And so, a major milestone in life happens.
I got word (first from the facility itself, then through my sister) that my mother died last night.
This was something for which I had been preparing myself over a number of years.
Still, I do find it odd to think that no, this time, she really IS gone. Apparently she had been on a downward slide for the past six months or so (almost as though she was willing herself to go). I talked for a bit earlier this afternoon with the daytime supervisor at the assisted-living facility where she was; my mother had had about three falls (non-injury) over the past week or so - after the last one Friday or Saturday, they brought her to the hospital for monitoring, then brought her back to the facility. She was brought back to her room and laid down for a nap - nothing out of the ordinary there. When someone checked in on her a few hours later, she was non-responsive and breathing shallowly. Before the medics could get to her room, she died.
I'm not sure what other arrangements are necessary (supposedly there WAS something in place for cremation); her sister (my aunt, who lived about a mile away) told me that everyone is still kind of shocked due to the sudden nature of her death. Since I'm the eldest child I will probably go down to help out with necessary final arrangements, but I have no idea when I'll be leaving or how long I will have to stay.
For the uninitiated, let me give a brief summary about my mother.
Neither of my parents are (or were) "bad" people.
They both had tremendously difficult childhoods (both grew up during the Depression; both came from hard-working, semi-successful farming families; both were at various times during their childhoods very poor and struggled to get by from day to day). They each had much promise as singers/musicians. They ended up sublimating or denying those talents in order to raise a family. The real tragedy in both their lives was that they never really managed to come to terms with what that self-denial did to them, and also that they never found a way to forgive themselves for doing what they felt was asked of them (get married, work hard, have a family, etc.) and move on with their lives. In many respects, though they were honestly proud of the successes on and offstage both their children had through the years, they ended up trying desperately to live their denied dreams of being performers vicariously through me and my sister's careers.
What is also tragic about my mother is, she was never able to look at herself as being a "worthy" person - though she was a very pretty woman most of her adult life, she had had a horrible self-image (partly due to the years of verbal abuse and belittling by her father, and partly due to being severely clinically depressed, something that was not diagnosed until she was at least 75) and would always find some way to put herself down or belittle herself and her accomplishments. I often thought if you were to look up the term "passive/aggressive" in the dictionary, you would find her picture as part of the definition. Or to put it another way, remember the TV show "The Golden Girls"? Well, my mother WAS Rose Nylund (Betty White's character). Almost 100 percent - right down to bearing an almost eerie physical resemblance. Eek.
No, I don't hate my parents in general, nor my mother in particular.
I also stopped "feeling sorry" for them a long time ago.
I was thinking about why I don't really feel much sadness now, knowing she's gone; it's something like what happens with bears or cougars, or even lions in the wild - eventually, the offspring of the female become independent, move away from their mother, and eventually seem to not even recognize that this other being was their mother. That's almost what it was like with me and my mother. There came a time where I had nothing in common with her, and what's more, she literally had no grasp of what it was like to be me, to live my life - no idea whatsoever. I make the analogy that both she and my father kind of gave up on living in the present for an existence inside this vague, indistinct bubble of space-time where life was always somewhat cheery and "time" for them (as we know it ) stopped somewhere around 1959. They never used a personal computer nor never owned one, never had an ATM card (much less used one), and always reacted to minor changes in the outside world with outright surprise, if not downright fear and incomprehension.
No, I didn't hate my mother. After a point, I found I did not have much feeling for her (as a child for a parent) one way or another.
She became this odd, lonely, sad woman who for whatever reason felt she was incapable of reaching out to the world for help because she wasn't worth it. In that respect, I'm sad. Beyond that, though, I'm more numb than anything. I will no doubt feel some grief down the road, but it will no doubt be small and brief. Which in itself is a sad, sad thing.
Rest in peace, mom.
Your suffering is over.