My mother wasn’t answering her phone, so Granma said we would go to my mom’s apartment to see her.
Granma walked to the front of the building alone, did something at the entrance, and waited. I got out Luverne’s Volvo to stand in the driveway. Granma asked me to call because the intercom might not be working.
We called from the driveway. My mother picked up. Granma talked and said she was here with “your son”. She continued, “Can you let us up or [you]come downstairs?”
I’d never seen her callbox apartment building. It wasn’t what I pictured all these years. My mom said she would be down. We waited outside 5 minutes. 10 minutes. A neighbor came out to smoke. We walked into the lobby explaining we were here to see the resident in 206.
My mother didn’t come down. I noticed a small handwritten note on her mailbox and recognized her hard pressure, impossibly left-tilting penmanship – the name ‘Brenda Wright’ and something about ‘Cleaning’. I called again like Granma asked. No answer. We left the building.
I felt bad that Granma didn’t see her daughter on this trip to Hartford because my mom hadn’t come to her brother’s funeral.
I also felt nothing. No watering eyes. No maze of questions in my head. Neutral. Indifferent – with the exception of the seeing my grandmother go without the comfort she might have received.
I’m not done with my mother. I’m done making excuses for her. Mental illness. Good days, bad days. Her remorse, guilt, shame, or compulsions – none of those factors matter to me as much as her decisions. I’m done feeling sorry for her or myself. I don’t accept not trying.
I just don’t.
It would be cool to have a relationship with my aging mother. She holds keys to unlocking things about who I am. She has grandchildren that could learn from her. But like the buildings I knew as a child, she’s welcome to continue existing in my past.
I don’t twist anyone’s arm in this adult world. We decide to do whatever we want to do.
I did my part today. My half.