The One I Should Have Written a Long Time Ago

(Alternate title: Dear Elsa)

Every morning since August 26, 2016 I get out of bed and put on my mask of pretense and presence. I smile (sometimes, although frankly that’s usually a hell of a lot of work and I really should be given an exemption). I go about my business, engage in the little chores that make up daily life. Some days I am more successful at this than others. Underneath that mask…

Now, if this was a television commercial this is where I would announce that I need a very expensive medication for my obscure orphan disease, but life is not television and this is not a commercial.

I mostly wish to ever loving fuck it was.

In August of 2016 I learned about a phenomenon called “parental estrangement” when my adult daughter stopped speaking to me. This is what it is called, I am reliably assured by my mental health professional, when a person’s adult child, for no apparent reason, stops talking to them. After a fair amount of research (because I live for that kind of thing, right?) I have determined that it’s occurring more and more frequently today (meaning millennials) than ever before. After a fair amount of therapy, I have determined that this isn’t “my fault”, I was not a “bad mother” and I didn’t “cause” this. The guilt, let me tell you, is overwhelming at first. 

I exist, ever since, in a sort of twilight space. She is not dead. She just isn’t here. Every day, every hour, almost every minute there is an awareness of her. 

“If you see her, slap her in the head for me.”

“If you see her, please ask her to call.”

“If you see her…don’t say anything because you will scare her further into her rabbit hole and then there will be no way back and I will never see her or hear from her again and then I will, absolutely and without hesitation, die.”

Oh wait. 

No I won’t. Because I am still alive now and I haven’t heard from her in nearly four years, so clearly I won’t die.

I will just think I will. Which I already do. So yeah.

Just slap her in the head. And tell her to call.

Like I said, every minute of every hour of every day. Endless and relentless. There would be only one thing worse than this. And I hope “this” has some remission before “that” happens. 

My mother used to have these nightmares about me and she would tell me about them in glowing detail and I can remember thinking “Jesus this woman is nuts. I mean, really. I am a grown adult and perfectly safe, and nothing is wrong and she needs to just chill.”

I have greater appreciation for my mother since August 26, 2016. 

The reasons for this estrangement are still unclear, which I am reliably assured is not at all uncommon. There are whole online support groups dedicated to parental estrangement. Sometimes I read posts from other mothers and I think “Hell, I wouldn’t call you either. You’re fucking nuts.” Then I remember. That’s a mother. Nuts or not, that’s a mother. And her little selfish shit of a child should give her ONE fucking call, use their fucking words, and STOP TORMENTING THAT CRAZY WOMAN. I mean she’s already nuts. That kid is gonna push her over the edge!

I haven’t posted this here for a bunch of reasons. I suspect my utter failure to respect my daughter’s privacy at a very sensitive time played into her decision to flake. Now, to me this is not an unforgivable offense, but to her…well. I get it now. I would have yelled at my mother and called her onto the carpet. My daughter is not me, and she will not do that. Instead? Retreat within. Think…armadillo. Turtle. Hedgehog.

But at this point, it’s been almost four years, I am silently being chewed up from inside with not knowing, I need to get this out, and therefore…if you see her, please slap her in the head for me. And tell her to call her mother.

This delightful (she said with snark) situation has put me in an awkward position on so many levels, especially here at home. First, it has utterly destroyed any real creative energy. Initially I wasn’t sure if this was just the whole death of my parents and moving around the country all at the same time thing, or if it was the absent kid thing. I mean, everything is a struggle. Writing, quilting, knitting. I even decided to buy myself some watercolors hoping the life would come back into my brain with a different medium. It has not. Second, it has caused me to hate people with children, children, mothers, and anyone who talks about the privacy of adult children. I have decided that adult children are not entitled to privacy. They are entitled to send mother’s day cards, birthdays gifts, and call at least once a week, but I would settle for once a month. And that is ALL they are entitled to. Third, there’s the thing that comes into a space when people ask how your kid is and you have to make all these choices. Do I tell the truth? Do I lie and quickly change the subject? “Oh, she’s doing great! How’s *fill in the blank with any other topic*?” Do I lie outright and make something up? “Oh, her? She’s sailing the world on a small boat and hopes to become the first woman to discover the undiscovered continent that was lost while simultaneously garnering accolades and a DPhil from Oxford in English Literature. And her hobbies include rock-climbing, youth advocacy, and injustice activism.” 

