I flew from the nest at a very young age, 16 to be exact. “You're very mature for your age", was the coveted sash I wore. It gave adults permission to place expectations upon me that made me feel part of their world as I somehow bypassed being a little girl. I must have worn it like a medal and took it straight to heart. I had obliged myself to become independent and created a reality that I had outgrown my mother. I had resigned to figure out my life, my way.
As a single parent, my mother spent the next 15 plus years after my departure doting over my two half sisters. She struggled to build a world that placed them at the highest importance while figuring out her own way too. Those years in between stirred a need within her to bond more deeply with her own mother so she moved in with my grandmother. This satiated that need as she struggled with my grandmother through her senior years. During this transition, one sister moved on with her life, while the other became stagnant getting lost in depression, alcohol, and codependency. I'm sure it didn't happen quite as quickly or as easily as it sounds. Their unfiltered pasts and childhoods helped to create the unhealthy Ferris wheel relationship ride my mother and sister were now on. But despite their arrival to this desolate place, it would seem that there had been opportunities, lucky chances or blessings, if you will, that created segways for change. But, change never came and I continued to distance myself from their codependent destructive ways.
One of those chances was in May of 2014 when I was given the coveted sash yet again. My mother, at age 71, had been hit by a truck walking to a bus stop after work and was lying in a coma. I was the only one who seemed willing, no, capable of taking charge. I spent countless hours waiting, privately praying, and researching. What do I ask the doctors? What does her insurance cover? What if she doesn't come out of this? I cried silently and alone most days. I wasn't ready to lose her. My mother, who I had always seen as this strong independent woman was now helpless and needed someone to advocate for her. So I did. The nine months following her stay in the trauma unit were challenging. I discovered more than I wanted to learn but learned what I already knew. Life went on for the sisters. No faulting them for that, but it's easy to understand better why my mother was in no hurry to get back home.
After meeting countless friends of moms who explained witnessing the tribulations and fatigue my mother often experienced during work hours, it was clear that my distance never changed anything. So what do you do when you're given the indelible cloak of responsibility? My best guess was that I should try to deliver my mother from the hell that she was in. Always trying to be “the glass half full" kind of person, I saw this as one of those unused opportunities to make a change. I would get my mother's finances in order, fix up her house, and I would be the tough love that my sister needed to turn her life around. I did all that and more. I used up every ounce of energy that I could muster to be the “hero" I believed she needed and that life had been preparing me for all these years. Hours of phone calls, with creditors, banks, contractors, doctors, employer, Human Resources, and the list goes on.
I won't say it was for nothing, but nothing has really changed. Today, mom is still determined to control my sister's behavior and will do whatever it takes to protect and help her. Countless calls to police and adult protective services only leave me looking like the “bad guy". Sadly, mom is often the lie that protects my sister and ultimately pits us against one another. You see, I lied to myself when I said I didn't need my mother. I want her in my life. I wanted to be her hero. But the truth came to me in a message she left one day. “Your sister is not like you, she needs me". I made her believe years ago that I didn't need her, but I always will. My heart aches knowing that she was able to cheat death but is no longer living, or is she? As she enables my sister, she finds her own desire to be needed fulfilled. It's hard to mourn someone who's still living.
