I know this is a bit different from the fashion, beauty, and fluffy things I normally post, but today I just wanted to chat a bit about my past, and how it ties in with a recent event that’s been on my mind.
I’m an only child. My father worked days and my mother worked nights when I was young, so I never got to spend too much time with them. Mostly I spent time at my (paternal) grandmother’s while they worked or slept. When I was 8 years old, my parents bought our first house. One month and a handful of days later, my father died in a car accident. To say that my mother shut down would be an understatement. December 3, 1991 was the day I began to raise myself.
My mother was diagnosed with kidney failure two years later. In constant pain, bedridden, and on dialysis multiple times a day, she was only given a few months to live. She ended up living for another seven years. During that time, I was scared, rebellious, lonely, resentful… a constant mixed bag of emotions. At times, I was truly a little shit, but I was also young and was pretty much learning everything by trial and error. I had no real standards by which to measure myself, and my mother and I were not terribly happy or close for those seven years.
A couple months after I turned 17, just before entering my senior year in high school, my mother and I had a long talk about the future. Namely, she was tired and in pain, and she wanted to take herself off of the treatments that were keeping her alive.
Here’s where I should add that we had no family living nearby at this time, but her sisters and her mother (all very Catholic) lived about eight hours away. My mother entered hospice (a place where she could receive care after stopping her treatments) and we were in the process of making her will, emancipating me as a minor, and just dealing with the whole transition. My then-boyfriend and I spent time with her. She asked him to be one of the pallbearers at her funeral. She called my paternal grandmother, who now lived in Oklahoma, and let her know what was going on. My grandmother then called my mother’s sisters. I didn’t know any of this had taken place.
One day while I was visiting my mother, her sisters literally burst into the hospice room, shouting. I was in shock and don’t remember large blocks of that day, but sometimes I wonder if my mother shared a room with anyone else, and if so, I feel very sorry for what they witnessed that day. These grown women, who had been authority figures and family to me my entire life were yelling and creating a level of chaos I had never experienced before. In public. In front of (and at) my dying mother. I yelled back. When I realized that wouldn’t do anything, I tried to get the hospice staff to step in and make them leave. When it became apparent that the staff was too intimidated to intervene, I left. The family blamed me for my mother’s decision – for her entire condition – and I thought perhaps they would give her some peace if I wasn’t there.
I went to my house, knowing that they would want to stay there while they were in town, and I removed every single edible thing from the premises – even things like flour, spices, etc. I don’t remember what I did with the stuff; I probably threw it all away. It was a petty move. I wasn’t thinking, and I was young. And I’d do it again if I had the chance. Once I finished that, I took some necessities, abandoned my home, and went to live on my then-boyfriend’s family’s living room couch. I had no idea how long it would be before I could home back to my house.
The ferocity of my mother’s family didn’t stop that day. I returned to visit my mother, but they wouldn’t leave her room. I think they may have stopped yelling at me, but I honestly don’t remember. There was a lot of yelling most of the time. I begged the hospice staff to make them leave, so I could have some time alone with my mother. Whether they were disinterested or actually intimidated, I really don’t know, but they never helped me. One day, I returned to the hospice, only to find that the family had moved my mother back to a hospital and demanded that she be put back on dialysis. She didn’t want that for herself, and I had her wishes in writing, but I was also a 17 year-old girl fighting against a throng of rabid adult women. I found myself trying to locate my mother. She would continue to be moved from room to room without anyone informing me, so I was in a constant state of searching frantically, not knowing where she was or if she was even still alive.
I located her. Most likely, some hospital staff took pity on me. I really don’t know. I was never put on a contact list, so I was really lucky to find her. I managed to get a few minutes alone with her. She was in and out of consciousness. Her last words to me were apologizing for her family. That was the last time I got to be with her in private.
I don’t remember how long after this, but very early in the morning sometime shortly after, I got a call from a kindhearted hospital employee who let me know that my mother was about to pass. I got to the hospital in time to be with her. To watch over her.
Her sisters were there, of course. I don’t remember if their families were there… probably, maybe. I don’t know.
I do remember quite vividly that her eldest sister was clutching her and screaming at me – literally cursing me and damning me to hell. Over and over again. Somewhere in the midst of this, I was told to say my last words to my mother, but she was thankfully unconscious, and I had nothing to say. I sat by her side. She passed away. At some point it became quiet again.
My mother’s family was at her funeral. The funeral I arranged. They stayed at my house until the funeral. When they left, I moved back in. I don’t remember who else was at the funeral. I don’t remember much about that time, actually.
The family I was staying with was exceedingly kind to me during this time, and my ex’s mother got together with some of her friends and cooked an unbelievable amount of food for me and some people who gathered after the funeral. I remember chicken salad and pasta salad. Things that could be stored in Tupperware that I could graze on when I remembered to eat. These people were so amazingly, beautifully kind to me and I will always be grateful for that. Perhaps I didn’t let anyone else in, or they didn’t know how to connect with me, or even that they believed whatever my mother’s family was saying about me, but for some reason everyone else remained distant.
To this day, I do not speak to my mother’s sisters. I don’t think regret would change what happened, but I remain thoughtful about it. Families fascinate me. I watch how others interact with their families and I form conjectures on what makes a family successful. I like hearing stories of people who get along with their families. I openly envy them, but I also appreciate that they exist, to counterbalance what I experienced.
A friend of mine recently lost her own mother. Being the first Filipino friend I have made since I was a teenager, hearing her talk about her family brought back a flood of memories, feelings, smells, flavors, and sounds that I had thought I lost. I never met her mother, but her childhood stories were so much like my own memories at times that it was always a treat and a revelation to hear them. Little things like that are very special to me.
I can’t change what happened to me. I can’t change what happened to her. But I can spread the word about a cause she is participating in, in memory of her mother. It’s called The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night Walk, and more info on it can be found out here. If you would like to donate, her fundraising page can be accessed here.
In the thirteen years since my mother’s death, I have retold this story countless times – to friends, significant others, even as a speech once. I always have a hard time with the ending of the story. What do you say after divulging a truly horrific event from your past? I still don’t know the answer. But if you’ve made it this far into my story, I want to thank you for sticking with me and sharing in my past. I’m sorry this wasn’t a particularly happy post, but it’s been on my mind a lot since my friend’s mother passed, and I felt that this was a good way to get it all down in writing. It’s the first time I’ve managed to get the entire story written down, and it’s extremely cathartic.
Thank you.
