When I first went to therapy, my goal was to learn to make choices based on my values and goals and not as a reaction to circumstances. Instead, I am learning to heal from things so rooted in me that I confused them for my personality. I am learning the importance of communication and boundaries not only to protect myself but those around me.
As a mother, I want my children to know they are loved. I want them to have self-love, awareness, and a sense of connection to community and earth. That’s a big ask! In order to make that happen, I decided to start by learning to give those things to myself. My kids are getting older and my goal is to give them core memories to help as they figure out who they will be.
One thing I kept thinking about is the brain and body connection. I had such a visceral reaction after my mother passed away. Talking about that experience with my therapist helped me to see how the lack of communication created painful attachments which changed my view of myself and the world around me. I am learning to give myself the reprieve I hadn’t realized I needed. Talking about this life-changing event isn’t meant to take away from all the good I experienced in my childhood. My siblings and I have many happy memories and they exist within the same space as these painful ones. Today, I want to talk about the death of my mother.
I grew up in a family where communication was not the norm, especially communication with children. I was 7 years old when my mother passed away from breast cancer complications. I knew she was sick, but I did not know to what extent. I would not find out exactly what the cause of death was until many years after she was gone.
One of the last memories of my mother is of the night before she was due back to the hospital for some type of treatment. She played hide and seek with all of us. I remember how happy I was. I can remember the feeling in my chest, so full of joy. When my mom found my sister hiding in a closet in her bedroom they both fell on the bed laughing. I was hiding under the bed and couldn’t help myself -I popped out and started laughing too. My mother looked at me with a smile on her face and said, what are you laughing at? I said I don’t know. I just want to laugh with you. After she found all of us, I insisted on playing another round of hide and seek. She was tired, but I insisted and she obliged. For years, I thought she’d died because I made her too tired from playing hide and go seek that night. I was 7 years old.
Shortly after my mother passed away, I started having seizures. They couldn’t figure out why it was happening, or if they did, no one ever mentioned it to me. I was barely 8 years old, and I felt broken.
A couple of years passed and my dad remarried, I did not know until she moved in with us. She was a young beautiful woman from Utah. I remember being really happy when she came. On her first night with us, she was in her room unpacking while I watched her. She sat on the bed and we talked for a little bit. Her voice was so gentle and her eyes so kind. She said she was sleeping over, and I didn’t know what that was. She explained what it was, and asked if I wanted to stay with her for a little. I said no. That first night, I couldn’t sleep, I went to my aunt’s room, she lived with us after my mother passed. I asked her if it would be okay for me to “sleep over”. I’m sure she was confused and asleep but she told me it would be fine and rushed me back to bed. I couldn’t fall asleep without telling this new young mom that I was in! I went to her bedroom and probably scared her half to death, but I wanted to tell her that I would like to try a sleepover with her sometime.
Slowly, the seizures started to be less frequent and by the time my family and I moved to the US at the age of 10, they were almost gone. Interestingly enough, no one told me we were moving to the US. I thought we were going on vacation.
Moving to Utah was a total and complete shock – I remember the confusion and the feeling of being lost in a totally new and beautiful world. Sometimes, I can close my eyes and see the world through my preteen self. It was lonely and still, no one talked about what was going on. No one gave explanations, only rules, and expectations.
Following our move to Utah my newly found mother and father went through a divorce. I can’t imagine what that was like for them, but I know the heartbreak I felt. I know the anger and the sadness I felt when I was told by my step-grandmother, sitting in our living room, that my new mother was leaving. I walked to the room I shared with all of my sisters- and just cried. No one came to hug me, or tell me it would be okay. But, while I cried, I could feel my mother with me. I have always felt her with me.
My seizures come back. I would have been about 11 when this happened. I was told I must be having a mental breakdown because my brain did not present like the brain of someone with epilepsy. And still, no one talked about anything. We survived – we pushed through to the next day because that was the only thing we knew to do.
I can remember the moment I realized it was not my fault my mother died. I was sitting on the floor in our carpeted dining room of the nineties. The phone was plugged into the wall and had a really long cord, so it was easy to plop down and talk. I don’t know how we got to this topic, but I remember being very upset and telling my friend, through tears, what I believed happened. As I was telling her my story, I thought, well, this sounds silly.. until then, I had never really talked about it – and talking it out helped me so much.
I knew I needed to know what actually happened to my mother. I asked my older sister, and she told me bits, talking to me as if I was the dumbest kid around… “how do you not know how our mother died?” was the question written on her face. My older sister was a teenager, helping to raise children alone. Until recently, I don’t think I realized how much her life was changed because of the responsibility at such a young age.
Interestingly enough, the seizures stopped shortly after this realization. I was 13 years old.
We were living in a small three-bedroom home, where I shared a room with my three sisters. Two bunk beds took up almost every inch of the room. It was not a loving place, but it was a place. Looking back, I can see that my parents were doing the best they knew how. I’m sure they loved me, but they weren’t there and I didn’t realize at the time why my parents were gone. In retrospect, I can see they were trying to make life better for us. My dad worked so much. I don’t remember him being home very often, but when he was there he was handing out reprimands wholesale. It must have been exhausting for him, but as a teenager, I did not look forward to his coming home because he didn’t seem happy.
When my sisters were 16 and 17, they started leaving to stay with friends more than staying home with us. I was 14 and in junior high school. Junior High was a place to escape, I could leave my home in the morning, walk ever so slowly to my friend’s houses after school, and not come home until late at night. No one noticed and no one seemed to care – unless I didn’t do my chores.
I don’t know at what point my parents got back together, but I think it was probably around my 15th or 16th year of life. Since then, life slowly became easier financially for my parents and that made for an easier home life. Just in time for me to graduate and move out. When I left my parent’s house, I had zero communication skills, a deep need to be accepted and loved, and I didn’t trust easily, not even myself.
I am now in my 40s, learning to communicate, accept, and love myself. Dismissing the idea that everyone is a potential threat, and experiencing true love and happiness with my beautiful little ones. I am so grateful for my family. We are all so different. Sometimes I still feel alone even when I am with them, I have no doubt of their love and support. It is a blessing to have them all in my life.
We survived and we are thriving! We still don’t talk much about the things that happened and how they affected us as a whole, but I hope they get to talk about it individually – because the mind remembers and there is so much healing to be done.
I am proud of the person I am becoming. I look forward to seeing what rises. Life is a beautiful moment. Don’t let your sadness and fears coddle you into such a false sense of security that you miss the beauty in it all. It is okay to ask for help.
As for me, I intend to spend my days finding ways to heal and communicate with those I love. Reminding them whenever I can, they matter, and they are loved. I won’t be defined by that moment, or any moment in which I had no say whatsoever. I will define “me“.
Love, Laura