Still Missing Mom

I would like to talk about my mom. I realize I hardly mentioned her in all my posts up to now. All I said was she came down to be with me after my surgery and that she was willing to go to any lengths to be here. Mom’s gone now. She ended up with endometrial cancer too. We joked that I gave it to her, you know, since I had it first. But hers really was in her uterus and then spread to her bladder. And she’s 30 years older than I am, so she had to make different decisions. Her doctors told her she was “feisty,” so she went ahead and had the chemo and some radiation. I can tell you; it took the feisty right out of her. The good news is that I could help her in that I knew some of what she was going through.

Her death has certainly brought up a whole host of emotions in me:

Angry: Mom said “I don’t want to go to the doctor’s and find out the bad news like you did.” If she went sooner would the outcome have been different? I didn’t hear bad news; if I had waited, I might have died. I consider myself lucky that it was found when it was.

Grateful: Because I had cancer first and went through chemo and radiation, I could help Mom simply by listening and saying, “Yeah, I hear you. That happened to me too.”

Scared: Her cancer spread and she died because of it. I keep waiting for mine to come back and spread.

Sad: I really miss her and I know I will for the rest of my life.

Confused: I terribly miss the adult relationship we had; and, I am angry at the mom I had as a child.

Mom and I weren’t always close. In fact, I hated her most of my life and blamed her for my being fat and depressed. It wasn’t until Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and Step Nine* when I made my living amends to her that I realized she was simply a little girl doing the best she could with what she had been given. At one point I realized she had probably never heard the words “I’m proud of you” from her mother. I was able to say it to her and compassion grew from there. In the past fifteen years, Mom and I were able to make up for being distant the rest of our lives.

Not only that, I was able to remember real gems from my childhood when Mom really shone through. It wasn’t as horrible as I had tried to make it. Mom loved Holidays and really did them up. When I stopped blaming her, it became like digging for treasure when remembering the good times.

Mom didn’t understand all that being in OA did for me, but she did see the change in me when I was working it and when I wasn’t. As she was dying — I knew she was worried about me, I’m the youngest and most sensitive of her kids — I told her I was working the program again. I knew this would give her some peace.

I am only sharing my experience, strength, and hope with living amends with my mother and Step Nine*. Other people have different experiences. Remember, my story does not represent OA as a whole. Please visit www.oa.org for more information.

*Step Nine – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.