I go with the first. My answers to the inevitable questions are as short and as calm as they can be. The number of shocked and astonished people is reassuring. Clearly, I am not the only person who thought I was the last person this could happen to.   

Then there is the fourth level - the horse on the dining room table in some settings, or the one some people just bluntly drag into the center of the floor and begin flogging: The gigantic million dollar “Why?”. This one may be my favorite. It’s followed by a fairly predictable host of responses from the individual doing the asking. 1.) “WELL YOU NEED TO GO AFTER HER AND MAKE HER STOP. THIS IS RIDICULOUS.” 2.)  “What happened? What did you do? Where is she? What is she doing? That must be awful. How do you manage? I would die. Oh my God. What happened??”. 3.) (this is my favorite!) “Well. Just LET ME TELL YOU. If MY daughter did this to ME I would NOT tolerate it! I simply would not. I absolutely would go after her and MAKE her talk to me. I would call the National Guard. The police. I would demand satisfaction!”

My response to this (internally) is as follows: Well good on you, nutter. Have fun with that. She’s an adult. But you go. You do you. Let me know how that works out for you. I’ll testify at your stalking hearing, promise. 

Well. Just let me tell you this while I am thinking of it. I have aged faster than a sitting president. That “what should I do, am I doing the wrong thing? Am I doing the right thing? Should I do anything? Should I do nothing?” thing? Holy shit. Awful. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Gray, wrinkles, the works. I should have been brunette into my 60’s like my mother. Not gonna happen, friends. Not gonna happen. 

Holidays: “Seriously? You want me to show up and smile and nod and act like life is all fine when inside I am slowing being eaten up by this caustic mix of maternal guilt and anger?”

Other people’s family events to which I am generously invited: “You want me to sit here and watch you and your kids smile and laugh and make dinner and throw bags of salt into my bleeding wounds while I sit over here and try not to throw up or cry?”

My own family’s events: “Just no.”

I have hesitated to write this for nearly four years for a host of reasons. Not wanting to out the kid. Embarrassment. Reluctance to answer all the questions from all the people I my life who still do not know. 

But fuck it. If this is the new normal, then it is the new normal. And therefore it is a part of my existence and experience that needs to be written down, because that it what I do. And not writing it down hasn’t done me any good at all. In fact it’s chewed me up so badly I am a veritable hamburger of emotions and thoughts most of the time. 

Now do me a favor? Go call your mother. Even just a text will do. Bonus points if you use a full sentence. And if you see my kid? Slap her in the head (I mean not really, don’t get arrested or anything, you can just use your eyes to do this if you are a mother, you have that skill) and tell her to call. 

There's Not a Stitch in This Post.

I just posted this on Facebook as a status update, and so much more started to come out of me that I decided to come here and share a bit. I know from the comments I have received since I first "came out" (as it were) about my mother's mental health issues and passive suicide plans and ultimate success, that this can help someone out there who is struggling and drowning in the sickness of someone they " love, but don't, but do, but wish they didn't, ok, maybe love,  but can't trust or love safely" and so forth.

"Each day that passes makes me more and more aware of how small my life had become, and how much I just want to LIVE now. There's some guilt with that, but when an unhealthy person dies, if you allow it, the relationship that held you in bondage can die along with the person. It's unbelievably liberating. I feel closer to God, closer to me, closer to life. I had expected to feel like part of me had died, and expected there to be more guilt and struggle, but instead I feel like now I can really live."

This got me considering things in a different way. I am so grateful to be alive. There was a part of me that thought I would die with her, as if it would be impossible for me to be alive without this unhealthy extension of my soul. The truth is that in her death is my beginning. I remember the time when, for a while, we did not speak. It was so peaceful. No drama, no chaos, no constant stress; but in the back of my mind I always knew she was alive. And then that ended and we - I really, I am pretty sure Mr. Wonderful would have given this disaster a miss - allowed her back into my life. And true to form she detonated like a nuclear missile in the midst of everything. I started to slip away from me and enmesh more and more with her. For every success I had there was an equal and opposite detonation of drama or danger or fear. I delivered the manuscript for 2-at-a-Time Socks as I was on my way to the hospital to fetch her from her cardiac catheterization for the heart attack she had on the weekend we had set aside to celebrate my success at writing a book. I delivered the manuscript for Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time on the way to the hospital to check in on her after a major spinal surgery had left her unconscious. She had been on the verge of being admitted to a nursing home due to what was beginning to look like a nearly vegetative disaster. Four days later she woke up and asked for french toast, and the telephone so she could call her daughter. You want drama? We had it! 

