Sadness
My mother died recently.
It wasn’t sudden. My family knew for a long time that this was going to happen. She’s been sick for too long and I’m glad her suffering is over.
Of course, I wish it hadn’t happened in the first place, but it wasn’t really anything she did to cause it. It’s not like she drank herself to death or died skydiving. It was like cancer, but it wasn’t cancer. I still don’t know what caused it, I think it’s quite possible that no one does. It’s just one of those things that happens.
I think that my mother’s emotional state was greatly affected by this disease. The first occurrence of the brain tumor was before my parents got divorced. 1987, I think. I know when she had brain surgery my dad was still around.
But they got divorced in 1989. Again, the details are fuzzy, but I think she had no more brain surgeries until sometime in the early 90’s. I know she was really sad about the divorce. But anyone that knew my family could easily see that it was for the best. My dad is kind of a dick.
She got a job and worked to support me. I can’t even imagine doing something like this, considering she was a stay-at-home-mom and her marriage of 20+ years was now over.
Sometime around this time she got rear-ended by a drunk driver, her car flipped over, and they had to pry her out with the jaws of life. Unfortunately, I can’t remember if this was before or after the divorce. She had more brain surgeries. I moved out, and she had more brain surgeries. She stopped working and started getting social security money. And then more brain surgeries – Into the double digits. They cut her skull open 10 times, at least.
I think she probably felt like the unluckiest person in the world. We never really talked about this. I know she resented what happened with my dad. I know she didn’t understand why she had all these brain tumors. I know she was really upset about the car accident.
I think she felt that suffering was what she did.
I went back to michigan when my mom died. I looked at a lot of her things — old photos, newspaper clippings, etc. I saw a poem she had saved. I don’t remember the poem exactly, but it was basically about an adolescent girl who feels like she isn’t pretty and doesn’t have much to offer the world. It was very sad. My mother had saved it in a box of keepsakes, and wrote next to the poem “me.” I don’t know when she did this. It looked old, but not too old. I imagine that she did it in high school, before she was married to my dad.
I didn’t really know too much about my mother’s childhood — just that she was artistic and that her older sister often had to drag her out of bed in the mornings when they went to school.
Now, looking back on all these things, I am forced to conclude that I am much more like my mother than I ever realized. For the most part, I tried very hard to not be like my mother — but I guess that’s how it always goes. I’m sad about most things. I feel like bad things happen to me more frequently than anybody else I know. I feel unlucky in love.
I don’t think anyone could say that my mother lived an amazing life. We were really poor, she was sick, she didn’t have any romantic relationships that I know of since the early 90’s. Her father died in 1995. I have a very real desire to do better than that.
I know that my mother did the best she could — and, for the most part, I believe that her circumstances, that is, the things in her life that were out of her control, were truly unfortunate. So far, none of the really bad things that happened to her have happened to me.
But I can’t help but think that her attitude might have something to do with her sadness. And, since I’ve just recently noticed that am pretty much just as sad as my mother was, I am worried that I will end up the same way. I don’t want that. I don’t want to die at 60, unable to clean myself and basically alone. I want to have an interesting career. I want to find love. I want to be happy.
So I have decided to try to change some things about myself. I want to stop thinking that bad things always happen to me. I want to make good things happen. I want to be less pessimistic. She suffered. But maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe I don’t have to.
I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s worth a shot. This rejection of the qualities I inherited from her isn’t meant to dishonor her. I think if she knew that I was happy, it would have made her happy, at least for a little while.
I don’t think she would have wanted me to be sad. I would not wish sadness on anybody, and I don’t think she would, either. So I don’t think she would disapprove. I hope she would be happy that I’m trying to make things better.
I miss her.