Honored Role

Well we’ve lived through Mother’s Day. I bought cards and planned to visit some of the women who have been most important to me in my recovery. I visited Nikki, obviously, who was there for me in spectacular ways from the moment I got out of treatment and without whom I would very likely have ended up on the street. I talked to Jill on the phone, the friend and former employer who, against her better judgment, took me into her home and let me detox in her guest room while I was waiting to go to treatment. I visited my wonderful aunt who’s moral support and understanding of my family of origin have helped me feel so much less alone. My sister was kind enough to call and rouse me from my transient vegetative state and remind me to touch base with my step-mom, Linda.

I don’t know how exactly I almost missed that other than the fact that I spent a good chunk of the day stressed out. I wasn’t stressed about anything meaningful; only about deciding whether or not to include my real mother in honoring the women who have filled the role of mother in my life.  The last time I spoke with mom I was still in treatment.  She phoned there on a Wednesday.  She phoned, drunk, to tell me why she had been unable to come visit the previous Sunday as she had promised.  Of course she didn’t realize that I had seen her pull in to the driveway of the center, pause, then turn around an leave.  I may, of course, be wrong about it being her car, but the fact that she didn’t call for 4 days seems to bear out the idea.  None of her excuses made any sense and when combined together they were not only nonsensical but impossible.

That was a tremendous turning point for me.  It became impossible for me to continue maintaining the fantasy that I had what could be in any way construed as ‘a good mother’.  Suddenly I understood that when my siblings and I ended up spending a year with my dad in Sweden it was because we had been abandoned.  I understood that when I was trying to get sober and had asked mom to take me to the grocery store, the fact that she simply wrote a check for $1000 was another form of abandonment.

Last Mother’s Day I called mom and was fortunate to have gone straight to voice mail.  I conveyed my wishes for the day.  And I have never called her again.  This year after careful consideration and a chat with my sponsor I decided to pick up a card and drop it by her house.  90 seconds.  In and out.  Not give her my phone number.  I stopped at the Hallmark store on my way to my aunt’s house and asked the clerk where the Mother’s Day cards from angry, ungrateful sons were.  I thought she was going to faint.  In the end I found something kind and neutral.

After spending some time with my aunt I drove over to mom’s house.  Approaching the door I noticed that the drapes in her room were drawn - never a good sign.  It has often meant ‘napping’ and at 5pm it would be hangover napping.  Rather than interrupt that I decided to slip the card under the door.  In that state there isn’t anything that I can bring to the table to be helpful.  One of the products of doing the work is the ability to take a kind and compassionate view of those who’s symptoms disturb me even if there are times that I can’t be helpful. So is guess in some small way that’s growth.  Today I can honor my mother and I can honor those who have filled that role in my life.  And I think that’s pretty cool.