The last few weeks my heart has been heavy missing both my
sweet baby girl and my mom. Back to back I was brought back to their death days
as if it had just happened, flashbacks, tears, questioning, longing, missing.
Many times I am still thrown off when grief hits. Even after all this time,
grief can still knock me down, bringing me to my knees with no mercy. I often
find myself still resisting these moments, pushing them down, avoiding them
because the pain feels almost unbearable. I judge my grief, especially when it
comes to my mom.
When my mom was alive, I feared her death, I feared I would
find her, I feared she would die from drinking, which became a reality on June
18th, 2013. One of my biggest fears was finding her dead. The night
I found her has been in my head the past
couple weeks, replaying that moment, feeling that moment, reliving that night
over and over. There are just no words to explain how finding her felt. In an
instant none of the drinking matter, I wanted my mom. I felt like a little girl
again. Lost, bewildered, confused. I stood there looking at my mom desperate
for her to wake up, desperate to hug her, desperate to hear her voice, I just
wanted my mom. I was suddenly the daughter needing her mom. Now I am and will
forever be the daughter needing her mom, desperately wanting that connection back,
the mother daughter bond, the conversations only we could have, they’re gone forever.
My mother was a broken soul. I never realized how broken
until she was gone. I replay the weeks leading up to her death and so many
emotions fill my heart, guilt, regret, sadness, shame. Images of those last few
days I saw her, our conversations, the way she looked, the way I talked to her,
the way I treated her, hurts my heart more than anyone really knows. I couldn’t
fix her, I couldn’t help her, I couldn’t change her, I was helpless in a
situation that I couldn’t fully walk away from. Yet, I am feeling such guilt
with her death, with her life, with my mom. I didn’t do enough, I could have
helped her more, been more kind, listened to the pain, see her, truly see her. I
ache when I remember the look on her face, I ache when I see the desperation in
her eyes, I ache when I remember where she was living, I ache because I now
understand the pain she was in. It’s too late to understand. She’s dead.
Growing up with an
alcoholic is hard. It’s hard to worry all the time, it’s hard to be the “mom”
to your mom, it’s hard to wonder not if but when the alcohol will kill them,
it’s just plain hard to see the person you love be destroyed by alcohol. In the
end of her life I was so frustrated with her, I was so angry, I was so hurt, I
was so lost on what to do, that I distanced myself from her more than once. I
shut her out; I could not bear seeing her wither away into someone I did not recognize. I could not look past the alcohol, I could not *see* her as the
human, the woman, the mom she was under the pain. Growing up with an alcoholic
changes everything about them, you, your relationship. It’s hard.
My mom was lost,
confused and broken from her past. She did not know how to cope with life. The
more I am learning in school, the more I feel that the system failed her, the
system that is supposed to “help” people. My mom was in and out of rehab and
detox. Neither of which truly helped her. When she went into detox she would be
very sick, they would give her medication, and once she was done detoxing she
would be released. They would not get to the heart of her drinking, the reasons
she drank. She suffered trauma, a significant amount of trauma that she could
not handle. If she had someone who would be willing to sit with her in her
pain, her suffering, her story, who could walk with her until she could tolerate
her pain she may be here today. Sober. My mom desperately wanted to get sober.
I saw it in her face, I heard it in her voice. It was her past that was haunting
her. Medication was not the answer, alcohol was not the answer, for my mom she
needed connection. My mom was a
beautiful soul lost in a dark world screaming and no one was hearing her.
Including me.
I am not sure I can forgive myself for this. I try and
remember that I was the daughter and I did what I could. I try and hear the
words a friend told me, it doesn’t matter, your mom knew your love and she
loved you no matter what you said, did or didn’t do. Sometimes I just have a
hard time believing those words. I miss my mom, my sober mom, the beautiful
mom, person, human being that she was. I am thankful I knew that mom, because
she is the reason I am who I am today.
Comments
Post a Comment