Comfort And Care

I loved my mother dearly. I would have sacrificed anything to give her a life less burdened with shame and sadness. Just prior to her death, I was doing everything I knew how to comfort and care for her. I believed God was making a way for her to experience some kind of relief and/or recovery.

Her last words to me were, “I don’t ever remember anyone taking care of me like you are.”

My immediate reaction was disbelief. My father, my brother, and I had spent our entire lives taking care of, protecting, and shielding her. We were powerless to prevent further exposure to the shameful effects of her trauma. She was plagued by her inability to process, heal from, or even communicate with those she love most, the darkness of her past.

After she passed, someone trying to comfort me told me to focus on the fact that I had been doing everything I could to support and care for her. I wasn’t able to save her, but I loved and served her to the very end.

Twenty years later I’m still trying to let her go. I’m coming to realize I can’t do anything else for her. I’m left pushing through the wounds of my childhood. I find myself asking why I can’t sacrifice for my own recovery and well-being with the same passion and dedication. Why can’t I elevate my needs above the needs of my mother, who is no longer here? I’m a great nurturer but applying my nurturing gifts to myself remains challenging. The critic says I’m not worthy. The experience of my own trauma, and the abandonment and parental neglect of my childhood attempts to trick me into believing I will never trust love or even recognize it when it is standing right in front of me. But really all I have to do is look at the mirror and I will see it reflecting back at me.

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