“My life would have been easier if you were here.”
I’m no longer sending this message to my mum, even if it is totally valid.
Exactly 18 years after her passing, I still believe that not witnessing more days is better for her. She moved to a permanent place, hopefully a better one. Death is a better transition for devout people like her. It’s a truth hard to swallow, and it took me a lot of years to get there.
I don’t know anymore if it is harder to live without the best mother in the world, or live long with a difficult mother. I also think this comparison is pointless. Comparing pains is inhuman and sinful.
My mother was far from difficult, sometimes I even wish she were a little bit more difficult with me. She had a very tough life, but you could hardly see it in her face, even when she was sick. As far as I experienced her, she was both the softest and the strongest. I never knew it's that hard to be like her.
Of course as I grew older, I learned (theoretically) what went wrong in our relationship, but still my biggest problem with my mother is that her life was just short.
I was 21 when she left, but still didn’t know myself better than she did. Until she got sick, I was an open book to her. She is the only one who ever got that access. I was definitely purer and brighter, but also stronger and more self-esteemed.
Everyone praised my “strength” when my mother died, and I believed them, I wanted to believe I was still strong when the one who held my truth is no longer there.
My only mirror was broken into pieces, but grief didn’t feel like the best option. I wanted to press the reset button, and start from scratch.
“What will it be like to live without the one person who knew everything about you? Isn’t it a chance to grow into a different person, much better than the previous one?”
That curiosity was much stronger than my urge to crumble and grieve. Except I did get much worse before I could get any better.
I learned the hard way that one never denies grief from a place of strength. Denial is indeed the biggest fragility of all, and it is my greatest sin of all.
I still, however, think it is smart to hide grief when necessary, not everyone deserves to witness you grieving. Not everyone understands grief or can handle it gracefully. Not everyone grieves the same way after all.
For 18 years I have been mostly smart, but not strong. I only told you about my late mother when I needed you to acknowledge how smart I am with my loneliness. I masked what I didn't want you to see, I masked so well that you (and sometimes I) didn't seem to know me anymore.
Once I decided to stop being so invisible, I found it extremely hard to grab the mic and actually introduce myself to the world.
If I take off those masks, what will I open up about?
I wish I could ask my mum. At least someone at some point really knew, but the truth she held is now outdated.
I ask myself if mum was alive today, would she be proud of me or worried about me? Would she speak to the refined version of me or the hopeless loser? Would I bear to witness her misinterpreting me like others do?
Even the closest ones tend to see me much differently than I see myself. Some think I’m so much better than I actually am, which helps a good deal, but is also damaging at times. Others saw me much worse than I think I am, and that honestly never helped.
Mum would have inevitably taken one of the two positions as I grew older than 21, and in both cases I wouldn’t like it.
I think our mothers can be barriers to actually knowing ourselves, they have the power to either exaggerate or deny hard truths we don’t want to see. They are also capable of either shielding us against brutal realities we refuse to accept, or holding our hands as we navigate them.
That's the space where I miss my mother the most.
Her memory has been the refuge, and fantasy, I withdraw into when life gets too much. It's a luxury that not everyone has. Maybe that’s why it’s really hard for me to find a new honest mirror for the newer versions of me. It’s not as pleasant to look in the mirror when you get older, after all.
I can neither ask my mother how it felt to be anywhere older than 21, nor can I get to tell her how my twenties and thirties have been. I can't blame her for how I feel now. I’m already 18 years away and she’s off the hook.
Good for her. Hard for me.
She's still, however, a big reason why I haven't completely lost my way. No matter how far away life takes me, that old truth she held still anchors me.
She's been such a blessing for me.. God bless her.
