I am blessed with an
inordinate number of very wise friends, with whom I can not only goof off and
have fun but also with whom I can talk about things that really matter.
One such friend and I
were catching up. A lot of crap was
going down for both of us, most traumatically her dad’s being diagnosed with a
life-threatening disease. She told me
about visiting her parents, about going to the doctor with them, about her
mother’s fear of a future without her husband.
And then she said she was
just so, so glad that she had been able
to get through all the wildly opposing views she and her parents held, and all
the anger and all the resentment—and get to a place where she and her father
were reconciled. “And I suddenly realized that they are my people,” she
said, “the people that would do absolutely anything in the world, in a minute,
for me.”
That got us going on
our changing relationships with our parents.
Yes, indeed, they are our people.
Our parents are irreplaceable.
They would go to any lengths to help us.
And now, we had to be our parents’ people, too.
I tried to pinpoint
what had happened with my relationship with my mother in recent years. I spent decades focusing all my efforts on
separating my identity from my mother’s.
But what in God’s name would I be doing now still trying to separate at
my age and hers? I appreciate all that
is wonderful about her, and am willing to name those traits I’ve inherited from
her—well, the positive ones, at least!
Also, with age my mom has shrunk a few inches, and maybe that physical
reality somehow is a metaphor for no longer feeling she looms over me.
I was finally able to
extend to her the compassion that I had been working on extending to other
people. And when that happened, everything shifted. It opened up an empathy about our identities
as mothers, as single women, as human beings on journeys of aging. I love the time we spend together.
So there’s that. There’s also a sense both my friend and I
have that our parents have softened with age.
We debated whether this happens because for the first time they have a
sense of vulnerability (or is it just the first time we realize it?), or because
they have a strength in their own identity, a being comfortable in their own
skin, where they don’t have to prove themselves to anybody.
She and I also talked
about the great circle of life from being a child to being a parent yourself. Now we
were the ones would do absolutely anything for our own children, no matter what
they did, or what they said, or how much they took us for granted, just like we
did our own parents for so many years.
A couple of years ago
the defensiveness with which I’d related to my mother for so many years was
staring me in the face in the form of my son’s suddenly irritated dealings with
me. Wow, I did not see that coming! I realized I didn’t want that outdated relationship
with my mom to be the model I presented for him to relate to me. So I started back-pedaling for all I was
worth, and trying to explain to him the transformation.
Another friend used
to have her own issues with her mother. But in a short few years she has gone
from a stand-off to having invited her to live with her, and doing that with a
genuinely open embrace and respect that has her mother retaining her dignity
even as she has to recognize her increasing dependence.
And yet, while in
some ways the tables have turned, our parents continue to be “our people.” A recent trip to visit my father was an
immensely nurturing experience thanks to both he and my stepmom, largely
because I left all my problems behind and didn’t have to make a single decision
or be in charge of a single thing for those few days.
Then, just a few days
after my return, it was Christmas. My
mom had always been very anxious about the careful handling of her mother’s delicate,
gold-rimmed china, which had been stored at my house for years. That anxiety
made me anxious and not inclined to
use it for many years. But recently I’ve been getting it out at holidays,
because I know how much it means to her.
After a delicious dinner, we sat relaxing over coffee and dessert. I told everyone to leave their dishes on the
table, saying since Sammy cooked, I’d clean up and wash them by hand as usual
later. My mother raised her head deliberately, looked at me like a child proffering
a dare, and said, “Or, we could fly in the face of common wisdom and put them
in the dishwasher.” She was more worried about me (nursing a couple of physical
ailments at the time) than about the possibility of a slight wearing down of
the gold on the dishes she cherished. And
that, for me, was golden.
“Our primary
relationship is really with ourselves.
Our relationships with other people constantly reflect exactly where we
are in the process.” (Shakti Gawain)
