RIP Mater

Mum will be one year post-mortem on Monday.

Strangely, I had to be reminded by others that this is the case. I had not even been thinking about it.

How can this be? the outside, non-motherless, non-recently-bereaved community simply have no concept of this, regardless of how they might strive to understand.

It is utterly impossible to replicate through empathy the feelings and processes that a greiving person experiences unless one has also experienced an equal loss.

The loss associated with grandparents, pets, and sundry extended kin, sorry folks, are not the same... unless... one of these has taken on the role of de-facto parent.

The loss of an immediate member of the family is like losing a limb. Nothing can ever replace the real thing.

Yet, I still didn't feel 'greived' until someone pointed out this morbid anniversary to me.

Suddenly I am reflecting on whether or not I truly feel morose or whether I have conjured up appropriate feelings as a consequence of someone else's expectations. I have concluded (suprise! dear reader) that the latter is more accurate.

Thus, I have taken the appropriate step of having Monday off work but I certainly won't be found prostrate in the cemetary of the town where Mum grew up (which is conveniently here in Vic as opposed to WA where she is buried) weeping inconsolably.

Rather, I am planning a drive to somewhere rural for a little breather from this nasty, festering, crowded and over-stimulating metropolis.

Instead, I'm afeard of her birthday. This is entirely contrary to last year, when her birthday represented yet another opportunity for my mother to overshadow with her presence any situation that might highlight my mere existence (let alone any special acheivement).

I should explain - her birthday is the day after mine, and so everyone has always remembered her birthday but not mine (*sigh*).

As can be seen from that little rant, there is still much tension inside me re: my actual feelings about dear mumsie. Unfortunately, many people have no understanding of such things. Parents, especially dearly departed, should be remembered with gentle longing. Yet this cannot be so when a parent has caused so much hurt.

Briefly, in recent times:

When I left for Korea for a whole year, she had made an emergency visit to Victoria because she felt her personal equilibrium could not bear my dad's company for one single second longer. I had booked my ticket for Korea six months prior, she decided she needed a holiday one week before I left.

She had a hysterical breakdown that lasted for the entire time I was writing my Honours thesis. During that period, she chose to leave all the doors and windows in the house open all winter, despite the fact that I was freezing to death whilst sitting at the PC trying to write. She said I was being selfish and ungrateful (for them letting me live at home whilst I finished Uni). She also kicked dad out of the marital chamber, telling him he was too noisy for her delicate constitution. She told us that she had lupus, and that she had been sexually abused by an aunt whilst she was a child.

Meanwhile, I submitted my thesis....

I ruptured a disc in my back when I was 20. The pain was so severe I couldn't walk, had a pain-induced fainting fit and ended up in hospital. Meantime mum decided she also had the same thing and was in and out of hospital for several months during which time she had two lumbar punctures to relieve the pain. She also tried to come off her anti-depressant/anxiety medication at that time - the one she had been on for the last 12 years. Enter: major family-life upheaval, exit: any concern whatever about my own state of health.

to be continued.....