That's MY Mamma

It has been an emotionally challenging week.  But lets be honest, most weeks are emotionally challenging for me and I get to start the week wherever I want.  I am emotionally challenged lady, who reacts to those challenges in an emotional way.  Its a train wreck, just ask the people living and working with me who have spent the last year picking up, or more recently, stepping over the wreckage.

As I posted a few weeks ago, it was the anniversary of my mom's death.  Still so hard to believe she is gone because when I imagine my life I still see her in it.  I say it more often than I should but I honestly believe her death has made our relationship better.  A tragedy but a reality.

We struggled.  Two people with big personalities, strong opinions and only one of us had grown into her oversized personality with grace and the wisdom of years.  I was, and still am, self righteous and stubborn and now barreling through life with few people to keep me in check, like I relied on mother to do.

My mother loved me, in fact I think she loved me more than she loved her other children.  Part of my mom's magic is that each of us felt like we were the favorite and I will remember her with that understanding.  I was a challenge for her.

There was an amazing outpouring of love and grief from my mom's people on the anniversary of her death.  I am so grateful that she was loved by so many because I was not good at showing it.  Perhaps I didn't understand how love works when I had the opportunity to express my gratitude to her.  She certainly deserved the praise and needed the reassurance, something I could not offer.

Sadly, I find myself resentful of this public outpouring and I have been trying to come to terms with why I feel this way.  This is where I have landed to explain my emotional reaction:  she is my mom but these posts make it sound like she was everyone's mom and they were her favorite.  A privilege I would like to be limited to biological offspring.  I am afraid that all these people knew her better than I did.  I don't like that.

I don't like it but I think it may be true.

I was part of her but we were not part of each other's lives for years proceeding her death.  I thought she had found a better daughter (or 3) to fill my spot, who could love her the way she wanted to be loved.  I found boys and a career.

I would screen her weekly calls on Sunday, always a 2 show day and a load out. But she never missed a week.  Always leaving a message to tell me she loved me and wanting to know how I was and where I was.

I think of how much panic I feel when I don't know exactly where Q is and how permeating that anxiety is.  I am hoping that subsides with age or we are going to find ourselves in some trouble.  It must have been so hard for my mom to send me off to live on a bus, work with hoodlums, knowing I was drinking too much, not sleeping enough and without knowing where to find me as we moved from city to city.   Sorry Mom.  I should have answered the phone.

As I typed that last paragraph, I decided I am pulling a Rapunzel on Miss Q.  I will start construction on the tower this weekend.

Now that I have come to terms with why I feel so possessive of my mother's memory, I hope that I can let go a bit and better appreciate the outpouring that happens on her days.  She was in show business, where it is rewarded to wear your heart in a place others can see and feel every emotion.  I should not begrudge the publicly emotional nature of her people for they are my people too, even if I am removed from them now.  It is my heritage and where I go for refuge.