Dear Mommy: I'm Sorry

I had been crying for what felt like non-stop for a few days when I wrote this. Too much sadness, guilt, and regret filled my head. However, I knew that writing helps me cope with big stuff so I just sat down and unloaded what I couldn't stop thinking about. At the time, I didn't feel the need to publish. It worked its magic, and I hadn't cried much since.

Sometime towards the end of February 2018, my mom was discharged from the local hospital's psychiatric floor for the last time. The doctor basically said he couldn't do anything else for her, and his suggestion was to check her into a group home and be prepared to consider hospice services.

Dad couldn't bring himself to just drop her off somewhere with strangers so he canceled all of his church obligations and wood working projects and committed himself to her full time care. But sooner instead of later, because mom still wouldn't eat and was basically wasting away, falling and stumbling if she did get up, and talking somewhat incoherently, we decided to request hospice.

Although there were strange, surreal moments of brief hope, mom steadily declined even more over the summer. She passed away on August 14, 2018.

I guess I'm choosing to share this now because I need to work towards closure and healing, and I've found in the past that writing the private things and sharing them publicly helps me relieve the pressure of holding things in. No carrying secrets equals no carrying guilt. And I certainly don't plan to or mean to disparage any memory of her that others have, but we were "mother and daughter" to the full extent of all that entails.

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March, 2018

Dear Mommy, 

I ask you if you're awake, but I get no response. You lie there pretending to be asleep. Maybe you aren't pretending, but dad says he thinks you are mostly awake during the day.

So you ignore me hoping I'll go away. Which I will. I've learned. I've learned if I continue to ask questions you will eventually loudly whine at me to leave you alone, to leave the room, to just LEAVE which hurts worse than just backing out softly after the initial question and no response.

I've decided now, I won't cause you anymore pain or stress than what you are already experiencing. I won't press a conversation. I won't beg for resolution. Your physical and mental suffering is enough without my adding to it. You suffer physically from unrelenting tremors throughout your whole body even during sleep, and I assume you suffer mentally because you describe yourself as depressed, empty inside.

I barely remember the story "of us". I'm sure there was one, right? A story of a mother who doted on her daughter, and a daughter who idolized her mother? The iconic mother/daughter relationship emerging somewhere after birth? Were we close? Did you adore me? Wasn't I a "little you"? Did the little brother's birth two years later and subsequent heart condition break that bond? Or was there never a bond there to begin with? Did you love me? Did I love you?

I try to think back to those very young years on Tacoma. It would have been before I was six because we moved to Plover Lane after kindergarten. I have glimpses of things, a sugar bowl at the breakfast table, pink milk from red food coloring, a screen door into the garage, tall weeds in the privacy-fenced backyard, an old metal swing set, a sandbox full of cat poop, a driveway, an alley.

I had a few friends in the neighborhood all connected by the alley. I can still remember some of their names: Kristy B., Kimberly S., Cammy, and Giovanna. I remember burning my hair in a candle at Kristy's birthday party. I remember playing "Emergency" on Kimberly's swing set and fighting over who would get to be the good-looking fireman (she always won), and I remember riding my bike up and down the alley to Cammy's house, and wishing I was pretty like Giovanna.

I also remember spending time outside in the backyard or in my room alone. I remember swinging on the swing set with my eyes shut, feeling the gravity pull at my face with every dip of the pendulum. I remember sifting the sand in the sandbox using a kitchen sifter. This was how I found the crumbly clay like stuff which I now know was cat poop. I remember squishing it with my fingers, wondering why it wouldn't compact and build like normal clay.

I remember my room. Dad had built shelves on the wall. My record player was on the shelf. My bed had a canopy, and it and the matching desk were painted white with gold highlights. I remember the color pink.

But I barely remember you. I remember your dark, black hair. I remember it was always perfect. I remember your black and white photo on your dresser in your room. I remember you lying on the floral green and blue couch in the living room. I remember you in the kitchen. I remember watching "Sound of Music" with you on your bed. And I remember you behind your locked bedroom door screaming at me to go away as I sat and cried outside the door. I think you were crying too.

After the first move, I remember you more, perhaps because I was getting older now. We lived in this next house from when I was 6 to about 15 or so. I remember you kept it very clean. You were nice, I think. You let me have friends over, and I spent time at friend's houses. I remember shopping for clothes sometimes. But you would also take me to get hand-me-downs from your friend's older daughters. I didn't mind.

You and dad were very involved at church. You led or taught classes, and you had "fellowships" at our house or attended them at other's houses. You seemed the life of the party, an extrovert that my increasing introverted self wished to be. You were beautiful and everyone seemed to love you, at least from my perspective. You also kept that Miss Irving trophy on the fireplace behind the TV. Every now and then, I would go look at it, and wonder if I would ever live up to that, if I would ever be considered so talented and beautiful to get a trophy for it.

You tolerated my piano practice. I began to notice how often you fussed at dad. You huffed and puffed around the house about things that didn't seem to matter. The story of "not us" began in my preteen years, I think or assume, and extended into adulthood. For years we fought with snippy sharp words and door slamming. We didn't get along for whatever reason. I think I always hoped it was because we were too different, but I suspect it was more because we were too alike.

I moved away, and always thought things would be different then. But as soon as we were together for 3 or more days, the polite charade wore off, and we let each other know in one way or another that we were only tolerating each other's presence. Outwardly there seemed little remorse once we separated and went back to our own corners in our own homes.

The phone calls were strained, at least on my part. I couldn't pretend all was well even from a distance. I faked friendliness all the while yearning for the typical mother-daughter friendship my adult friends seemed to have with their mothers. I kept thinking...someday...someday we'll get it right.

Well that someday never really came. Various physical illnesses along the way seemed to trigger a relapse or enhance your depression and anxiety and threw you into loop after loop of seeking help from psychiatrists, always spiraling worse and worse. Medications were started and stopped and started again. ECT treatments came and went, at times helping, and finally not helping at all. The now unrelenting tremors began after another half-hearted desperate attempt to escape the rollercoaster of mental suffering a few years ago.

And here we are. You hiding in your room, clinging to the safety and support of your bed; me feeling like time has run out, knowing things between us may never be resolved.

I'm sorry I didn't try harder. I'm so, so sorry.

Your daughter,

Rachel