Nancy Celebrates Turning 88!
Six Months, a Lifetime, and Generations Later
Six months ago my mother returned to the Northwest to live near her family for the remainder of her life. This followed nearly a year of a great legal struggle to get her here and ensure that I would be designated as my mom's permanent guardian.
There is much to embrace and heal, integrate and learn from, grieve and celebrate, and awaken to in an on-going way. My daily practice of gratitude deepens and deepens. And I am in such profound awe of the Great Mystery of Life's unfolding.
Intertwined with amazement and woven together, as often is the case, are grief and gratitude. As things are settling in for my mom with increasing stability over the past six months, more of the trauma is emerging of what it took to get my mother here in the year which proceeded that final flight with my mother from Michigan to Washington state on December 21st, 2013. And in opening to what is surfacing in my heart and the hearts of others in our family, I am clear that it all needs to be honored, felt, acknowledged, attended to, healed and transformed. It is so clear to me today that stuffing my feelings, denial, shutting down, etc. is not an option. Living wholeheartedly is my deep intention. Each and every day. So in the midst of my busy life, of all my gratitude that Mom is here for good!, there is also this healing work to be done. Again.
It is still amazing to me, this legal battle that took so many bizarre, shocking, traumatic turns and what it took to simply be empowered to have my own mother come spend the rest of her life living near her "flesh and blood," as Mom refers to us. There was the travesty of justice that occurred by two judges, one here in Washington state and the other in Michigan. The Michigan judge finally consented to recuse herself after our attorney called her out on multiple violations of ethics. And there were a handful of others, who I don't wish to go into here, but each of whom worked so hard, so relentlessly, so inhumanely to deprive my mother her final years near her only surviving child, her grandchildren, and others in our growing family. These acts had their roots in empathic failures, inauthenticity, greed, inability to see what was in my mother's highest good, and blindness to the healing and miracles that were occurring for my mother and within our family.
The emotional, mental, physical, and financial cost of getting Mom/Grandma/Nancy here were great. And today there is this ongoing healing from all the trauma that arose in this fierce fight. Ultimately, however, I know from personal experience that the greatest suffering any of us endures is through living in a state of disconnection from one's own heart. And I don't have to live that way today. And my mother is here. In all the ways that most matter - we won! Our family's wealth is measured in our capacity for healing and wholeness, humility and vulnerability, consciousness and living in alignment with our values, integrity and authenticity, kindness and connection, and transforming our wounds into compassion, wisdom, and love.
I say this with the humility of knowing that this is a life-long process. And this process has nothing to do with being perfect; on the contrary - it is often rooted in healing from perfectionism. My experience has certainly been that it is not easy to be vulnerable, to look deeply, to come back again and again and again to noticing where I have disconnected and gently bring myself back. As Brené Brown so eloquently reflects, "We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering." This connecting first must start within our own hearts.
And that journey from head to heart is the most amazing one I believe any of us can take. The obstacles blocking awareness of where, when, how we shut down can take so many forms. Certainly addiction of any kind blocks the vision and deep knowing of our hearts and souls. Before my own substance abuse recovery began 30 years ago I knew nothing about addiction, although I had lived immersed in it my whole life. Of course, early on I learned that the number one symptom of addiction is denial. And over the years I learned the many faces addiction can take - addiction to alcohol and other drugs, addiction to power and control, addiction to blaming and shaming, addiction to materialism and the accumulation of stuff, addiction to religion and righteousness, addiction to racism and prejudice, addiction to judging and black and white thinking, addiction to work, food, sex, anger, exercise, image management, distraction, busyness, thinking, perfectionism, projection, caretaking, co-dependency, and on and on and on. The list can be endless.
An early therapist told me, "Molly, you could be addicted to anything. You could be addicted to standing on your head." He also told me that he experienced me as living from the neck up. And he told me that my healing would involve that long and courageous journey from my head to my heart. He was right. Although I grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan - a fertile ground for intense training in image management, looking good, and perfecting vulnerability-avoidance skills - this therapist saw me and the suffering I was stuck in.
This therapist actually met my mother and was also among several other therapists who told me things over the years that broke my heart wide open. I needed help coming out of denial and minimization and disassociation. I needed to embrace my story and what had happened to me. And to my twin, my mother and father, and on back through the generations. That which is denied and is not seen cannot be healed, learned from, forgiven, accepted, transformed. I remember the exact words of these different therapists over the years:
- "Your mother is compelled to push away love."
- "You are lucky to have physically survived your childhood."
- "On a scale of 1 to 10 of "People of the Lie," your mother is a 10." (Two therapists told me to read this second book by Scott Peck.)
- "The reason your mother won't have anything to do with you and your sons is that she knows that she cannot devour you."
- "There is nothing, NOTHING, that you can ever do to make your mother love you. There is no poem, no slanting of your handwriting a certain way, no perfect word, no actions, nothing you can do. Your mother is not capable of love."
