How do you cry for a life not fully lived?

mama3

My mother died “unexpectedly” on December 21st last year.

I say “unexpectedly” in quotation marks because honestly she had been wanting to die or trying to die, or at the very least had been trying to be sick enough to die, but then survive, for my whole life.

I haven’t yet cried at her passing because it feels like she left so long ago, she was so un-present for most of my life, especially past 1980 when my father died. I think when he died she felt disposed of again, as she was when she was just two and her mother died. Her stepmother not only didn’t want her, but was cruel to her, to the point that Mama’s older brothers and sisters, themselves still children, finally took her out of that situation. I would love to find that stepmother now, and just watch who she is and how she is now, but she is long dead, I’m sure. I would love to have had a word or two–or three–with her before she went.

And I would love to ask my Granddaddy about that time, too, but I only knew him as an old man who had a debilitating stroke at 65, at which time I imagine the evil stepmother left him, unless he had the good sense to leave her earlier; when I knew him, he lived alone in a nursing home and I loved him so. I imagine as an adult, I might have asked him, “How did you let this happen?” but as a child, I found in him a soulmate, someone who delighted in small things, as I did, someone who rehabilitated himself after his stroke by making potholders on one of those red metal child’s looms, and selling them “two for two bits,” at the cemetery every family weekend, much to my mother’s mortification.

Rumor has it that Mama’s stepmother was a nurse in the state mental institution in my hometown and used to take my mother to work with her – as a small child – and leave her in locked wards with patients while she worked.

My mother had a hard life. She had the look of a child thrown away; the letters I have that she wrote to her father, my beloved Granddaddy who traveled selling insurance and surely couldn’t have known what his new wife was doing, are heartbreaking. He had no money for a doll for her Christmas gift, and suggested that it was more important for a child who had nothing to get that doll. So she was motherless and doll-less too.

Until her sister took her in. Newly married, along with her young husband, she took in this little red-headed waif of a girl. We knew Sissy’s husband as Papa (pronounced Paw Paw). Sissy and Papa because our grandparents once Mama married the man of her dreams – my father – and started her own family. And yet, for her whole life, Mama couldn’t shake the feeling of being discarded, especially after Daddy died when she wasn’t yet 50, and I grew to know as an adult that we make up for that in many different ways, don’t we? Some of us with food, with recklessness, with impulsive and destructive relationships, with an inability to move forward, and more. We are constantly filling the hole we feel.

In Mama’s case, she determined that she needed attention, and the best way to get it was to be sick, and so she was–her whole life was a series of surgeries and weeks in traction and illnesses that none of us could see, but felt the impact from. Little did she know that she could have gotten all the attention she needed by being well. We tried telling her that, but she didn’t believe us, or the requirement in her DNA was so deeply coded that she couldn’t believe it, or didn’t care.

Ten or twelve years ago, a friend and I had a six-hour drive to the coast of Oregon, and talked about the similarities in our two mothers. “By the time my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer,” he said quietly at one point, looking out at the sea, “no one believed her, and no one cared.” We rode in silence for a good long while.

And I felt the sudden shock of recognition in that car. That was exactly it. Crying wolf, and wolf, and wolf, and in the process getting addicted to pain medications, and after all the best efforts to save her, it became clear that I could not save her, I could only save myself or be pulled down with her, which I was over the years, which I was, in ways I am still not willing to admit to myself.

Not even finding Christian-based therapists helped. Not even confronting her pill-popping doctors helped. Not staging a demonstration at her pharmacy with reams of her prescriptions printed out in tiny print helped. Not even admitting her to the psych ward at the hospital helped. None of it helped. Over decades, it didn’t help.

We drove by an apartment building once while out for a Sunday drive, and I could hear her talking to herself in the back seat, where she sat alone, Emma in the front seat with me. “That looks like a nice place,” she said. “Maybe I could be happy there.” I looked at her in the rear view mirror and saw the side of her face as she looked out the window at the apartment buildings. And then after a pause, while I listened, I heard the small coda, “No, I couldn’t be happy anywhere.”

It was so hard to watch this for so long; at some point, you have to look away to keep your eyes on the road ahead.

 

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

26 comments to " How do you cry for a life not fully lived? "
  • Marietta

    Wow…such a raw and honest story. I send you love, peace and healing. The 5 year anniversary of my mom’s passing was Sunday. It gets better. At least it has for me.

  • mickey

    Wow I miss her every day but truly she has been gone s long time

  • Susan Magee

    Oh Patti,
    So many of your recollections ripped through me…spears of recognition. I haven’t cried at her passing and probably never will because she was always un-present and unpleasant. In fact, when she died, I felt a sense of relief. I could finally look away.

