Since My Mother Died the Pain Just Stopped

It had been years since my mother died. It doesn't hurt like it did when I first found out she had passed away, I got used to the sick feeling that was in my stomach that came and went. One day it had just stopped showing up when I talked about her.  Back then when I learned of her passing from lung cancer, I was with my husband and four sons, and I had just started a new job. 

I did what I could to remain strong for my family and it worked! Meditation, prayer, and conversation with loved ones, helped me to focus on my own needs and not just on what had occurred with my mother or my challenging marital, parental, and work responsibilities at the time. I needed to feel free after the death of my mother. I needed to regroup, collect my thoughts and move on.  Eventually, I would end the job, experience surgery due to noncancerous tumors, and then start recovery without the worry of having to go back to work right away.

I knew that I couldn't keep living in the past wishing that my mother had not smoked cigarettes, wishing that she was easygoing like she was before my grandmother's passing, wishing that she wasn't fearful of planes, wishing that she showed interest in my younger children, wishing that she had been closer to her own mother before she had passed, and wishing that she had never experienced all the emotional and physical abuses she had endured since her youth. My mother was gone, and I needed to move on. I was grateful for the time that I had with her. She had died during a time we were not speaking to one another.  It was best that our relationship ended without yelling, cursing, or fighting.  She hadn't been the same since my grandmother had died and neither was I.

I found a newfound joy in my children and in my husband prior to her passing. They were one of many reasons why I stayed positive, and they helped me to move on from the death of my mother. They and God made me happy, and I refused to let the absence of my mother in my life negatively impact my relationships with them--my mother wouldn't have wanted that for me.

I healed because I remained hopeful that things would get better for all of us who had lost our moms. The pain was there, and it had become easier to deal with over time until it disappeared and in its place was an unspeakable joy like a knowing that you will see that person soon.

Since her death, I continue to complete daily chores, tend to my family's needs, and achieve work goals. I have my personal faith and meditate when possible. I don't solely rely on my spouse or my children to make me happy. I have evolved learning to enjoy life my way.  Life is too short to let negative situations suffocate you!  As one relative told me, "You rise above them." So still I rise!

Nicholl McGuire is the blog owner and author of many nonfiction books including When Mothers Cry and Tell Me Mother You're Sorry.

A Fellow Believer in Christ Speaks about Latina Issues, Faith and Her Mother's Passing

When Mothers Cry - Our Mother, Grandmother are Now Gone

Two of my four children and I were deeply saddened when Great Ma (my grandmother) passed May 2015 before Mother's Day. We knew she had been sick, in and out of the hospital, but we would have liked for her to come out the hospital at least one more time--she didn't.

My younger two sons only spoke to her a few times over the phone, but didn't have any interaction with Great Ma outside of that. Great Ma prayed for us, she was spiritual. She reached out and called periodically to see how we were doing and I would do the same. During some of those conversations, she requested that I read biblical scriptures to her and she also prayed with me. However, as we got on with our lives, we noticed that after Great Ma's passing, family members grew distant.

Then this year, October 2018, my mother passed. I can't say that I was shocked being that I had a revelation last year about her dying although she was doing just fine back then. Yet, during the month of January 2018 I had a second revelation. I saw that she had passed in a dream when two deceased family members sat at her dining room table and she was absent.

The children hadn't been emotionally moved as much as they had been with Great Ma's passing. You see, when my mother left this world we weren't on speaking terms. Unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment and other assumed negative emotions by observants surprisingly didn't play a part, at least on my end, as to why I no longer spoke to her.

Here's what was really going on within me, I simply grew weary of the off-putting vibe I had experienced time and time again I received from her. This negative vibe I felt happened since childhood. Some relatives knew exactly what I was feeling and cautioned her long ago. I wasn't the favorite, I was rejected from birth because I caused her so much pain. It took awhile for her to deal with the fact that she had bear a child and it didn't help that she was talked into having another one and told it was best she stayed home with myself and sibling rather than go to work. She adjusted and did what she was told, but carried her own personal issues regarding life decisions she had made. I was the scapegoat and when she was angry about whoever or whatever she dumped on me. Then went on about her life wearing a smile as if she never had a care, but I knew differently. The feeling of rejection--being second-best, just became too much to bear. I wasn't the favorite child nor did I want to be. I was the one she called on when she couldn't connect with her golden child and other favorites.