And I remember my brother's words that last time I saw John. He was hospitalized again, this time on the psychiatric ward of Cottage Hospital in Grosse Pointe. My brother told me, "I know I need to get away from Mom and I know I can't." I knew that my twin was telling me goodbye. I knew that I would never see him again. Eight months later John committed suicide.
Time passed. Great healing has taken root and deepens within myself and our family with each passing year. Hearts break open and space is cleared for love. Then Mom has her crisis - divorce from a 4th husband and subsequent suicide attempt - which began in November 2012, and which opened a door and ultimately brought us together in ways I had given up on ever being possible. With dementia and treatment, my mom forgets she is alcoholic and forgets how to be toxic and disconnects from the severity of many of her chronic "cluster B" symptoms (found in personality disorders). My mom gets on Risperidone among other medications. HUGE change is underway!
Then, finally, the heart of our family opens to welcome Mom/Grandma Nan/Nancy, to welcome her home, home to those who love her. Who love her over time and through messiness and loss and after years of "being thrown under the bus." Her family loves her no matter what. The gifts and power of loving are beyond amazing. What is happening in our family - and that the healing includes my mother! - is a miracle of epic proportions. My husband has told me that he doesn't know if he could have hung in there for so many years, and through so much abuse, and maintained an open heart. This is the miracle - the miracle and profound, utterly profound blessing of doing our heart-work. The boundaries of what becomes possible expand, and sometimes beyond our wildest dreams.
Of course, things are also challenging and hard and messy and confusing. My mother's lifetime of pushing away her pain - and thus love and joy, connection and belonging - comes with a severe price. I am under no illusion that my mom will ever be able to outrun her loneliness and deep depression. Clearing pathways to her heart, however, was something I had believed was beyond hopeless. I was wrong. Such a paradox that as my mother is declared incapacitated, as dementia increases, as a lifetime of full-bore running finally slows down, my mom is opening to remembering pieces of who she truly is. This person, the true essence of my mother, had remained largely hidden through much of my lifetime. And hers. Now, today, each and every moment of connection - of Mom connecting with her family and her family connecting with her - is priceless. It is worth more than all the money in the world. In all the ways that most matter, we are wealthy beyond description.
It is still amazing to me, this legal battle that took so many bizarre, shocking, traumatic turns and what it took to simply be empowered to have my own mother come spend the rest of her life living near her "flesh and blood," as Mom refers to us. There was the travesty of justice that occurred by two judges, one here in Washington state and the other in Michigan. The Michigan judge finally consented to recuse herself after our attorney called her out on multiple violations of ethics. And there were a handful of others, who I don't wish to go into here, but each of whom worked so hard, so relentlessly, so inhumanely to deprive my mother her final years near her only surviving child, her grandchildren, and others in our growing family. These acts had their roots in empathic failures, inauthenticity, greed, inability to see what was in my mother's highest good, and blindness to the healing and miracles that were occurring for my mother and within our family.
The emotional, mental, physical, and financial cost of getting Mom/Grandma/Nancy here were great. And today there is this ongoing healing from all the trauma that arose in this fierce fight. Ultimately, however, I know from personal experience that the greatest suffering any of us endures is through living in a state of disconnection from one's own heart. And I don't have to live that way today. And my mother is here. In all the ways that most matter - we won! Our family's wealth is measured in our capacity for healing and wholeness, humility and vulnerability, consciousness and living in alignment with our values, integrity and authenticity, kindness and connection, and transforming our wounds into compassion, wisdom, and love.
I say this with the humility of knowing that this is a life-long process. And this process has nothing to do with being perfect; on the contrary - it is often rooted in healing from perfectionism. My experience has certainly been that it is not easy to be vulnerable, to look deeply, to come back again and again and again to noticing where I have disconnected and gently bring myself back. As Brené Brown so eloquently reflects, "We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering." This connecting first must start within our own hearts.
And that journey from head to heart is the most amazing one I believe any of us can take. The obstacles blocking awareness of where, when, how we shut down can take so many forms. Certainly addiction of any kind blocks the vision and deep knowing of our hearts and souls. Before my own substance abuse recovery began 30 years ago I knew nothing about addiction, although I had lived immersed in it my whole life. Of course, early on I learned that the number one symptom of addiction is denial. And over the years I learned the many faces addiction can take - addiction to alcohol and other drugs, addiction to power and control, addiction to blaming and shaming, addiction to materialism and the accumulation of stuff, addiction to religion and righteousness, addiction to racism and prejudice, addiction to judging and black and white thinking, addiction to work, food, sex, anger, exercise, image management, distraction, busyness, thinking, perfectionism, projection, caretaking, co-dependency, and on and on and on. The list can be endless.
An early therapist told me, "Molly, you could be addicted to anything. You could be addicted to standing on your head." He also told me that he experienced me as living from the neck up. And he told me that my healing would involve that long and courageous journey from my head to my heart. He was right. Although I grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan - a fertile ground for intense training in image management, looking good, and perfecting vulnerability-avoidance skills - this therapist saw me and the suffering I was stuck in.
