What do you do when the anger is gone?
I noticed this during my mother’s decline. Nothing outwardly had changed in our relationship. But she was dying. We all knew it, and most painfully, she knew it. And my anger that had been like breathing to me for so many years, had disappeared. Into thin air. Poof. Gone.
She hadn’t changed. She’d probably gotten more annoying (I acknowledge that with love in my heart and a smile on my face).
To be fair, I probably got more annoying too. While our mutually annoying and immature habits remained, I had noticed I didn’t have that Agghh tightness that would build up after our phone conversations, necessitating a call to my husband or a friend to vent- Can you believe what she just said to me?? I know! Me neither!!
She died this day last week. I am bereft. But I started noticing the anger had already been gone months earlier.
Can I still be an artist using my family as fodder without the anger? I don’t know. It has been with me so long, it was comfortable.
I even feel protective towards my brother, and it’s been tense on/off with him these last few years. But I feel no one was ever as proud of us for simply existing as our parents, specifically our mother. I have an urgent need to be that for him now. I might not weep with pride at every little thing he does like Mom did, but I’m the only other person alive who knows what that feels like down to my bones.
Someone’s got to keep on keeping on. It’s me.
As for the disappearing anger, maybe it was just a cover for all the uncomfortable feelings. We got to each other because we cared. My mother mattered to me. And we both came to an acceptance that this was who we were. I didn’t get the gift of more time, but I got the gift of knowing how much my mother loved me. Nothing to be angry about.
Authentically Lost 