I’d already known that children sometimes engage the bulk of grief work after the passing of the second parent, since the passing of the first parent often sets in motion immediate caretaking for the remaining parent. My father passed about 27 years before my mother, and my relationship with my mother was complex at best, so when she “transitioned” to heaven (as the near-death experiencers like to call it), I had no way of knowing the complexity of the bereavement landscape I was about to traverse.
Because our family system had been significantly impacted by trauma, communication had gotten trapped in a hyper-aroused reactive state. In an attempt to minimize family drama which became toxic, I’d chosen to switch my medium of communication with my mother to written correspondence only. In the last 6 years of her life, my husband and I had agreed to offer to move back to North Dakota to help care for her, since my husband was going to be able to retire young. The only caveat was a request for mediated dialogue with her, and my siblings to define some healthy boundaries. The first offer was met with 15 months of silence. I continued to write and send gifts; but communication from North Dakota to California fell completely silent. At this point, I enlisted some extended family members to assist in making certain that she’d received the letter in which we’d made the offer. Within two weeks I received a simple note thanking me, but declining.
We stumbled along for a couple more years sending letters, and gifts until word had gotten back to me that my mother, now in her mid-80’s, had fallen in her garage. At this point, I chose to make the offer once again. This time, to make certain she’d received my communication, I contacted the County Adult Social Services and asked that they check on her, deliver my letter and offer of caretaking, and asked if they would be willing to assist in setting up a recorded zoom call with her. This was again met with months of silence.
Time marched on and upon graduation, my eldest found a job and moved to the mid-west. We integrated the move with a trip to my childhood home to visit my mother, and so reached out once again to embark on the mediation necessary to make the trip workable. This time the offer was met with immediate, overt resistance. I made an additional attempt to make the mediation happen, but to no avail. So, I did the next best thing, which was to meet my mother on the road, but insist that my sister be present to avoid any misunderstanding or toxic family drama.
We had not seen one another in person for 18 years, and had planned 5 hours together. We had an awkward, yet lovely lunch. Then seemingly out of nowhere, my mother abruptly cut our time short. “I am so sorry,” she said to me. “I was supposed to meet your niece’s fiancée tonight . . .” Despite my best efforts, family drama had erupted, and after just an hour and a half with my mother, she and my sister left. The next time I would see my mom was four months later while she was in hospice, and unable to communicate verbally.
After she passed, and upon pondering the events of the 6 years prior e.g. the numerous attempts at dialogue, the attempt to spend time with her in the best way possible, and the ease and expediency with which she left the day she had the opportunity to be with me and my family, I began to revisit a theme which had intermittently emerged for most of my life. Rather than remaining in the healthier place I’d found years before in understanding her limitations as a person, I found myself revisiting the old and deeply embedded message that I had not been planned for, or wanted. This theme was at times deeply prevalent, despite overt evidence that for my entire life, my father had held who I was in very high regard. The depth of his empathic attunement was such that, as he was waiting for a heart transplant and knowing he would likely not live, he pulled me aside one day and told me, “Babe . . . stop trying so hard. Your mom is never going to forgive you [for being who you are] . . . Rich is a deeply faithful man. He loves you, Mary. I love you . . . I love you . . . stop trying with your mom.”
For months after my mom’s passing, I would randomly burst into tears with the persistent ruminating thought that she never wanted me, and then a subsequent intense longing for my dad. What do I do with this? How do I transcend this with an understanding of who she was in order to remain in the forgiveness I had found for her years earlier? How do I maintain the deep understanding of my own worthiness which I’d gained in my own inner healing, despite the projected lack of value I’d experienced in her worst moments relating to me? She’d lived her woundedness palpably, but this did not mean she was inherently bad. It meant simply that she was wounded. I was floating out there . . . trying to regain my grounding.
Then, one day I was walking through my house and I noticed one of the mechanical candles on my mantel illuminated. I had not touched it, and upon inquiry I learned that nobody else in the house had touched it. I turned it off, figuring that it was a fluke. Two mornings later, while passing through the same room, I noticed the same mechanical candle illuminated. I asked my husband, who’d been sitting in that room all morning, if he had twisted it on. He answered no, that he had not noticed it illuminated when he entered the room to read. As I walked over to twist the candle off for the second time, it occurred to me that somehow this was an attempt at communication from my mother. Candle making had been one of her crafting pass-times, and my childhood home had many candles which she used enchantingly through Advent, and at Christmas during family gatherings.
I called my sister and immediately recounted what had been going on. Not being a person of any type of spiritual mysticism, magical thinking or superstition, she found my candle story amusing and did not miss the opportunity to tease me a little. But then she grew serious and direct, “You have got to stop thinking that way, Mary” she said. “Mom and dad both wanted you. I was 8 years old when they got pregnant with you, and I can tell you they were excited to be having another child. Grandma died 6 weeks before you were born, and Mom’s life changed dramatically. You were born and mom stayed with grandpa the first year of your life to take care of him. It’s not that you weren’t wanted. Mom’s life was just completely upended.”
I knew the story, but I had not made the connection between the events and the sense of being unwanted. It was incredibly healing, and provided enough context to give enough momentum to assist in closing out my mom [and dad’s] estate. I headed home to assist my siblings in cleaning out our childhood home.
While dividing the items which remained in my childhood home, I requested to obtain possession of the mantel clock which my father had built when I was a child. It had stopped ticking in my young adulthood, and I had asked my dad why he did not take the time to fix it. He usually replied in his playful manner, “I’d have to order the parts from Europe at this point, Babe . . . and clock making is time consuming . . . no pun intended,” and chuckled at his own corny cleverness. My siblings were in agreement, I wrapped the clock and kept it near me for the trip from North Dakota to California. We arrived home in California during the late afternoon and the clock was the first thing I unloaded. I carefully lifted the clock and placed it on my mantel. And this broken clock which had stubbornly remained silent for probably 35 years, began ticking. For the next few months, it would spontaneously tick on and off. I consider this the third message of love from both my mom and dad. I miss them very, very much. However, I am convinced and aware of their presence in spirit almost daily whether my dad’s clock ticks, I discover my mechanical candles mysteriously illuminated; or not. I am not alone; I am not unwanted; and in the middle of a million human wounds, I know that I am loved the very best they knew how to love, and the very best they knew how to love who I am, uniquely . . .
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Marylee Nambu, M.A., LMFT 