2011 marks the 30th anniversary my mother's death. This anniversary might have gone unnoticed by me except for two life changing events. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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It started with the trickle.........
First my grandfather died, the parent my mother felt closest too. No wonder she felt closest to him; she was the first born yet her own mother wouldn't come help her when she gave birth to her first child, my brother. Now years later all we know is that Granna was in a pique over something my mother did, or didn't do; Granna had that way about her.
So my mother was heartbroken when her beloved dad & advocate died. Within the next year she was heartbroken all over again when her next younger sister was diagnosed with, and rapidly died from, breast cancer at age 50. And the year following that, when she felt the lump in her own breast, gawd help her all she could think of was would she see another Christmas - she waited six months to go to the doctor, until she was safely past the Christmas season. In recent years my doctors have explained that the cancer most likely had been growing for 5 years for her to have felt that lump; thirty years ago mammograms weren't routine.
She was 53 when she had her mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy.
Over the next six years the trickle became a steady rush of doctor appointments and hospital visits to drain off excess abdominal fluid from the numerous weeping tumors. This now affected other parts of our lives; our mother, who knew so well how to maintain control of her household and family, didn't have any life skills to ask for help as she fought this cancer. Our father, always dependent on mom when she was healthy, had no life skills to take charge. My brother in Australia, a sister "J" in Ohio, me 150 miles away, just one sister "M" at home who was yet-to-be diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. (Sadly, it would take "M" another 20 years to tell a doctor about the voices & music she heard, and the "people" she talked to, due to how our mother treated "M" after overhearing "M" one day when she was young.)
The things that did, and didn't, happen strike me as tragic.
Six months before mom died "J" and her husband moved back to help take care of mom. The projectiles turned into the rumble of boulders: the moment "J" walked into the house my paranoid, untreated schizo-affective sister plucked "J's" glasses off her face and snapped them in two. The last time my mother went to the hospital she told me she wouldn't return home until "M" had moved out. "J" related that mom had confided in her about all kinds of ugly things about our family.
The avalanche was upon us.
Upon mom's death "J" chose to quite speaking to "M", citing her upset from having born the brunt of "M's" behavior as a child, up to and through the glasses breaking incident. Dad married within 9 months and allowed his wife to minimize his relationship with us.
On the 10th anniversary, as naive as I am, I figured no one would go longer than 10 years without talking to their family so when "M" asked for "J's" address I gave it to her. "J" didn't talk to me for 3 years.
On the 20th anniversary I was hopeful that "J" might soften towards "M", as I was still in my naive state, not believing that family members could ever really truly do this.
From there on out I kept looking at the calendar, wondering if "J" truly would let another decade pass, never believing it in my heart.
Then Russell died last year. And "J's" decade's long vendetta towards "M" struck me as a colossal waste of energy.
And now this year, the thirtieth anniversary of my mother's death, the year after my beloved husband Russell's death, my heart grieves for Russell and my mother, and it hurts to know that "J" will never speak to "M" again. I also grieve that "J" is not, and probably never was, the sister I believed her to be. It hurts my heart, already so hurting and empty.