Mom - April 1, 1938 - March 29, 2012
My mom would have turned 74 today. She almost made it. It seems that she died so young, yet I almost can't remember a time when she wasn't tired, depressed, or hurting--either mentally, emotionally or physically. When I look at her life through that lens, perhaps 73 was a lifetime.
I've been estranged from her for almost 11 years. That's a sterile way of describing that I needed to distance myself from her for my own well-being. Shared DNA does not mandate a relationship.
By all outward measures, my mom would be declared a success. Her two children (myself included) have grown up to become fine upstanding contributors to society. When I went off to college so did she earning an associate's degree in computer science, and then a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology. She was bright with a voracious appetite to learn.
But none of this so-called success could overshadow her demons.
She professed to have a strong Christian faith, but she couldn't practice forgiveness one of its core tenets. Instead, she harbored transgressions--both real and imagined--her entire life.
She dabbled in family counseling, but she couldn't maintain a relationship with her own.
I don't mourn her passing, and when I find myself mourning the loss of the relationship we never really had, I have to stop and remind myself of my beliefs. If one is to trust that there is a master plan to the Universe, then I have to believe that things happen for a reason, and I wouldn't be the woman I am today if she had been anyone other than who she was.
Her ridicule and condemnation created my swaggering self-confidence. Her suspicions made me more trusting. Her inability to deal with confrontation and conflict forced me learn to plunge into it. Her intolerance helped me to learn acceptance and forgiveness. And her voracious appetite to learn? I picked that up from her too.
Events that happen to us become the threads of our life, and we can either leave them as a tangled mess, or we can artfully weave them into the tapestry of our life. Thank you, Roxie Mason, for being who you were. There are still some frayed edges, loose and missing strands in my tapestry, but then again, I'm not finished with it yet.
Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.
I've been estranged from her for almost 11 years. That's a sterile way of describing that I needed to distance myself from her for my own well-being. Shared DNA does not mandate a relationship.
By all outward measures, my mom would be declared a success. Her two children (myself included) have grown up to become fine upstanding contributors to society. When I went off to college so did she earning an associate's degree in computer science, and then a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology. She was bright with a voracious appetite to learn.
But none of this so-called success could overshadow her demons.
She professed to have a strong Christian faith, but she couldn't practice forgiveness one of its core tenets. Instead, she harbored transgressions--both real and imagined--her entire life.
She dabbled in family counseling, but she couldn't maintain a relationship with her own.
I don't mourn her passing, and when I find myself mourning the loss of the relationship we never really had, I have to stop and remind myself of my beliefs. If one is to trust that there is a master plan to the Universe, then I have to believe that things happen for a reason, and I wouldn't be the woman I am today if she had been anyone other than who she was.
Her ridicule and condemnation created my swaggering self-confidence. Her suspicions made me more trusting. Her inability to deal with confrontation and conflict forced me learn to plunge into it. Her intolerance helped me to learn acceptance and forgiveness. And her voracious appetite to learn? I picked that up from her too.
Events that happen to us become the threads of our life, and we can either leave them as a tangled mess, or we can artfully weave them into the tapestry of our life. Thank you, Roxie Mason, for being who you were. There are still some frayed edges, loose and missing strands in my tapestry, but then again, I'm not finished with it yet.
Copyright © Deborah A. Ayers - All rights reserved.
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