This therapist actually met my mother and was also among several other therapists who told me things over the years that broke my heart wide open. I needed help coming out of denial and minimization and disassociation. I needed to embrace my story and what had happened to me. And to my twin, my mother and father, and on back through the generations. That which is denied and is not seen cannot be healed, learned from, forgiven, accepted, transformed. I remember the exact words of these different therapists over the years:
- "Your mother is compelled to push away love."
- "You are lucky to have physically survived your childhood."
- "On a scale of 1 to 10 of "People of the Lie," your mother is a 10." (Two therapists told me to read this second book by Scott Peck.)
- "The reason your mother won't have anything to do with you and your sons is that she knows that she cannot devour you."
- "There is nothing, NOTHING, that you can ever do to make your mother love you. There is no poem, no slanting of your handwriting a certain way, no perfect word, no actions, nothing you can do. Your mother is not capable of love."
And I remember my brother's words that last time I saw John. He was hospitalized again, this time on the psychiatric ward of Cottage Hospital in Grosse Pointe. My brother told me, "I know I need to get away from Mom and I know I can't." I knew that my twin was telling me goodbye. I knew that I would never see him again. Eight months later John committed suicide.
Time passed. Great healing has taken root and deepens within myself and our family with each passing year. Hearts break open and space is cleared for love. Then Mom has her crisis - divorce from a 4th husband and subsequent suicide attempt - which began in November 2012, and which opened a door and ultimately brought us together in ways I had given up on ever being possible. With dementia and treatment, my mom forgets she is alcoholic and forgets how to be toxic and disconnects from the severity of many of her chronic "cluster B" symptoms (found in personality disorders). My mom gets on Risperidone among other medications. HUGE change is underway!
Then, finally, the heart of our family opens to welcome Mom/Grandma Nan/Nancy, to welcome her home, home to those who love her. Who love her over time and through messiness and loss and after years of "being thrown under the bus." Her family loves her no matter what. The gifts and power of loving are beyond amazing. What is happening in our family - and that the healing includes my mother! - is a miracle of epic proportions. My husband has told me that he doesn't know if he could have hung in there for so many years, and through so much abuse, and maintained an open heart. This is the miracle - the miracle and profound, utterly profound blessing of doing our heart-work. The boundaries of what becomes possible expand, and sometimes beyond our wildest dreams.
Of course, things are also challenging and hard and messy and confusing. My mother's lifetime of pushing away her pain - and thus love and joy, connection and belonging - comes with a severe price. I am under no illusion that my mom will ever be able to outrun her loneliness and deep depression. Clearing pathways to her heart, however, was something I had believed was beyond hopeless. I was wrong. Such a paradox that as my mother is declared incapacitated, as dementia increases, as a lifetime of full-bore running finally slows down, my mom is opening to remembering pieces of who she truly is. This person, the true essence of my mother, had remained largely hidden through much of my lifetime. And hers. Now, today, each and every moment of connection - of Mom connecting with her family and her family connecting with her - is priceless. It is worth more than all the money in the world. In all the ways that most matter, we are wealthy beyond description.
My heart is filled with the deep compassion and consciousness that there is no blame for what has happened through the generations of my family because I have learned that, absolutely, we are all always doing the best we can do at any given time. I understand how easy it is to simply go to sleep and forget who we are, and in this great forgetting and disconnection from our essence, great harm will inevitably follow. I also know that our family is not unique - deep wounding happens within many, many families and is certainly pervasive in our culture. It is also deeply important to illuminate that profound healing is also possible within families, even against great odds.
How many lifetimes, how many generations has it taken to bring our family to this place of healing and growing wholeness where we find ourselves today? Today there are times of celebrating my mother's 88th birthday and other birthdays, of enjoying sitting out on our patio-sanctuary, of gatherings as family in many different settings, of deep and healing conversations, of doing therapy together, of hugging and kissing, smiling and looking into one another's eyes. My heart overflows, overflows with gratitude and love.
May we each grow in the courage to be vulnerable so that, as Brené Brown eloquently writes about in Daring Greatly, we are able to transform the way we live, love, parent, and lead.
How many lifetimes, how many generations has it taken to bring our family to this place of healing and growing wholeness where we find ourselves today? Today there are times of celebrating my mother's 88th birthday and other birthdays, of enjoying sitting out on our patio-sanctuary, of gatherings as family in many different settings, of deep and healing conversations, of doing therapy together, of hugging and kissing, smiling and looking into one another's eyes. My heart overflows, overflows with gratitude and love.
May we each grow in the courage to be vulnerable so that, as Brené Brown eloquently writes about in Daring Greatly, we are able to transform the way we live, love, parent, and lead.
Namaste ~ Molly
o
Ron & Molly, Brian & Marita, Matt, Kevin & Kristin
celebrate Mom/Grandma/Nancy's 88th birthday!
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