Frigorific

Today is my mother’s 54th birthday. I might wish her a happy birthday, but I don’t think she has internet access. And I can’t call her on the phone.

Eight years ago, my mother was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without opportunity for parole for the shooting death of my step-father. I’d really like to say that I’m making that up, but I’m not.

I don’t know what other people do in situations like this, but I’ve had a really hard time maintaining communication with my mother since her conviction.

There are pragmatic challenges. She is more than a thousand miles away from me. Prisons in the U.S. are controlled places, with all communication in and out observed and sometimes filtered. That has a chilling effect on communication all by itself.

More important though, are the emotional challenges. Like the fact that my mother—an important person in my life—was convincted of killing my step-father—another important person in my life—with a really rather pathetic tale of theft and deception as the explanation. That pretty much makes effective communication something like swimming in frozen molasses.

Open and honest communication with my mother has always been a challenge. She grew up in difficult and confused circumstances. Spending a childhood guessing and speculating about the feelings of those around her, I’m sure she found it difficult as an adult to function any other way. It’s one thing to speculate about feelings and motives; it’s another thing to take those guesses, choose the most sensational (even if it’s the least likely), and believe it as truth. To function ever after with that guess-cum-truth (truth-cum-guess?) locked in her thinking as if she had witnessed it first-hand. Such is one facet of my mother’s mental state.

If I could condemn my mother, my feelings and therefore my actions could be so much simpler. But my mother, the one I loved, is hard to condemn.

There was a time that I thought she was beautiful. I can remember her long brown hair with the silver streak that plagued her in childhood. When I was small, it was long enough for her to sit on it, and thick and silky. Most people remember her for her wicked sense of humor. She was sharp and archly funny in even the challenging situations. I’m sure it was her best coping mechanism. And she was my Mother. She cared for me when I was sick. She encouraged me and made me feel smart and pretty even when I was an awkward, spindly, little, four-eyed geek. I loved that mom.

For just today, in honor of her birthday, I wish I could set aside the death, and the lies, and the imperfections, the fickleness, the fear, the mistrust, the sadness, and the very deep pain. Today, I wish I could send a bit of love to my mom on her birthday.

As hard as she is to condemn, she is equally hard to forgive. I thought, perhaps, that as a mother myself, I might find forgiveness easier. Thought perhaps I could find some kind of empathy for her. But just the opposite is true. I find it that much harder to empathize with someone who treated her children so disproportionately. Who put her children at such risk, took so much from us, at such a tender point in some of our lives, and then raged when we all turned away in dazed confusion and grief and anger.

I’ve coped, in my own way, with the loss of my step-father. But she took away my Mother too. And that, as you can see, is still a struggle sometimes.

Comments

[Cass]

Mmmm. This is tough stuff, hon. Really tough. But that's pretty obvious and horrifically real and painful to you. I'm sorry that you have those burdens to work through and experience.

But with respect to you sending a bit of love to your mom on her birthday: I think you did, in fact, whether either of you is aware of it. There is a way in which *your* good mothering is a way of paying forward the moments when she was Mom in the best ways. The associative theorem of love, perhaps?

As a way of honoring the past and recognizing the present, my counselor always asks me where I learned certain things--how to love unconditionally, how to know when someone is afraid, how to care for others. Maybe you learned your great capacity for love in the positives and negatives she and others provided. Good or bad, they were lessons. And they make up part of who you are today.

I don't know if that feels right to you, but just some thoughts to ponder.

Love you! (hugs)
C