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EPILOGUE |
| You might ask yourselves why, after all these years, and so soon after
her death, I felt the need to rake up all this again. Perhaps the
simplest answer lies in mother's own words. It was the lack of
opportunity to say goodbye...The lack of opportunity to receive answers to
my questions of "why...the refusal of those who should have listened
to listen...and the ultimate anger that I felt when I thought about what a
waste we made of our final time together on this earth and the good that
could have been done with the money eaten up by her gambling disease.
Although mother did, indeed, have several winnings from her gambling, she dumped the money right back into the machines again. I kept reading her journals and thinking about the past and thinking to myself how many trips that represented so that she could visit with the children she claimed to love... how many hours of joy that money would have bought with her grandchildren who rarely saw her...how much better it would have been had she spent the money on plane fare for her daughters who had little money of their own so they could come back when dad died and themselves be able to tell him goodbye, receive the hugs of loved ones in a shared sorrow and to have the closure she sought so long when Merritt died. How many hugs from a loving mother did this money represent? How many kisses? When I look at the wasted time, I am forced to ask--how many other elderly people, worse off than herself, could she have visited and brought comfort and joy and the same much-needed company she begged for herself. How many loving letters could she have written instead of the sordid memories of her sex life, that I really did not need to know about. How many words of kindness could she have given Carol instead of the constant criticism and complaints. I don't have the answer. So why am I writing all this about the mother whom I presumably cared for and did love? Perhaps it is because I don't want to bottle up my frustrations forever until they boil over and I can't stop. Perhaps it is because I wish things had been better when they weren't. Do I apologize for trying to help her in the way I did? Not at all. Would I have done it differently, I doubt it. I followed her instructions to the letter. Had I done anything less, then I would have felt the need to chastise myself as she so openly did for me. It was mother's way to take her frustrations out on her children. And yet, she sometimes was such a warm and loving mother and a joy to be around. The woman who is represented in these pages was not my mother. She was a stranger who hid behind the mask that was my mother's soul. When this woman was around, I didn't want to know her or be her child any more. When my real mother lived behind the mask, she was full of joy, she laughed, she sometimes cried and it was ok and all was right with the world. I can only hope that wherever mother's spirit is now, that it is free from pain, facing tomorrow with hope, and soaring free. When all is said and done, I really did love you mother. I just couldn't live with the misery your life had become. God Bless you, mother and God watch over you always. |