My mother told me long ago that had I not been her daughter, she wouldn't be friends with me--I was "square" like my dad. She felt we didn't have anything in common in my youth--of course we wouldn't! I was a child, her daughter, not her girlfriend! A square back in her day was considered boring, nerdy, corny...person. Yet, when I became an adult, she praised me on being responsive to her conversations--"having something to say...and I like talking to you" while sharing that others were boring and didn't have too much to say to her.

She didn't mind creating division when she didn't get her way or didn't like how others responded to her especially when she was being difficult. As I grew older, I knew what her requirements were for maintaining a relationship with her and codependency was not what I had in mind. If you were broken, she attempted to fix you--like feed off of your brokenness while all the while presenting herself to be better than you. Her fixing was more like checking you--putting you in your place without truly listening to why you did what you did and providing you with a plan without interjecting herself into it. She would be quite bold or subtle about your shortcomings but not in a way that motivated you to be your higher self; instead, you found yourself getting angry without being able to connect the details of your anger. "Is she helping or hurting me?" I would sometimes think. She would tell you in so many words, her relationship was better, her financial decisions were better, her way was better, her life was better...you get the picture? When one was done with talking to her, he or she gleaned what they could from the conversation, but the arrogance was evident and at times some of her listeners just didn't want to talk to her again.

I had watched my grandmother and mother interact for decades and it wasn't a healthy connection-- a classic codependent and narcissistic relationship. It appeared that the two were very needy at times of one another when the opportunity most suited them and then standoffish when needs weren't met. They knew how to get their narcissistic supply elsewhere as they aged. In addition, I noticed some competitive and jealous behaviors with the pair particularly around holiday seasons. There connection was one based on performance and one was rewarded if they could answer this question, "What have you done for me lately?" A relationship wasn't all love like they would boast at times to family and friends. "I love...I would do anything for...I care for..." Those who knew them well yet couldn't explain what was going on with them, kept a safe distance. It took me years to figure out why so many came and went out of their lives. I didn't want that "do for me or else" kind of relationship with my own children. I worked hard to establish boundaries years prior to their passing--before I went low contact with grandma and no contact with mom.

Sharing so much of myself, time, and money was no longer what I wanted to do in an effort to appease itchy ears and hands. I had communicated my enlightenment, transformation and other revelations of what was occurring in my life respectfully like my book, "Tell Me Mother You're Sorry" as I gradually distanced myself from both. I also didn't need the unnecessary distractions affecting my muse to speak and write to help others.

Ma and Grandma were strong-minded women, which I admired, but they didn't mind interjecting their personal opinions on what I did on and offline. They didn't do so well with the boldness of my spiritual walk and the faith I have in God--the one they would reference every now and again. Despite my efforts some years back to keep calm and distant so as not to offend, I would be drawn back into their webs of unbelief, disregard, mean-spiritedness, and a "do for me" mentality with yet another story they shared about a neighbor, relative, personal revelation, or offense. Sometimes during our chats, I volunteered information, battled with them or remained silent and politely excused myself. Conversations would at times be hours over the phone while my own family needed me in another room or I had responsibilities where I had to leave my home--and no, I wasn't always willing to continue a conversation on a cell phone. Yet, I didn't want to disappoint, but I had a life.

Now that they are gone, I admit I have a sense of peace. I am grateful for what I have learned from them and have continued to serve others who are in or out of tough relationships with mothers and grandmothers. Furthermore, an important lesson I have learned is not to sugar-coat one's relationship or lack thereof with a parent or grandparent. You don't cover up or deny your personal truth with relatives to appease others, even if they are close to their kin, it's never a good idea when you are on the road toward healing.

Denial of your emotions, events, experiences and more does nothing more than to keep you bound to toxic relationships. I have also found that so many daughters and sons swallow their identities, become spineless jellyfish and give parents and grandparents a pass on so many things for fear they will be left out of wills, face punishment, and more. I rather be true to who I am then be given a bunch of promises that patriarchs or matriarchs may or may not keep. Oftentimes when you are the scapegoat, you don't get nearly as much in return as you put out. You spend your life doing things for others because for years the mantra, "You owe me because..." has been shoved down your throat or "That's mom, you ought to...you better!" And what if you don't?

God has a better plan, trust me! What you owe to yourself is a chance to have quality connections whether it is your biological relatives or others who sincerely love and appreciate you! There is simply no conditions to real love--it just is!

Nicholl McGuire

When Mothers Cry Blog Owner and the Author of Tell Me Mother You're Sorry