Mommies Dearest

Years ago I remember reading the book Mommie Dearest - the memoir of Christina Crawford, daughter of Joan Crawford, iconic actress in the 1940's. Christina and her brother suffered disgusting abuse at the hands of her famous mother.  

And it reminds me:  not all Mother's Days are met with celebration.  

  

I'm not the first to tell you this day is rife with sorrow, pain, loss, and broken relationships for many people. For those of us who know only too well this special grief, it is our day to duck away, treat ourselves with the utmost kindness and compassion and attempt to insulate our hearts and minds from the ill-fitting hoopla.  We are women that deserve such grace and without apology there are many of us that will spend the day a little differently than millions of others.      

I've had a bumpy relationship with the mother thing. 

My mother turned 17 the day after I was born.  I assume she was one of my primary caretakers for my first 18 months until she graduated high school and moved herself to Calgary to start a new life.  I would see her from time to time through the first 30 years of my life but she was decidedly disinterested in having a relationship with me.  She would go on to have 3 other children and I was never invited into that family.  For the record, I'm really OK with that.  In the brief interactions I've had with her and them I can tell you - we were not a good fit. After a lengthy 20-ish year silence, she recently tried to friend me on Facebook.  I declined that request but messaged her to say she could reach out by email for now.  I never heard another word.  I wasn't surprised as the only thing she's been consistent about is her abandonment of me.  I know that sounds harsh - I don't mean it to be - but the truth isn't always hearts and flowers. 

My maternal grandmother was the one who raised me.  Granny was simple folk.  Her family homesteaded on the Saskatchewan prairie and she learned her role, as a woman of that generation, was to cook and clean and serve the men. She fed me, clothed me, put a roof over my head and supplied me with piano lessons.  She had a grade 6 education but she passed on to me what she had to offer. Apart from the work ethic and my ability to cook, much of her example did not serve me well. Granny was cremated in 1988 and her ashes were spread somewhere I guess. I don't know where and I don't know why I don't know that information. All I know is there is no memorial, plaque, plot, or vessel in which to pay my respects.  

I have grown children of my own. Two boys and a girl. Mother's Day was bearable during those early years.  I had little people who looked up to me and thought I was their world. Unbeknownst to him, I still have the cassette tape my youngest son made of him singing an original cut of "Mommy".  He was no more than 5 years old at the time I'm sure.   It's worth finding an old cassette player to pop that thing in and take a listen.
  
As my kids grew, like every other kid, they got a little less enthusiastic about their mother. The boys in particular. It was uncool to hug your mom. And I would make them do it.  In public.  Just because I could.  But the mother/daughter relationship I had hoped to have with my only girl never materialised.  It became clear when she moved away to university that I was not the mother she had hoped for.  I knew she was disappointed in me for some reason - I clearly didn't rise to the set of expectations she had for me.  I had hoped it was a phase, that once she became a mother herself, that her perspective would change.  All hopes for that relationship were destroyed on the day I announced that I was leaving my marriage.  She disowned me that day, declaring me dangerous.  She took my grand kids along with her and I've not seen or heard from them in over four years.  That has forever shattered my heart. 

So yeah...the Happy Mother's Day thing does not sit easily with me.  It is a day that can easily remind me of my loss.  Of mothers that walked away and daughters that judged. 

It's not without a redemptive quality however.  A big redemptive quality.  

I was privileged to have an amazing woman in my life, though not related by blood, she mothered me.  My best friends mom - who lived just down the street - welcomed this little orphan into her home thousands of times throughout my childhood and taught me about possibilities.  About strength and resilience.  How to hold your head high. How to dig deep.  How to fight for your dignity.  She taught me style and presence and how to walk with confidence that you don't necessarily feel. She taught me I had potential.  That I mattered.  She showed me how to choose what's best for your own soul even if people disagree.  She made hundreds of small little deposits of grace into my life and all I am today is due to her.  I don't think she ever knew that.  I don't think she ever knew how much it meant to me.  How much it still means to me.    

So I guess it's fitting that I am learning how to revise a Mother's Day to best suit my soul.  Convention and tradition is not the boss of me.   

This Mother's Day I won't be in church.  Nor will I be in a crowded chaotic restaurant.  

Instead I started my Mother's Day at the cemetery.  Bringing flowers to the woman who patiently invested herself into me. I lifted some quiet words of thanks heavenward, letting her know how grateful I am for everything she breathed into my life.  Then her daughter and I will take in a play on Sunday.  We will each wear a fabulous pair of shoes and an outstanding outfit - because that's what Margaret would do - and once the play has concluded, we will raise a glass and  remember a woman who we hold high and has forever left her stamp of love on our hearts.   

And I should mention...that little boy who wrote his little ode to mommy...flowers from him and his wife were at my door this week.  

How did I get this lucky?