Sunday # 15: Dear Mom...

It's Mother's Day Sunday...again. Good grief. Mom has been dead now (yes, let's just call it what it is) for nearly 15 years. She would have been 100 now had she lived. Would that have been good, had she lived? Would she want to be alive at 100 years of age, and would we even want that for her? I cannot know, because she died at the age of 86, and I don't know what 100 would have looked like for her. 

We all hope that, if we live to be that age, we will be "spry", which is a word that only seems to be used when describing old people. But the reality is that most people, once they pass 90, are just very, very old. It is not cuddly or pretty. Do I want that for myself? Would I have wanted that for my mother, if it meant that she would still be here? Yes and no is the answer to both, because there are many levels in between spry and very very old. Once life is over, it is over, so if you can keep living it well, I say why not. 

Today I have no mother around to celebrate, but that does not make me sad anymore, as it did when I wrote this essay, it simply means that I get to make brunch for myself. Not such a bad thing, really, when you think of how much worse others are suffering right now. Sometimes I think that it is good Mom is not around, because I think she would wonder what the fuck is going on in the world, and I am not sure I would know what to tell her. But if I did try to tell her, it might be something like this:

Dear Mom,

What can I tell you? The world seems nuts, but then when hasn't it been? But this current kind of nuts is harder to believe because it is shockingly regressive to the point of almost being funny. Unfortunately, it is not. 

I am not sure what you would think about the world today, fourteen years after you left it. Would you think about it? Maybe not. I know that as I get older, I am intentionally closing in my world just a bit in order to be at peace--knowing that peace is not a synonym for ignorance, rather it is often the result of one being intentional with where one places their attention and effort. That is me more and more these days: intentional. 

I tried talking to you the other day--did you hear me? Of course you didn't, because you are dead, but that did not stop me from talking to you just as I am writing to you now. Who are we talking to when we talk to those who have died? I think we are talking, as we are in most cases of solitary contemplation, to ourselves. When I try to talk to you, I am making an attempt to connect with the version of myself that cherished being in relationship with you. 

I liked that version of myself, especially during the later years of your life. That version of me was patient, compassionate, caring, and considerate, because that version of me finally realized what it took for you to raise me and my siblings. What it took for you to lose a young daughter to illness. What it took to see your marriage deteriorate due to Dad's alcoholism--alcoholism caused, in part, by misplaced blame and unshared grief over a tragic death. What it took to find out that Mark, my brother, who was named "to become a doctor", never became a doctor, and me, who was named "to be Governor", certainly never became Governor. What it took to see us become who we have become.

When I tried talking to you, it was because I was missing you, and missing the feeling of being loved that could only come from you, Mom. I was missing the shared experience I used to feel with you, where we could sit together without saying much, content with the sitting, not needing it to be anything more. I was missing the feeling that I didn't know I valued until it was gone. 

Having both you and Dad in my life gave me a sense that there was always somewhere for me to go, someone for me to go to. When you died, leaving me without living parents, I felt as though the rug was not only ripped out from underneath me, but that there was never any flooring at all, that having the both of you shielded me for a while from the reality that I am alone in the world. 

When I tried to talk to you the other day, I was trying to escape that alone-ness for a minute or two, and it worked, kind of. It worked not because you answered me or were there, but because it reminded me of the paradox of living--that there are always two sides to every experience, otherwise the experience has no foundation. Alone-ness only exists because of relationship--if we were truly the only person on the planet, alone-ness would have no meaning. Alone-ness is a state "other than" the state of relationship--without relationships we could not feel alone--we can only feel alone when in relationship. And you can't have one without the other.

I am not alone, Mom, most of the time. I am surrounded by love, surrounded by relationship. I am extremely fortunate to have a partner who is my best friend, my safe place, and my home. He feels safe in a different way than you did, because his love is optional--it is dependent on my being loving to him. 

But I still feel alone at times, simply because even my best relationships cannot always get inside what I struggle with, the conflicts that take up residence in my mind. I am not sure if the alone-ness is due to a lack of trust in others or a lack of trust in myself, but with you, trust was not an issue, because you were Mom. For me, I did not need to "trust" you, because I knew, I knew, that no matter what I was struggling with, you would be on my side, even if you did not "get it". You would be on my side because it was impossible for you to not be. 

That is what I sometimes miss. That is what a "mom" is to me. No matter how much I am loved by others, and I am loved very much by others, it will never be love the way you loved me. Never. And I did not understand that until you were gone, and it was no longer available to me. That is what made my grief over your death so painful. I lost something I didn't know I had until I no longer had it. 

***

I wonder what you would think of the world today. It seems that there are many people around the world who, in different ways, are attempting to make life "simpler" than it ever has been or ever will be. And they are doing it in a way that hurts, minimizes, and in some cases destroys those who don't fit into their version of "simpler". This makes me heave a heavy sigh, because I have always hoped that humanity would embrace sacred messiness rather than ignore it, but sadly that is not the case. I have dealt with this my whole life, going back to when "who I was" no longer fit into what the catholic church (lower case intentional) deemed acceptable. Being gay is "messy", and the church prefers to hide messiness behind closed doors and pretend it is not there. 

But it is, and the messiness, when not hidden or avoided, is where the sweet juiciness of life is. 

You were messy, Mom. Your life was a sweet juicy mess, and that is why I talk to you sometimes, because mine is the same. It is hard for me to understand why messiness is seen as a threat, but not that hard. Messiness requires curiosity, patience, compassion, forgiveness, and humility, humor, and an acceptance that one can feel safe even without a guarantee of stability. True stability is not stable, it is a moving, flexible entity--because it is in relationship to the outer world, not an insulation from it. But that is difficult for many to accept, especially these days, when stability shifts around very quickly, so people craft false narratives of guaranteed safety where none exist. (I even do this from time to time.)

The greatest gift of my being gay is that it forced me to deal with flexible safety. Flexible safety requires one to attend to relationships and community, because they serve as buoys for us. Flexible safety requires response-ability. Flexible safety fosters appreciation, gratitude, respect, and joy. Flexible safety requires courage, and the willingness to recognize that the best way for me to experience life is to strengthen healthy interdependence with others. This is what makes alone-ness bearable, as well as a temporary (and necessary) retreat from together-ness. Without the latter, the former becomes an existential crisis. 

***

Mom, your death was both the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me. While there are some who will not understand how that can be so, there are others who will "get it", and these are my people. I think they would have been your people too because I am "me" partly because you were "you". Even though you turned away from messiness as you got older, I never forgot who you were, even when Alzheimer's disease made you forget. 

I talk to you these days for many reasons: to remember, to honor, to feel...to be better in my relationships and in my alone-ness, to make conscious choices about aging, to foster gratitude, and because it comforts me. Tending to my relationship with you, even though you are gone, helps me to be a better version of myself with both myself and with others. Thought you would want to know. Your work did not end when you died, I just "took over" the position you had been training me for. 

I miss you every day, but I no longer "need" you to be alive, because I can "mother" myself when necessary, and my partner fills in the blanks when needed. It is a selfish desire for me to want you around, but I feel no guilt about it simply because my desire is harmless--it changes nothing. You were done with life, and you fortunately missed the funhouse shitshow that is happening today, but your life lives on, in me, and in the way that I love Keshav. 

I think that is what I wanted you to know. You raised a good son, Mom. Your life continues to make a difference through my actions and choices, and when I go, you/me will live on in the lives of those who love me, and so on and so on. 

So Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I am going now to make brunch for myself and will enjoy it in celebration that you willingly engaged in the single most meaningful action available to humankind: parenthood. I am sure I will talk to you again very soon. 

Love,

Tony