When Death Comes

My mother passed away in January.  I was able to be there with her when she died.  Now both of my parents are gone and it's been really interesting to see how my different siblings deal with it.  I'm the youngest, by 11 years, but the role I play in the family is to be the calm, reasonable one; the one who validates all the feelings my sisters are having; the one who understands where they are coming from; and the one who offers up possible solutions.  I'm okay with that role, but I find it interesting that my sisters are so self-absorbed that they can't even see how all of this may be affecting me.  None of us had a real emotional attachment to my mother, so I don't feel like I've lost much, by way of relationship, with her death.  But there are definitely things that are difficult to deal with, pain I suffer from that none of my siblings seem to be aware of.  

Actually, it's kind of interesting because things are following the same old pattern they have been for as long as I can remember.  My parents referred to me as the child who raised herself, who didn't need anyone.  I learned at a early age to be the keeper of my mom's emotions/moods; I learned not to ask for anything; I learned that I couldn't really count on anyone to take care of my emotional needs.  No one really ever asked me about my feelings or about how I was doing.  I think this has impacted my mood quite a bit--I'm realizing that I grew up believing I was all alone, that I could only count on myself emotionally speaking; I was well-cared for and well-loved, but very isolated.  It's actually had a big impact on my marriage--it is really hard for me to let my husband in, to allow him to help me when I struggle.  I feel like I have to do it alone.  But that's another story.  For now, I see this pattern being replayed with my sisters.  One is the sister with the shittiest life and anything I say about my difficulties are always topped by her difficulties.  She always has had it worse.  So I usually don't say anything about how I'm feeling; partly out of guilt, because how dare I feel bad when she has had such a terrible life?  My other sister and I aren't as close and not very open with each other, but it's a situation in which no one thinks much about my feelings or needs.  

Another interesting thing is how much both of my sisters are like my mom, despite the fact that they loath the way my mother acted/reacted.  I'm not sure either of them can see it, but it's there.  They both love to be the martyr, although in different ways.  One is very vocal about how horrible her life is and she puts the blame of her crappy life squarely on my mother's shoulders.  But she doesn't realize that, like my mom, she is not accepting responsibility for her own happiness.  She loves to dwell on how the world and everyone in it is out to get her, to take advantage of her, to make her life miserable.  My mom wasn't able to take responsibility for her emotional health either.  The other sister gets really passive-aggressive and makes everyone around her have to tip-toe around her and her depression.  She doesn't take responsibility for her depression either.  Of course, to protect my relationship with both of them, I can't point any of this out to them.

I've told my therapist that I am relying on her to point out behavior that falls into the same patterns that my mother lived.  She agreed and our code phrase is "Holy shit, Kim!"  When she says this, I know to snap to attention.  :)  But despite all of this, despite my mom's short-comings and her emotional paralysis, I have gained some good things from her--I've learned empathy, I've learned to put myself in other people's places and try to see things from their point of view, and I've worked really hard at having a different type of relationship with my children.  My kids know they can come to me about anything.  We have very open conversations and I share with them some of my trials with depression, among other things.  We cuddle, we laugh together, we cry together.  I'm pretty confident that their experience with me, as their mother, is so very different than my experience with my mom, and I feel good about it.  And really, it's something good I got from my mom, in a round about way.  And from my dad I've learned about persistence and hard work.  I couldn't have gotten through my depression without both of those.  So, even though my parents weren't perfect and I lacked a lot of emotional connection with them, I don't blame them for my life.  I see how they modeled for me the ways to act in life but I also see how I learned from wanting things to be different.  I guess the pain and suffering brought me growth and strength.  And one of the most important things I've learned is that I am responsible for my own emotional health.  I don't blame anyone for my problems (usually) and I work hard to change my behavior and ways of thinking in order to find greater happiness and health.   I realize this is similar to what I wrote in November, but it's obviously something I've been thinking a lot about.  I just have this sense of "rightness" about it all.

A friend shared this poem by Mary Oliver (my favorite!) with me when my mom died.  I love it. And it's how I hope to live and die.

When Death Comes 

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

-Mary Oliver