It felt as if every potentially celebratory or joyful moment had to be accompanied by some stage-stealing drama that made me unable to enjoy my successes. I remember griping about this to friends. I started being cagey about where I was going and when, about what my plans were, what my teaching or traveling schedule looked like. I slipped up when I told her I was going to New York to present at Lion Studio, and she ended up in the hospital that morning forcing the cancellation of my trip, and the event.

I was always very aware that something bad was happening, that I could choose to walk away from her if I wanted to. But for me, for my own sake, I needed to allow some kind of connection, to continue to try to care for her, to try to support her choices without insinuating my own beliefs and thoughts and feeling onto her choices. For a mother/daughter, that's pretty foreign. Most daughters can speak their mind  and their feelings with their mother. I didn't really get why until now.
For me, now as an adult and no longer a child easily made to feel guilt or shame or responsibility, it was imperative that her choices not be a result of anything I said or did. I consciously chose not to control her when I knew very well that I could have. She wanted me to make choices for her, wanted me to be the decision-maker I had always been (although she routinely disregarded my advice) so that the outcome, should she take my advice, would not be her responsibility. I needed the freedom, at some distant unseen point in time, of knowing that I did not force her choice. That an extension or a shortening of her life had nothing to do with me, it was all on her.

Borderline kids very, very often get caught up in feeling responsible for their parents in a way that I don't think even a spouse or parent of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder can understand. It was essential to my healing and liberation that I discover, before her death, that we could be two separate people. 


I still have a long way to go in healing myself, and not every day is wonderful, but inch by inch I begin to feel joy again. Deep, real joy. I am still taking it very, very slowly as I promised myself. I deserve a year of my own. 

I guess the point of my coming here and sharing this is that right now you're out there, readers, and some of you are struggling and feeling like it won't ever end, and feeling guilty for the choices others make, and responsible for people who are not your responsibility. It can and does get better, I promise you. 

On Closure (the beginnings of)

I had been feeling for a while like I needed the ashes to go to Maine. Thing is, I had kind of planned that a few people would come along with, and arranging it felt too complicated. Who can go on what day, and at what time, that sort of thing. And how do we all get up there, and do we stay or not stay? And should we go now, while it's cold, or wait until it's warm?

Yesterday, Saturday, I woke up feeling this pressure on me. It had to be NOW. I was anxious and snappish and cranky, and finally told Gene that I needed to just take them and get it done. I think I would have gone alone, but he offered to come along as driver and assistant. And off we went.

But Mom... you make ME share...

We brought along my comfort animal (we call him this because he is!). This was his longest car ride to date, and his first trip to the beach. My mother would have appreciated that he rode the whole way there on top of her ashes which were in between the front seats of the car. When we stopped for a break, Gene got himself "a snack" at McDonald's. There was some debate about who should have what part of the "snack". In the end, Yoshi only got a tiny tidbit.

I got a coffee. It's about all I will eat from McDonald's. Newman's Own, black. Iced in summer, hot in winter. When my mother was asking for frappes (caramel!) all the time I always got myself a coffee to be companionable while she sipped. It was ironic then that when we got to New Hampshire, Hampton Beach, I used my empty cup to tote ashes across the crowded beach. There were lots of people out with dogs and kids; life and activity all around. There was this lovely family playing touch football in the sand. Couples hand in hand, dogs chasing balls.

Convenient ash-hiding cup

But that really made it all the more perfect. We came here as a family when I was a kid, and on the last trip to Maine she had asked me to leave ashes here. And so I did. Being behind the camera was an excellent cover. I did not cry much here.

 Hampton Beach

I just waited for the ashes to wash out to sea, mingled with the sand.

