Mothers Day and difficult anniversaries

Hi @Former-Member 🙂

My mother passed on the 20th of January 2014 from pulmonary fibrosis. I arrived at the hospital too late to speak with her. The many hours by her bedside, holding her hand after the machines were shut off were the absolutely worst horror of my life, as she slowly worsened to the point of passing into the final peace...

Mother's Day therefore is a time of great emotional pain for me. I embrace and accept that pain - it is after all a natural response to grieve and hurt. This acceptance of the hurt helps me to cope a bit.

I have a good cry. I buy a nice bottle of wine and toast her memory. I think of all the good times and not so good times, and how they all helped to shape our relationship, helped to shape me.

I think of frangipani flowers, how she used to put a few in my bedroom when I was a kid. The memory of that fragrance brings more tears to my eyes...

And eventually the heightened emotionality of it fades back to the combination of dull ache and fond memories that it usually is...

Sending hugs your way @Former-Member and the hope that peace and warmth help you to cope... 🙂

Hi @Former-Member and @Silenus

This is really hard for me to write but I'll give it a go -

Mother's Day for the past 6 years have been really hard because my parents don't talk to me as a result of me telling them I was abused sexually as a child.

The treatment I have received from them is undescrible. I cry so much for their understanding, love and support but I don't get it and probably never will.

So when mother's day comes around I get very emotional; i do have a cry. I have 3 adult children of my own (24, 23,20). My children will be working on mother's day so we will probably have dinner altogether at night.

It is still emotional for me because i see lots of my friends who have a loving close relationship with their mums and it hurts me so much to not have that with my own mum 😞

These days are hard for me too. My mum passed a few years ago from cancer. Her anniversary is the worst. Her death was especially hard for me because of a few illness related things I'm not going to go into.

I'm lucky in the sense mum didn't like mother's day (I guess she saw every day as mother's day) and that she had a dry, dark humour. I share this sick sense of humour. So every mother's day I make jokes about it.

It's my way of remembering and I know she'd find it funny.

Hi @Former-Member

Yes - I do understand - I often wonder about my mother - I have forgiven her - after she died I took a long inward journey to find her - I spoke to my father's brothers and they filled me in on a lot of things - and I strained my brain to remember everything I could - and even went to the War Memorial in Canberra to get her father's War Records - and in among it all I found a lonely, co-dependent child who was so damaged herself she could not see other people - to her - her own suffering was worse than anyone else's - and maybe it was - but I have the feeling she just could not get over herself - and there is nothing I can do about what happened before I was born - I was just the convenient target - and one tough little kid for her to take on

But yes - she did have a pretty rotten childhood - and it seems to me from what I know she caused life to be hard - she was unfriendly

Wow!!!

I understand what you are saying - and forgiveness comes in time and that is for your sake - not your mother's - I can't understand how people can ill-treat their children -

So I was honest and obedient and was an achiever - and a little rebel - and I rather like myself in those memories - and in the last years I have learned to like myself as I am - because tough stuff in our lives helps to define us - and that is hard - like trying to find the picture on the canvas before we have the canvas or the paints

For you - forgiving your mother was not what allowed her to mutate - I have to ask - did you stay around in the line of fire when you were old enough to leave? I didn't - all these years later l know I walked away from a toxic situation and stayed away for years at a time - and this stopped any mutation -

My mother died full of regret - I couldn't help her - I don't want to say any more about that today

I know your hatred - your anger - your tears - I so do - I cried all the way through my mother's funeral - my adult brain knew she would never be the loving mother I was able to become myself - possibly because of my loving grand-mothers - but I got it - I was over it - I was not playing co-dependent games with a crooked cypher of a woman - so yes - I guess in the middle I had let go

But at her funeral the child who had been beaten and verbally tormented and psychologically totally unaware of what I did that was wrong - most of the time - that little child realised that Mummy would never come - that was too much - esp with my relatives saying what a wonderful person she was

Which is what people say at funerals

Anyway - I do get it Lapses - I do understand - there are other people here who will too -

Mothers Day - it has been rattling my brain all week and today - I didn't think of it today - but I didn't sleep well and I got really cold and my back ached - and I thought - let's look for somewhere else to live - which I do from time to time because this place gets cold - and I thought - let's get into the Forum and see what's happening

Then I realised the bad night I had was partly due to it being Mothers Day tomorrow - and my daughter is working - but that's okay - we are close

We share the ambiguous bereaved mother thing Lapses - which is hard - there is always that extra twist in the tail with that - we have the children we have - but there is one missing - and this is the hook - the pain - we don't need the commercial hype of Mothers Day to make it more painful - do we?

I don't feel ugly about it anymore - I have done - but I don't care that my mother wandered around for months with an increasingly large baby inside - that she washed my crappy nappies and tried to make me fit into the behaviour that serves no-one - condependency - I won there and when you get to where I am it's not all that wonderful - but not ugly - it's a fact

I'm going to watch The Colour Purple - that is a great story - about different kinds of mothers - but I am around and starting to feel warm at last

I care Lapses and I understand

Dec