When I learned that I was pregnant with my fourth child, I was very excited. My husband, children and I were living in Colorado, and it was the first winter that my mother was spending in Colorado, dividing her time between my crowded ranch in suburbia and my unmarried sister’s smaller but less crowded Tudor in Denver. Mom spent more of her time at the house in Denver, but she and my sister came to see me and the kids at least once a week. One week in January, I was especially looking forward to their visit, because I was excited to share my good news. I guess I should have known better, but even after three years of doing the hard work of emotional healing, I still confuse trauma hope with genuine hope, so I didn’t stand a chance 22 years ago. Thankfully, my sister was gleeful over the news. My mother, on the other hand, said to me in that bitch voice of hers, “Another one? What? Are you crazy? You can’t handle the kids your have now.”
She responded in a similar manner a little more than 2.5 years later when I told her about baby number five. She certainly used fewer words then, as she was only a few days from dying of cancer. We had about four days with her then. She was in a hospital bed in the second bedroom of the house my brother had bought in Atlanta with his fiancé. My husband, four kids, sister, and I were all there, having flown out from Denver. While on morphine for pain, she still had periods of lucidity, but never once did she take the time in one to tell me that she loved me.
I often thought that she didn’t like me, especially since my dad seemed to. This morning, though, I think I discovered that it wasn’t a just a case of mild dislike. Fresh from one of the later chapters in Mind, Fantasy, and Healing by Alice Hopper Epstein, I leaned back, closed my eyes, and began visualizing the usual path that begins in my throat, moves down my esophagus, and into my abdomen. Once there, I stood outside a door separating my esophagus from the internal organs of my abdomen, pushed a button, and waited for my innards to get pushed to the perimeter of my torso and replaced with a cozy room featuring a hardwood floor, a soft rug, a fireplace with burning and crackling logs, and an old-fashioned but very comfortable chaise. Once all was ready for me, the door got whooshed open, and I walked in: surprised to find my inner child curled up and sobbing on the chaise. I rushed to four-year-old Little Cheryl, scooped her into my arms, swayed with her, told her that I was there for her, and asked what was wrong. Gulping in air between sentences and sobs, she told me, “I tried to tell Mom something, but she wouldn’t understand me. She never hears me. She hates me.” I carried Little Cheryl over to the chaise and lay down with her in my arms, focusing on her feelings and soothing them, not on my shock about my mother’s feelings.
Minutes later, when I came out of this Focusing session, I thought about what I had learned. Might my mother have really hated me? Believe it or not, it’s possible. So I tried to imagine how she would have felt when she found herself, at age 42, caring for a toddler, a baby, a newly diagnosed diabetic husband, and another baby on the way. Might her reaction then have had something to do with the way she received the news about my fourth and fifth children?