Last bit

We headed north into Maine. First we stopped at Bob's Clam Hut in Kittery and split a clam platter, gluten and all. She would have liked that. She probably would have liked it better if I'd added on chowder, eaten the fries, and asked for extra tartar sauce, all washed down with Coke Classic. I went with six clams and one fry - enough to say I'd had it, but not enough to make me too horribly sick from the wheat I hoped. They do have gluten free options, but it is just not the same.

Then we headed to the coast. First we stopped at Long Sands beach. We stopped at the southern end of the beach where it's very rocky and there were no people. Again I used the camera as a shield, snapping away and keeping distant emotionally.

Long Sands

This was maybe my favorite spot for the ashes. They were quickly swept out to sea, the smaller bits dropping down between the rocks, which felt very organic and beautiful; the ashes blending with the foam. I think I would not mind if my kids brought me here when I am gone. We came here when they were small and camped at Camp Eaton. We played on these very rocks in the evening at low tide. But I digress.

Next we went to Nubble Light. By now I was over the whole coffee cup thing. There was too much left to fit in the cup, and this was where she really wanted the bulk of the ashes to go. I just grabbed the bag and went. We clamored on the rocks for a bit; Gene trying to get me to head further away from people, and me insisting that I be in front of the light and "who cares about the people, anyway". Guess who won?

Right where she wanted to be

Not having the camera with me here changed things. I couldn't manage camera, ashes in a bag, slippery rock and get any decent pictures, so I handed it off to Gene. I went from observer to mourner in a heartbeat. As the ashes fell from the bag and floated around me in a gray cloud, I felt the pain of loss and the relief of the absence of someone who has eaten up so very many moments of my life. Now, I feel free and clear and clean in a way I never have before. Sometimes I resent the loss of so many days and years of my life; particularly the ones when I was very small. I wonder what I would be like if she had been more stable. Would I trust people more? Would I be more open with others?  Probably. Other times I realize that if she had died earlier I would not be who I am today. And that would be a loss in its own way.

She's in there

I put her exactly where I'd planned since our last visit, in a crevice that faces the light. She approved this last fall when I took pictures down here and showed them to her.

Here, I cried. I sat with Gene for a bit up against a rock and just was sad for a bit. This place is changed for me now. I don't know how that will affect me in the future, but then every pebble that drops in our life makes ripples, and this was really more like a big rock being dumped on one of my favorite places.

Then we took Yoshi up for his portrait. This is a tradition that really began with my kids and extended to Kioshi and now Yoshi as well.  He is most handsome. We met a few other dogs here, and he played nicely but not a lot - no fences, so no racing and running and jumping. He makes friends easily.

Tradition

Today I am sore which I think is from the gluten, and tired, but I feel a bit of healing. Less raw, I think, and definitely liberated in some new way. I wrote a lot the other day, and I will write more in the future; the things she wanted me to write about her life and about mine. In the end, when her own acceptance of her mental health issues became more real to her, she was adamant that I get it down. And I will.

She's in my car...

But for now the big question - do I vacuum? Or just pretend it never happened and leave her there?

At Peace

I don't have a lot of space in me for words right now, so this will need to do. They are my mother's words, the obituary she wrote for herself nearly a year ago:

Priscilla Avery Morgan, 68, of Greenfield died Sunday, November 13, 2011 at Charlene Manor Extended Care Facility after a long illness. Priscilla was the daughter of James and Eleanor Avery. She grew up in Leyden and Greenfield. She attended Greenfield schools. For many years Priscilla worked at Crocker Communications and The Franklin Medical Center as a switchboard operator, both jobs she enjoyed very much and took great pride in.

 She is survived by her daughter, Melissa Morgan-Oakes and her husband Gene Oakes of Bernardston; a grandson, PFC Daniel Adams and his wife Sarah of El Paso, Texas; a granddaughter Megan Oakes; a very beloved great-granddaughter, April Ann Adams of El Paso; two sisters, Patricia Haselton of Swanzey, NH and Prudence Carnahan of Greenfield, and several nieces. A brother, Francis Avery pre-deceased her.

