My husband
has a sweet relationship with his mother.
She’s now 91 and he visits her many times each week, manages her
finances, and attends her medical care conferences. Apparently they’ve always
been close. When he started kindergarten, he preferred her company to the folks
at school. He tells me he stayed home
more days than anyone in his class.
My own
relationship to my mother was complicated; I didn’t much like my mom because of
her sharp tongue, critical nature, and mercurial temper. She seemed
self-absorbed and childish to me, even when I was a teen. My dad provided a
buffer between us, until he died when I was 16.
Then I reluctantly took his place as Mom’s bridge partner and confidante. I came home every holiday and my mother
supported my ongoing education by supplementing my graduate student stipend and
writing checks on my birthday and Christmas.
Despite her generosity, I
often felt judged and so hid my inner life from her. My mother was a
strong-willed, tiny woman who smoked herself to death. Although I was physically present when she
died, I wasn’t yet sober, so on a spiritual and emotional level, I was pretty distant.
While I was
able to quit smoking when I was 27, I’ve spent the last 30 years unable to lose
weight because I’ve equated being tiny with being mean and critical. However, I’ve
come into a new phase with my mother by focusing on the best traits we shared:
we’re both organized, energetic, opinionated, independent, good with money, and
love solitude. Today I’m much more
accepting of my mother for what she was capable of and can discern all the ways
she loved me without saying so outright.
And in the
process, I’ve shed 27 pounds. While I’m
not as tiny as she is—yet--I’m no longer afraid of becoming her if I look like
her. And that seems to have made all the difference.