    She, too, had a very sad childhood. That was always the push-pull for me. On one hand, I felt terribly sorry for her and on the other, I wished for a different mother.

    Thank you for sharing your story. I felt your words.

  • Kath Comber

    One really great thing that she did for this world was to give us the gift of you. Your writing is so honest and strikes a chord in so many lives. Thank you for feeling the pain and writing anyway.

  • jotree

    I cant begin to tell you the impact that this piece did to me… My poor mother was so unable to have a normal relationship with any one, especially me .. As her oldest daughter I forever struggled to keep her happy and cared … all of which was never possible.. you and all daughters who have had this as an experience of mothering…. well bless us all <3

  • terryhartley

    Thank you for this beautiful piece of writing, Patti. I see that you have made a childhood for your daughters so much more than any of what your mom experienced. I am sorry she had a childhood like that. The comments she made about being happy and then realizing that she couldn’t be happy anywhere are heartbreaking. I send love to you and to her wherever in the vast scheme of things that she may now be. I hope she has found her happiness. xoxo

  • I am an under loved child of an underloved child… I try so damned hard to keep my eyes on the road ahead but the sound of her sigh is so loud in my ears , I. My heart that I turn from time to time and see the wreckage of a life that makes my hands shake… Thank you for these beautiful words Patti

  • ColorJoy LynnH

    One of my great-grandmas was conceived while her mother worked as a domestic far away from home… 16 hours in today’s terms. The couple who hired her were barren, and decided the “help” would have their child for them.

    She surprised them by going home and having the child where her community saw it all. However, the child was not well loved. I just got a photo of her as a toddler. The sad eyes say it all.

    I’m told she basically didn’t know how to raise kids. She wasn’t kind to hers or her grandkids. So sad.

  • Wendy

    This was so touching; I’m in awe of your honesty. Thank you.

  • Sandra Whisler

    Oh Patti, thank you for this beautiful and honest sharing. Poor or absent mothering stretches back at least 4 or 5 generations in my family, each generation improving on the mothering but still passing ng on those horrible feeling of abandonment, rejection, and wanting to please. Thanks again

  • Kim

    I haven’t cried much over my mother’s death. She died suddenly at 48. The first emotion I felt at hearing of her death was relief. I am more sad over that than I am over her death.

    My husband finds this all incredibly sad. I tell him it would be more sad if I pretended to feel something I really don’t feel.

    Mothers are complicated. Life is complicated.

  • miles pitts

    i love my mother because she love me

  • Claudia

    I was just recently told that these are the biggest lessons in life for us…and that it is an agreement between us to learn from each other….please know that her choices were hers, and you did all you could, but you can never do something to change a person, it is their’s to do…all we can do is love…and that is always what humans want and need….we are either emanating it…or screaming for it….

  • Bonnie W.

    I read this on the eve of my mother’s birthday. She’s been gone 18 years and while I miss her, I don’t miss her meanness and depression and its effects on my brother and me. We survived, but it’s echo is so similar to yours. I’ve moved on, but this hit me in the gut.

  • Carolyn

    I did not know that about your Mom!! When you look at all the secrets our parents & other ancestors hid, no wonder our world is in the shape it is today!! All those hidden emotions are emerging now. Maybe we can heal ourselves & eventually heal this planet. Now I see why you aspire to be such a wonderful Mother!!

  • Sassy45

    Your writing went straight to my heart. I’ve felt that longing to make it right for her, and could have written the same things about my own mother, with different details, of course. She is still alive at age 90 and, though I have thought and said that she’s already dead, meaning her joie de vivre, I’ve finally made peace with the relationship. I realize now that I can’t change the circumstances of her life journey, but I see that she has had a rich, full *life*, whatever she herself judges it to be. I’m sad for her ongoing emotional difficulties, but now I understand that this is the arc of her existence. I feel relieved to let go of the responsibility for her numbness.

    Thank you for the honest, straightforward way you expressed the mother wound we all carry from generation to generation. You helped me see my own more clearly.

  • Elena

    Heartbreaking to read this. I see many similarities with my mother too.The sad thing is that such mothers cannot be happy anywhere and we cannot do anything about it..even if we try our best….it’s truly painful to watch it and and not being able to help. as they indeed do not want to change…It’s delibarating to aknowledge this..before it becomes life consuming .I so agree with you that the only thing to do is to keep your eyes on the road ahead…and focus our own life , pain and happiness !