At the request of the deceased there will be no services. Disposition of her remains will be at the discretion of the family. In lieu of flowers, it is asked that donations be made to Hospice of Franklin County; 329 Conway Street; Suite 2; Greenfield, MA 01301 and the activities fund at Charlene Manor; 130 Colrain Road; Greenfield, MA 01301.

The "long illness" was a lifetime battle with depression, suicidal ideation and borderline personality disorder. If you or someone you know struggles with suicidal thought, PLEASE CALL the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

I know, I said I'd be right back

I probably said I'd be positive too. I don't have it in me, sorry. But I do have some honest reflections of a trip I took a day ago.

Yesterday I took my mother to Maine and New Hampshire to visit places she has loved for most of her life. Places that hold memories, places I simultaneously hoped and feared would trigger something in her emotionally. They did not. I am further reminded of what her mental health diagnosis really means. She has what we in the biz call "flat affect" lately. No expression of emotion, positive or negative.

For me there was a lot of protective sarcasm laced through the day. I expected to be sad, and was almost surprised that I was not. But, like a good daughter of "a borderline", I took my emotional cues from the woman who gave birth to me and reared me, and saved the juicy crying and stomping parts for when I got home. I quipped to Gene via text about "the day in food" - excellent for the diabetic body - beginning with a large Strawberry Coolatta (with whip!) in Keene, then oysters, clams and fries, fish chowder, three tubs of tartar sauce, crackers, and a Diet Coke (of course!) from Bob's Clam Hut, and ending with a large Orange Julius bought at The Mall of New Hampshire.

In general the ocean was a place where my mother could be counted on to be mostly relaxed and at peace - rare in that she was for the most part emotionally consistent when we were there. As a result, I have only positive memories of time spent at the beaches of New Hampshire and southern Maine. Other places in my life are more conflicted. I think this makes my feelings about her decision to end her life more complicated as well.

Although I worked in long term care and spent a lot of time caring for people who were dying, and helping their families to come to terms with the terminal changes that were occurring in their loved ones state of being, when it is a close relative the balance shifts. I knew this, and expected it, but knowing and experiencing are two very different things. You find yourself feeling and thinking all of the things you've allowed and encouraged others to express to you in the past. You try to give yourself the same permission you gave resident's family members to be angry, hurt, scared, etc. Some days this is more effective than others.

Because there was technically "nothing wrong with her" when she stopped taking her meds and started refusing treatment this is a slightly more perilous and painful journey for her family and friends than it might otherwise have been. Knowing that it is a choice - and now, with the dramatic changes in her medical status as a result of those refusals it seems a slightly more logical one - makes it difficult to comprehend. Her sisters struggle with it, one admitting that she just cannot deal with the concept, and the other an expert in belligerent denial. My kids struggle too in their own very separate ways - ironically much like their great aunts; one denies, the other grumbles. My father, my mother's nieces and close friends; everyone is confused, hurt, angry, sad - some or all of the above.

Some of us know the whole truth and understand how much of what she has said to us has been manipulative or attention seeking. Others don't, and for them I think it may be easier in a way. You can deflect the anger onto others if you don't understand who and what she is at her core. You can say "How sad that she is all alone and abandoned!" when the truth is so far from that sad little world she has created.
I, most of the time so far anyway, am sad. But there are stages to this process, and I will hit them all in the end. Thank God. It means I am healthy and normal.

The rest of her chosen path is before her. She moves toward an ending, or what she hopes will be an ending. I could analyze the spiritual side of suicide, passive or otherwise, based on her religious beliefs, but that hurts my head too much. I move toward something unknown and undesired - a future in which I live with the knowledge that my mother killed herself.

In a while - months, years, who knows when death will take her - I will retrace the path I followed yesterday. It is not likely to be soon. Her body has proven to be much stronger than anyone could have anticipated. I will, I hope, be accompanied by people I love and who love me. We will stop along the way and I will plunge my hands deep into a box of ashes and spread them as I have been asked to at all of these places she says she loved so much. I expect it will be painful but cathartic. I pray that it heals some wounds of mine and of others around me and around her. I pray that she has peace in the end; a peace she has struggled to find in her life but has never quite been able to achieve. I pray that in her eventual death there is meaning, some kind of meaning, for the people she leaves behind. Mostly I pray that when the time comes, it is quick and without pain. For her. I know it won't be for the rest of us.