I loved my mother and she loved me. This she knew. This I knew. This is the most important thing to know — and to make happen — while we still have moms within reach. On Mother’s Day we celebrate those still with us, and we grieve for those who are missing.
Many of you have lost your mothers. My own formidable mother died in December 2006. Yet do they ever really leave? Here’s the truth I uncovered during hundreds of interviews and years of research while compiling my book, “I Am Mother’s Daughter.”
Whether our mothers are in this world or have moved on to the next world, we still hear their voices every day. Our mothers, alive or departed, are often the power inside of us.
My mother’s voice guides me in relationships with adult children and advises me when cooking in my kitchen, “not enough salt” she often says. Today, as my peonies are about to burst open with shell-pink blossoms I am remembering a walk I took with Helene Krasnow the last spring of her life.
This scene is indelible, sad, joyful and imprinted forever.
I am pushing my mom in her wheelchair along the lakefront in Chicago, the city where I was born and where she soon would die. With unwavering courage, she survived the loss of her immediate family to the Holocaust, the loss of her husband, my father, 20 years earlier, and the recent loss of her lower left leg. After this heroic and lengthy marathon, she was still hanging on, plagued with pain, dementia and exhaustion.
We stop at a patch of flowers near Oak Street Beach, and my mom leans over and lightly touches the petals, with a little smile and a big sigh. I know she is thinking what I am thinking — of the stretch of lustrous tulips and peonies we had in the backyard of our house where she raised three children in nearby Oak Park.
We are both thinking how the span of our lives goes as swiftly as the blast of the wind off the lake. We are thinking that flower petals scatter with the seasons, and children grow up and have their own families and that this one life, fleeting and extraordinary, goes by in a finger snap.
Too often we do not realize until it is too late that mother did know best. From my mom who experienced the unthinkable, I learned the power of perseverance in staying sane and centered through it all.
I know from my mother that you can lose a limb and a whole family, but nobody can ever take your faith away; nobody can take your hopes away. I learned from my mother that people die and life changes, and that the only person we can count on to go the distance is ourself.
On this Mother’s Day, I am so grateful for Helene Krasnow’s lessons that still shape my life. And, I offer this advice: Learn from your mother while her voice is not a spiritual echo but something real and audible.
I know from the hundreds of stories I gathered from adult children and therapists for my mother-daughter book that the health of this primary relationship is essential. How we relate to our mothers influences how we work, play, marry and parent.
So, if you are holding on to old anger and blame for stuff done to you by your mom months or decades ago — that does not include abuse or abandonment — consider letting go and moving on. One woman told me she hadn’t spoken to her mother since her children were born, who were now ages 7 and 5. Her mom had just had a heart attack and this daughter said she was “thinking about” going to visit her.
These words popped out of my mouth: “You can’t say ‘I’m sorry’ at a funeral.”
A sure way to forge a healthier relationship is to understand a mother’s history — it might melt your heart. Digging into her past uncovers how she was mothered — or not. Maybe she was just doing the best that she could do, considering how she was raised.
And, you might have many more years to learn from her experiences: Women in their 90s are the fastest-growing segment of the aging population, so your mom could still be around well past the time your own hair turns gray — or falls out.
What a gift you will get for this extended time together — a nurturing friendship with the woman who knows you better, and perhaps loves you more, than anyone else. Take advantage of this unprecedented longevity made possible by inroads in medicine and fitness. I was 51 when my mother died, and it is love that I am left with, and not regret.