This flower doodle is for my close friend J who had surgery on Friday. Everything went well and now she’s away outside the city at her parent’s home recovering.
I wanted to be at the hospital for her, like she’s been for me so many times in the past two years, but I couldn’t. My pain wouldn’t allow me to and neither would she. J has been a rock for me during my illness and I will never be able to express the level of gratitude I feel for her. She is the one person I know I can count on no matter what. I wish that I could do more to support her now besides just talking to her on the phone and sending text messages. She’s one friend there isn’t anything that would be too great for me to do for her.
Bright Flowers
When she’s back home in about a week’s time, I’m hoping we can plan a sleep over like two teen-aged girls. She’s done that for me a few times and we always have loads of fun.
I’ve written in the past about having a ‘complicated family’. However, upon reflection I’m thinking I may have made an incredible understatement. It’s the only conclusion that makes sense after speaking to my sister for the first time in five years last week; then late last night receiving a 19-word text message from my mother after hearing nothing from her for four months. For four months, it was complete radio silence. She did not answer the calls I placed to her cell phone or landline. She did not respond to my voicemail or text messages.
Text From My Mother
Because of her silence, I spent the past four months performing mental gymnastics trying to figure out what I may have said or done to offend her this time. I say ‘this time’ because our rocky mother-daughter relationship is peppered with endless examples of me conceding to her allegations: I was disrespectful to her, I was responsible for starting an argument, I chose my father instead of her when I was 12, or I somehow wrongly accused her of being a bad parent when I was a child. It felt and I had hoped – after a long absence from each other’s lives – that this time it would be different.
I have lost sleep wondering why at this time in my life when I need all the support I can get; my mother is incapable of offering me even the smallest comfort of being a voice on the other end of the phone. But I am wrong to have this or any other expectation of her. After all, we’ve never been close. In the strictest of terms, we never bonded. In fact, I once calculated how many years of my life I lived under the same roof with my mother. The number is somewhere in the range of seven years. I’m well into mid-life now so that’s a rather small amount of time for me to have spent sharing day-to-day life with my mother. Nonetheless, her silence caused many childhood insecurities and memories of experiences lived during that time to surface.
I was not a child that she wanted and she once told me so, but showed me that without words endless times. The seven years that I spent with her were full of abuse (physical and emotional) and neglect. She was quick to raise her hand or any object within reach to mete out what she felt was necessary discipline. Today when I look at my body, I can still see reminders of her discipline in the scars created by some of those objects. She rarely said anything to me that wasn’t angry or laden with words that pierced the flesh my small frame and clung to me like the smell of days-old mackerel on a fishmonger – I can still feel their impact. And she withheld affection and kindness as if she knew that those things, coming from her, would have made me too strong and confident for her withering glances and cutting tongue to dismantle me in an instant. Even today, I desperately long for her to stroke my face although I have no memory of such a thing ever occurring before, and I don’t know if she is capable of such an outward display of feeling toward me.
I say all this because for four months I have lost sleep and tortured my mind asking what, why or how I did whatever I did this time to deserve being shut out. In between the self-interrogations, I resolved not to care about the reason, knowing deep down that I do. She is after all my mother. More relevantly, she still holds the power to wound me. She’s skilled at creating illusions of closeness by briefly pulling me into her life then cutting me loose to fall apart. Now, when I have almost rebuilt myself and reclaimed the reality of what we are not to each other, with as little as 19 words sent to me by text message she makes me feel like a powerless child again.
In the wake of a physically and emotionally painful week I received prayers and compassion today.
Today a long-time friend that I met in my first months of university decades ago called to see how I’m doing. Throughout our friendship we have had healthy debates about the existence of God and the meaning of faith. He has worked particularly hard to influence my beliefs and tries to have me see the world, if even just for a moment, through the lens of a believer in Christ, but I can’t. That ship sailed for me when I was about fifteen and my family and church minister failed to show me how God and Christ could fit into my personal belief system as I grew and started to question the world and my place in it.
As we continue to be part of each other’s lives we are more open to respectfully listening to the other’s point of view, but we know that neither of us will change our beliefs anytime soon. I may not understand it, but I do respect his unyielding faith in God no matter what happens in his life. I still don’t think living your life with the belief that everything is guided – if not already decided – by an omnipotent, omnipresent being is a sound approach, but it works for him. Over the years I’ve explored many religions in search of the same peace that he has. I haven’t had much luck. The only things that come close are practicing mindfulness and meditation, but my practice has little to no discipline.
When my friend called today and I shared the news of the week with him he was very upset for me. His confidence in my reluctant surgeon has plummeted and he believes I should try to get my case transferred to the second opinion surgeon. He can’t see how doing nothing and leaving me to live with this pain and even the slightest chance of developing cancer is the right thing to do. Furthermore, he doesn’t understand how my reluctant surgeon can so easily discard the opinion of the second opinion surgeon that I need to have surgery, or his strategy for the setup of a surgical team ahead of the surgery to cover any issues that could arise; not to mention the surgical pain management plans developed by the pain clinic to diminish the risks of greater pain after surgery. Especially when she doesn’t seem to have a solid plan of her own.
So my friend did the one thing he does understand. He prayed for me. He prayed that I can continue to endure my illness and the pain. He prayed that my doctors will soon find a way to restore my health and end my suffering. He prayed for God and Christ to watch over and protect me. And I was grateful for his prayers. Having him pray for me comforted and calmed me.
I may not share his beliefs but he loves me so much he prays for me often and asks God to grace me with his protection and compassion. I love him for that. And I must have faith and believe that when someone loves you enough to pray for you the goodness of that energy must have a positive effect in your life.
My Small Surrenders 