Alice Kae

UPDATE 3/4/14

The rainbows were here again this morning

and I thought of Mom and this post and it is now

11 years she is gone.

So I am reprinting solely for me,

so that they are both consciously with me today...

just like every other day,

but when the rainbows come usually all through March

I know she is really listening.

Alice Kae and David James

I miss you

reprinted from October 2010

I'll be here in 2 months.

Scotty and my beautiful young Mom.

Most of us avoid uncomfortable topics, shy away from pain.

Facing the difficult parts of life is not a joy ride,

however, standing as testimony to our lives is vital.

It is with this intent that I join Char at Ramblings

today as several of us discuss our Life Lessons.

I have given much thought to sharing something

so intimate in such a public manner, disregarding my "normal"

blog fare but obviously have opted to do so.

Life lessons are meant to be shared.

Suzan

Alice Kae

Mothers bake cookies, read you stories before bed. Mothers teach you the lessons you need to be happy. Mothers get you ready in the morning, and have snacks waiting after school. Mothers are not expected to get severely ill when you are a little girl of eight, and they are not supposed to spend more time in the hospital and bed than they do in the kitchen or even at home.

Becoming chronically ill before the age of 30 and fighting to survive for the next 40 years, changed my mother. We will never know what her life, our lives, would have become had she been well. My father once told me after a very bad period of discord between Ma and I, that he wished I could remember what she was like as a young mother. How she kept their very modest home neat and cheerful, and we were always clean and in fresh clothing.

The type of illness my mother suffered, required many years of steroids and it was not until I was well into my adulthood that I realized much of her erratic behavior was most likely the result of decades of innumerable medications. Although they kept her alive, they altered her, she became her illness. It defined her, enraged her, saddened her.

My mother and I were often volatile, though never estranged for more than a few days at a time. We lived 2000 miles apart for 30 years yet we spoke several times weekly and during difficult times, multiple times daily, as one or the other of us hung up on the other. We shared a lot of wonderful days during infrequent visits, and I bore up through many horrific days, trying to maintain a relationship with someone who I could not reason with, as she vented rage my way for a multitude of reasons.

I spent 30 years after leaving home trying to understand how we got to this place, praying and wishing and begging for a different existence with this woman who was my mother. I never failed to see her through each medical crisis, told her daily of my love for her, and never doubted that she loved me.

Loving someone is no guarantee that you will treat them kindly, with respect or with intent to make their lives easier. I wished, oh, how I wished, that things would change. I wanted Barbara Billingsley, Donna Reed, I wanted the Mom I thought I was entitled to have.

Within a week of my father's passing, and with devastating and cruel timing, my husband left, and I became a single Mom, struggling with heartbreak and fear and not at all prepared for the loneliness and demands of my mother who had miraculously outlived the man who had cared for her 40 years of medical needs. Thus began three years of constant struggle between two women, Mother and Daughter, both suffering such tremendous loss and having little tolerance for the pain of the other.

My hardest adjustment was the loss of what I knew to be true for 16 years; what was to have been my and my children's future. For my mother, who had been told since I was eight that her life was limited and each crisis was a death sentence unrealized, the suddenness of her life without her caregiver was intolerable. At her death bed three years later, gasping each breath in unbearable pain, came the words, "I just want it to be over. After all these years why does it have to be like this, be this hard." My mother had no faith, leaving this world in pain and sorrow, with a lifetime of regret and anger.

Suddenly, came the realization that there was no sense in grieving what never was; that Mother had done what she could, as she could, and from her view her life certainly had not turned out the way she had planned either. Two women united in sorrow for what could have been, should have been, in their own lives and with each other. The anger that I always felt directed at me was more likely misdirected as she railed at the universe, "why me?" Feelings I was all too familiar with. Feelings I now rejected as my legacy.

With intense clarity I envisioned that other young woman, Alice Kae, faced with devastating news that would leave her to become a different Mother than she had ever planned to be. As I sat by her bedside, holding her hand, I knew with absolute certainty that I must release the life I had planned in order to embrace the life ahead.

Seven years have passed and more often than not, joy abounds. I assume no outcomes as absolutes. My mother's lesson on happiness, unintentional though it may have been, was valued beyond measure; granting me peace, with the power of forgiveness, the power of grace.

I love you, Mom.

reprinted from May 19, 2010

Today my Mom has been gone 7 years. I've been struggling with what to write about Mom because our relationship was complicated. That is putting it mildly. I can hear my close friends saying "duh".

I loved Mom and she loved me, but that does not guarantee an easy relationship. I tried to write on Mothers Day but the day came and went. This morning I noticed the date and thought, it's time. Time to pay homage but to do it with honesty.

Still blocked, I stepped away from the computer to get some tea and as I walked through the living room, I was shocked to see the rainbow display. I have talked about these in an earlier post, but I have never had a display this time of year and never to the degree that you see here. The enormous rainbows inexplicably covered every wall and surface from ceiling to floor.

It gave me pause. I have been know to wax poetic on occasion, so bear with me here please. Suddenly I felt Ma around. In fact I felt her screaming "listen to me, pay attention. This is for you. Remember me well"....and the tears began to flow. The good tears, the ones the rainbows bring. After the storm, when so much has been lost, appears the rainbow, begging to be followed to a better place.

Suddenly my dilemma was a non issue. I loved Mom, she loved me. Nothing more need ever be explained or hashed out or examined.

Mom, I miss you, I love you. You would be so proud of your grandchildren. Be at peace, I remember you well.

Suzan