A Long and Rambling Post

I'm looking back at old photos.  There are so many things I can see now that I wasn't able to see for many years.  I am surprised to find that even though my mom has died, our relationship, in a sense, continues to grow. I see new sides of her; I remember things she told me that I didn't necessarily hear at the time; I understand her more freely than I did while she was living.

What I see when I look at the old pictures is a happy, somewhat carefree (though I know she was always very disciplined), optimistic and bright young woman full of love for her family.  I have always had very happy memories of childhood, but my mom and I had some rough years when I was in high school and college, and those years unfortunately took years for us to recover from.  Either because of human nature or my personality, the rough patches somehow outshone the happy moments in my memory.

But after my mom died I was able to see her with greater clarity.  Almost immediately upon getting The phone call, I started to see my mom in the context of who she was - not as my mother, specifically, but who she was as a person.  They talk about "your life flashing before your eyes" when you have a terrifying experience; in this case I was losing my mom, and it was her life that was flashing before my eyes.

After my dad's dad (Opa) died, I remember my dad talking about reclaiming the memories of my grandfather in his prime.  The recent memories of my Opa were sad ones; he slowly grew old and senile and sick, over a period of many years, to the point where my vibrant, energetic grandfather was just a distant memory and not the person he was any longer.  But slowly over time, those images gave way to memories of Opa in his earlier years.  For some reason, that process came very quickly for me and I was flooded with incredibly memories of my mom from early on.

Our relationship had begun to grow stronger in recent years, but then all at once it was put to an end.  Because there is no looking forward, and because I am an analyzer by nature, the thing that is left for me to do is to look back.

Depending on my mood I see the good or I see the bad.  Thankfully it is most often the good that I see.  It's amazing how much can be learned about someone after they die, in some unlikely places.  For years I felt like my mom had

15 Years

I'm sitting in the living room, listening to the Out of Africa soundtrack, having a glass of wine, with candles lit.  This is my favorite room in the house, and also it's the room that feels like an homage to our families.  I used to think of it as the room that felt like my parents' living room, which is beautiful and has a very distinctive vibe that I love.  But actually it is a beautiful melding of both of our families.  Brian's grandparents' sofa, end tables, and arm chairs; my parents' walnut table with embedded stones that they bought when they married in 1969; the credenza Brian and I bought for our first house in Munster, which is my favorite piece of furniture; our record collection; my mom's coffee table books; the paintings by my great great aunt Erna; my favorite paintings from my grandmother's house; the cuckoo clock from the Schwartzwald that my sisters in law gave me for my 50th; and family pictures from both sides of the family.  Also three plants that I have managed to keep alive for multiple years, including a rubber plant from a Munster friend who we know through my dad's Brooklyn roots.  I saw a post from a few years ago about not wanting my house to be a museum of my parents' things.  This room feels like the thread tying it all together.  We will be empty nesters in just a few years and will likely be downsizing, and I realized this is the one room I'll probably miss the most.  It's also Brian's favorite spot for a Friday evening cocktail or Sunday morning coffee. 

15 years.  There is so much my mom missed.  Most of all, she missed getting to hear her daughter (ie me) say the words every mother hopes and deserves to hear: "Mom, I get it now."  My relationship is so different than mine was with my mom - it's so much easier, so much less drama.  Of course Alex isn't me as a teenager, and I'm not my mom.  I've tried to avoid making some of the same mistakes (although in doing so I have made different mistakes, which I suppose is the way of the world).  So much of what I resented about my mom in the past I now understand as an adult and as a parent.  When I was lighting candles tonight I flashed back to New Year's Eve when I was in my late teens or early 20s.  My mom, Oma, and I were at Rainer's apartment, and I really wanted to light candles in one of the beautiful candelabras our Tante Erna had made.  Oma said no, because the wax would be a pain to clean.  I was thoroughly bummed out because I wanted to make things at least a little bit festive.  My mom was caught in the middle - I could tell she really felt for me, and she was frustrated with her mom, but she didn't want to create stress with her mom.  At the time, I did understand that my mom felt bad for me.  But now I have the perspective of all three of us - I remember the feeling of being a teenager aching for more excitement and feelings lots of FOMO (which wasn't a word yet but was certainly a feeling), I know the feeling of being the daughter caught in the middle of wanting to appease both child and parent; and I understand the feeling of wanting to keep things simple and not wanting to add more work.  Even though I'm not yet (hopefully someday) a grandmother, I can only imagine how joyful but also taxing our visits must have been.

My mom has missed Alex's life - almost her whole life.  Thank God she at least got to meet her, but she never got to know Alex, and Alex never got to know her.  Even though she knew Nick, she missed out on all but 4 years of his life.  She never saw our new house.  She also missed on these dark days of hate and divisiveness of our country.  She was an immigrant, and she advocated for immigrants' rights in what seems now like a very calm era.  She knew that her experience as a white immigrant from Germany was worlds away from what it would be if she came from a different part of the world.  Before "white privilege" was part of everyday vocabulary, she understood that she had it.  All the hateful rhetoric, attacks on journalists and immigrants and watching our Capitol get besieged, and what has happened to her beloved, world-class institution of Indiana University, would have devastated her.

She would have been especially devastated by the losses of Juliet and Carrie.  Juliet was family to her.  She died when Juliet was engaged to Chris, and their engagement party just a month before she died made her so incredibly happy.  She would have loved to be a part of Juliet and Chris's beautiful wedding, and she would have been so happy to see the beautiful life they built.  She would have felt so deeply for Cindy, Diane, and Bob, and for Nick and Cynthia and Ada and Jasper, as they came to terms with a life that would include the memory but not physical presence of Juliet.  She would have kept Cindy in her heart, and she would have known how to share her empathy for Cindy and her joy for any step towards happiness that Cindy took in this new normal.

She would have been devastated when Carrie had her stroke.  She would have felt deeply for Linda and Dan, for John, for Sarah and Jon and Carrie's nieces and nephew.  Carrie's celebration of life would have resonated deeply with her.  She would have been so proud of Carrie's academic success and her political passion and work.  And she would have mourned deeply when Carrie died.  She would have also found joy in Cindy and John forming a bond and falling in love.

I read an article in The New Yorker years ago that when a person dies, you start to measure their loss by all of the things they have missed.  That resonates deeply.

And what of me?  I know there are so many things that would have made her really proud.  I know she would feel deeply for my being my dad's only support.  I know she would want to be my support and my sounding board.  I know I would have had a hard time letting her.  I know our relationship would still not be perfect, because there was this weird thing between us that was hard.  But I also like to think I would have let her in just a little bit.

All The Stuff, and we we can't let go

 In the almost 10 years since my mom died, we've lived with a quasi-museum of her Things.  I've been able to give away or donate a few things here or there, but nothing meaningful.  I want to let go of more things and I think I'm ready to.  But it's so hard!  I'm realizing how wrapped up my identity is in these things.  But as I was having a minor identity crisis over giving away the 1966 "How to Analyze Fiction," it hit me that I'm not just letting go of pieces of the past or my parents, I'm acknowledging that I might be different than who I feel I was expected to be.  Wow does that feel a little heavy.