m white.

Full stop.

Yet, trauma is still trauma.

My mother obviously suffered from something, but I don’t imagine either of us will ever figure it out.

My brother has begged me not to let her read my memoir. I tell him I would rather show it to her when I’m visiting, than let her hear about it from a neighbor once it’s published. I could have let her read it while I was out there. She asked.

But she was so happy. I didn’t want to spoil that. And yes, it would have.

The memoir is not about her, it’s about me. But the parts of her it shows are pretty awful. During those years, that’s how she was.

Now, I don’t believe she could read about her past self and not suffer. I don’t want that. We’ve both had enough trauma. I won’t inflict more. Regardless of what happened in the past, I don’t want to hurt her.

Besides, I’m okay now. It’s why I was able to write the end of the book.

Now, though, part of me wonders, did our conversations triggered the stroke? Was it a result of residual anger I don’t realize I’m still carrying? Was it because I’m a lousy daughter?

See my trauma responses still at play??

I know what causes a stroke. I’ve googled it a thousand times in the past month. Because I care.

Years ago, I’d have done all the same things—visited, bought the cake, gone for walks, googled her symptoms and diagnoses. But I would have done it all out of obligation, with old anger simmering underneath. Not because I felt any affection toward her. Not because I wasn’t ready for her to die.

Healing is possible, but it might look nothing like mine.

Healing might mean never seeing your abuser again.

Healing might mean watching them face the consequences of their crimes.

Whatever healing looks like, writing about it can help. In fact, writing about it can make all the difference.

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Thank you for reading

Keep your chin up and eyes open.

xoxo