By Maija from maijasmommymoments.com
“Did you keep the receipt?”
“I think so. Don’t you like it?”
“I hate it. I can’t believe you would buy this for me.”
Any other mother in the entire world would have faked a smile and a thank you and tucked the purse away for strategic appearances that included only close family. Or they would have loved it because I bought it – because their child bought it.
Mother’s Day changed for me that day. In fact my whole life has changed because of my mother.
I am a casualty of mental illness – my mother’s mental illness.
As the daughter of a bipolar-depressed-alcoholic-sociopath I have spent much of my life – for all intents and purposes – motherless.
She functioned so well from 9 to 5 in her high level executive job and then was incoherent or passed out on our couch from the cheap white wine she consumed by the bottle.
She called her manic moments parenting and I learned to lie about where I was and what I was doing not knowing when she would care and when she would not.
When my now husband and I told her we were getting married she said she was going to be “sick”. Two months after the wedding in fear of her reaction I emailed her the news I was pregnant and she told everyone she could that she was elated she was going to be a grandmother.
Still, she’s never taken the time to learn how to actually spell her grandchildren’s names.
Those were and continue to be the ups and downs of my mother and therefore the ups and downs of our mother-daughter relationship.
The way I see it, with Mother’s Day right around the corner I can do what I’ve always done which is to ask my mother for a list of presents she would like and activities that would make her feel celebrated, dress the children up and prepare for the “show”, playing into what it means to be the daughter of a sociopath. Or I can just not. Just not do anything.
This year I am choosing the latter. This year I am having a motherless Mother’s Day by choice.
I am reclaiming my Mother’s Day and making it my own and making it what I want Mother’s Day to be.
There will be no large gifts, no hours of pampering and definitely no show. If I am lucky my children will let me sleep in passed 6am and then I will be woken up with screams and giggles and “Happy Mother’s Day”.
I will kiss and snuggle them until they protest and then they will give me handmade gifts they created at school that I will cherish always.
Then there will be coffee.
I will call my grandmother and thank her for everything. By everything I truly mean everything. Where my mother failed, my grandmother rescued. Where I could have been lost, she gave me a firm understanding of who I am, where I come from and that I am forever loved.
Though thank you will never be enough, I will call and I will thank and I will hope that she knows how much she is adored.
I will join my children in celebrating their own grandmothers. The ones that know how to spell their names. The ones that are there for them even when no one is watching. My mother-in-law and my step-mother are the most amazing grandmothers I could ask for my children and on Mother’s Day, although they will protest, they deserve to be celebrated.
I urge you all to reclaim your own Mother’s Day. To make this Mother’s Day one you will cherish always. For me, it means ridding myself of expectations and guilt and removing the label of casualty at least for one day.
This year Mother’s Day will be about how I mother and not how my mother attempted it. I will hold my children close and make the day special for them and most of all when I’m presented with a pre-schooler painted flower pot you will hear me say:
“Thank you! It’s beautiful! I will love it forever!”
They will always remember those words, just like I will always remember my mother’s.
Maija is a working mother of 3 + 1 (the +1 being her teenage sister and NOT her husband). She is the proud wife of a police officer for the last *gasp* nine years and regularly relies on drive-thru dinners on ballet nights. You can find Maija and all her mayhem at maijasmommymoments.com , facebook.com/MommyMoments or twitter.com/MommyMoments .