What shall we do about Barbara?

My mother died in September 1992.

With an impeccable sense of timing she shuffled off this mortal coil within a few weeks of the cessation of my first marriage. I don’t think she knew about my separation, since she was pretty much non compos mentis by that time. Anyway, she didn’t really like my first wife.

I am always struck on Mother’s Day by the fact that I have never grieved her passing. That realization bothers me – a bit – but not a whole lot. I have grieved the passings of many others in my life: grandparents; my father; friends, even pets. But, for some reason, with Mom, the emotion doesn’t genuinely exist.

Anyway, I have made oblique references to my mother periodically in this blog, but I thought today I might elaborate a bit more. Who knows, I might even find it cathartic?

This blog isn’t, by the way, a ‘poor me’ offering. We all have had ‘stuff’ to contend with and furthermore, I don’t believe in blaming anything whatsoever on a lousy childhood. We set our own courses in life with what tools we have. Fortunately, I have a few, even if I didn’t realize how many until I’d gotten a firm grip on myself.

Anyway, my mother (whose name was Barbara, and I’ll refer to her by name henceforth, and who looked a little like the woman in the accompanying graphic when I was a small boy) was an alcoholic. That’s OK. There are lots of them, both active and recovering, and I’ve known many, including some very fine people. But, my mother was an unrepentant alcoholic, and that is difficult to deal with. I’ve actually written published and well-received articles on unrepentant alcoholics, but in them I suggest no answers because, even in my years as a professional counsellor, none ever really manifested themselves.

So, long and short of it was, she drank herself to death and that was that.

Barbara was a very bright girl. Raised in an impoverished colonial British gentry family, and one of seven siblings, she was smart. She skipped two grades in school and could have gone on to a PhD if she’d had the will. She didn’t. Siblings accomplished many wonderful things. She didn’t.

Barbara was also very pretty, classy looking and speaking, witty, well-read, artistic and capable of accomplishing much. She didn’t.

She settled into some sort of ennui and seems to have lost focus along the way. She had three sons. I think she liked us. None of us is sure if she loved us. She never showed it in any sort of overt manner, like hugs, or kisses. She read to us at bedtime, tended to us when we were sick, and when we were little she was never threatening. She was just amazingly aloof and regarded the world with a sort of Mona Lisa half smile. Sort of bemusement and amusement combined, if you will.

My dad worked hard. He was a professional and gained a lot of accolades in his academic calling. He kept Barbara very well, even though I was convinced they detested each other. Their arguments in my childhood were frightening. In later life they settled into a sort of torpor in which he worked and she drank – more all the time.

I got to know Barbara best when I was in my teens. She introduced me to lots of literature and I began to read voluminously so we could discuss books. We had a kind of companionship of similar intellects, I guess. We were kind of equals, but not Mother and Son.

And then, by the time my brothers and I left home and she was left with just her and my father, the boozing got worse – and worse – and worse, and was eventually punctuated by hospital stays and bizarre 4 a.m. phone calls because the drinker nods out during the day in winter, awakens, and doesn’t know if it’s 4 in the afternoon or 4 in the morning.

And, eventually she died. We knew it was going to happen. I’ve often wondered in retrospect if an intervention might have helped. But, when somebody is in such a state of denial, I doubt it. She chose her path for reasons best known to her, I know not why.

I doubt if I ever will.

Thank you for your patience on this Mother’s Day.