  • caryl

    This resonates with me; no matter what, nothing was ‘enough’ for my mom. I don’t know if it’s because her family treated her so poorly (but not her siblings), or if it was the abuse she had heaped on her or what. But I know that she was never really happy. And I didn’t want to get pulled down with her, either. In spite of all that, we all love our moms. We try to make sense of the experience when we get older. It’s a bittersweet kind of reckoning in our minds. Thank you for writing this piece.
    Caryl

  • Melissa

    I knew and loved your mother in another capacity. Hearing about her childhood saddens my heart. I will tell you that she loved her children and grandchildren with an unsurpassed love…I know because that was all she talked about. She is missed.

  • Chris Garner

    I’m sitting here reading this like “What the crap?” Your mother treated me (and my mother, and many of my mother’s friends) with over-the-top kindness for all of my young life. Of course I don’t know the “inside story” on your mother’s life, but this is probably one of the most disrespectful eulogies I have ever read. So this is her legacy? A waste of a life not worth crying over? Maybe your attention was so focused on your love for the advancement of minorities (and of course that isn’t a bad thing)…some whom you have never met nor whom have had any impact on your personal life whatsoever…that it was diverted from your mother; and her cries of “wolf, wolf and wolf” were just a desperate plea for your attention.

    I have had a great deal of respect for you in the recent past, Patti Digh, but you just lost a large chunk of it here. I’m sure you don’t care. And of course I’m probably going to get a bashing from all of the Patti followers on here. So be it. I hope that if I ever write anything near this disrespectful about my mother (whether or not it is true) postmortem that her ghost musters up enough spirit to find me and smack the teeth out of my head for such disrespect. I hope that you realize that your mother’s life was fully lived…in her own way. I hope you realize this one day and finally feel some emotion for her passing.

    • Thank you for your note, Chris. This wasn’t intended as a eulogy, as I wrote that just after Mama died, to honor who she was in the world and what she meant to so many people. Yet sometimes, life is complex and messy, and while you saw the public persona of my mother, you didn’t see the private persona, as many of us don’t show that part of ourselves. I believe there is learning in the knowing, and obviously you don’t agree. I believe knowing of her sadness tells a deeper story than any eulogy could. This is the writing of a daughter who tried so hard and so long to help her mother, and if you see that as bashing her – or any of your other psychologizing of this piece – nothing I can say will change that. I don’t see this as bashing her, but acknowledging her and recognizing her strength in the face of almost insurmountable odds. Again, thanks for your thoughts. You have been heard.

    • Pure Jade

      Chris, I’m not sure why you would expect “all of the Patti followers” to give you a bashing. This is your opinion about this essay and it appears that you have received and know of others who have received kind treatment from her mom. And I appreciate knowing your perspective about Patti’s mom.

      I value Patti’s teaching and writing style – I’ve been in her face-to-face classes and workshops, and her online classes. I’m sorry that you think that we all may bash you for expressing yourself. Just not true from my perspective.

    • Jean S

      Chris, I don’t believe that this essay negates your friendship with and experience of Patti’s Mom in any way.

      We all, as a friend put it, have “a public self, a private self, and a secret self.” Ideally, all those selves would be in alignment, but they often directly contradict one another. It’s a conundrum.

      I keep thinking that another friend of mine could have written this essay, as the parallels are bizarrely close to the point of being eerie. In that case, I’m sure that all those who knew the public Carolyn knew her joy in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and her deep deep pride in having supported herself and her family (as an employee of the State of North Carolina) after her husband’s early death. Sadly, those who knew the private Carolyn knew that she was profoundly depressed and, in her later years, deeply bitter and angry. It made for a long, drawn-out, agonizing path to her eventual death, for them all.

  • Angie Phillips

    I ran into a old friend and ex co-worker the other day that I had not seen for years. I asked about Francis and was told of her passing. She hired me ” on the spot” at a nervous interview when I was just a twenty year old many lifetimes ago. I stayed as a faithful employee for the next 32 years. I knew her to be a caring, loving person and knew nothing of her unfortunate upbringing . Many years later I understand the ” demons” of depression, dementia, cancer, hypercondriac, etc having lived through depression myself and losing both parents to cancer in my thirties. As a ” only child” with a ” only child” to live alone with a child that filled my life with love. Now I find myself alone with my only child out in the world addicted to drugs. Your mother loved you . I saw it in the way her eyes lit up when she talked about you. None of us know what our future’s will bring or the fate that may evolve into our own lives. My grandmother was a hypochondriac that was always ” dying” . What would I give to have one last conversation with everyone. I now work at a mental institution and understand much more information. Which would of helped me understand my Grandmother and Great Grandmother’s conditions when I was a child in England. I’m not a author so excuse my amateur attempt at conveying my feelings. Blessings.

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