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The
Letter from Mother
Mothers’ Day 2001
Today I
found a letter that Mother had written to me during the mid
1980's.
It was accompanied by a photo of her with Mama. It was the last
picture taken of the two of them together, and possibly the last
photo of Mama, who was, at that point, suffering from the final
stages of colon cancer. This is not a photo of Mama that I want
to see, as I prefer to remember r my grandmother when she was
plump and healthy, with her blue eyes twinkling at me.
In this photo, Mama sits in a chair, while Mother stands behind
her, bending forward towards to embrace her. Although Mother was
in her mid fifties when the photo was taken,
she could easily have been considered ten years younger, with
her youthful figure,
smooth complexion, and, as always, beautifully manicured hands.
But it’s the letter, folded around the photo, that amazes me.
For one thing, letters from my mother are rare. I can count on
one hand how many letters I have received from her in a
lifetime, and most of them have been unpleasant, to say the
least. However, this letter was written in clarity and with
kindness; perhaps not the warmth and affection that one might
expect a mother to extend to a daughter, but with the distant
courtesy that one might write to an old acquaintance.
The letter is like an oasis in time, a time interrupted by long
years of painful silence between a mother and a daughter. Mother
made her choices long ago, and, like many women of her
generation and status, chose alcohol and medications over the
affection and companionship of her children.
Perhaps it was the anticipation of her own mother’s impending
death that prompted my mother to straighten up for a while. But
old habits remained strong, and soon she reverted to the
isolated comfort of alcohol, rejecting my attempts to build a
relationship.
She simply didn’t want me.
Now, many years later, I am the one diagnosed with cancer. She
knows that I am very ill, and referring to me, told a relative
“Tell me when she dies.” That was not very comforting for me to
hear, but I am realistic, and would have been surprised to have
heard anything different from her.
I can only tuck this photo, with her letter, away and remember
it as a point in time when she reached out to me, and be
thankful for that, on Mothers’ Day.
Footnote: Mother passed away, due to complications from
alcoholism, in late 2003, while I was preparing for my fifth
cancer related surgery. She died, never having reconciled with
her children, disinherited all of us, and arranged to have us
notified two months after her passing. She was a physically
beautiful woman, narcissistic, overindulged, in my opinion, in
her youth, by my beloved grandparents, and by her husbands. She
never quite grasped the responsibilities of adulthood, nor
embraced the love of her children.
An excerpt from Where the Red Tailed Hawk Flies
Copyright 2001 by Gabriella Graham/Red Tailed Hawk Publishing |
