I used to enjoy February. The end of winter is in sight, memories
of paper bags filled with Valentine’s Day cards in grade school, and the way we
get a crazy extra day every fourth year. It was always a perfectly harmless
month, much like any of its eleven calendar siblings.
That all changed on a snowy Wednesday morning in February of last year when I received word that my younger brother had been killed in an unfortunate accident at 34 years of age. His passing left a stain on the month that will follow me until the end of my days.
Little did I know how soon that stain would darken.
My mother was admitted to the hospital this past Saturday morning with a sudden and acute health issue. On another snowy morning in February – this past Sunday, to be precise – I was notified that my mother had passed away at only 54 years of age.
As I write this, I am preparing for a 3 day trip home to Cape Breton to visit with the remaining members of my family and say goodbye to the woman who brought me into this world. It’s a very confusing time for me, as a big part of me feels like I’m bidding farewell to someone I hardly know. You see, despite what you may have thought, not every mother/son relationship is the stuff of 80’s sitcoms where the Huxtables or Keatons sat around the dinner table and solved all their problems over meatloaf. Family relationships can be difficult, messy, and even destructive entities – and my mother and I are the perfect example of this fact.
A single Mom at 16, my mother gave birth to four healthy boys by the time she hit the age of 32 – the age where I became a father to my first child. My mother was largely alone throughout her child-raising years and handled three of her four rambunctious boys while being little more than a child herself. As a self-absorbed teenager and 20-something, I didn’t understand what fueled many of my mother’s behaviors. I didn’t approve of many of the decisions and life choices she made and I had no issue with questioning them loudly and often. It was her behaviors and my aggressive criticisms and reactions to those behaviors that drove a wedge between us for the better part of my adult life.
We went years hardly speaking, and when we did it was only unkind words that were exchanged on both sides of the equation. It seemed like the rift between us was irreparable, and I had all but given up in trying to patch things up; it was then I found out I was going to be a father.
I called my mother when I found out my wife was pregnant. I told her I would like for her to be a part of my life again and my child’s life as well, with the rule that things needed to remain civil between us. I didn’t want any of the issues between my mother and I to spill over to my child, and she agreed. For almost five years and with the arrival of my second child, she showed a loving side of herself that I had either never seen or long since forgotten. She was the perfect Nana to my boys and took an exceptional amount of pride in the role.
It’s only now, as a father of two preparing to lay his mother to rest, and having seen her affection for my boys that I finally understand her.
I went into parenthood with an emotional toolbox filled with the experiences that only 30+ years on this earth can provide. I also had the most loving and supporting spouse a man could ask for. I’m not a perfect parent – but I’m far more equipped to deal with the stresses that raising children can bring than my mother ever was at her incredibly young age. I sit and ask myself today how I would have fared as a single parent with three children before my 21st birthday. An asylum probably would have been a pretty safe bet.
As a parent, you give every bit of yourself to your children and they become the center of your universe. What happens, though, when you haven’t had that opportunity to figure out who you are? How difficult it must be to provide a foundation for your children when you, yourself, are built on a bed of straw.
I get it now, and I only wish my mother were around so I could tell her how sorry I am.
My mother’s funeral is Friday, and I am likely sitting in a church as you read this – an oddity in itself. I was chosen earlier in the week to write her eulogy and I feared that I would have nothing to say that anyone would want to hear. I see now how wrong I was.
I won’t talk about the woman who I butted heads with so much through my life. I’ll recall fondly the woman who walked me to school on my first day of kindergarten. I’ll laugh about the woman who tortured me throughout my childhood with viewings of Dirty Dancing and Grease. I’ll talk about her love for animals and her wonderful singing voice. I’ll talk about how her surprising me with a big plastic swimming pool in my room on my sixth birthday was one of the best moments of my life and how her bringing me to see E.T. as my first ever theatre movie was an event that brought me to writing movie reviews 30 years later for this very newspaper.
I’ll pay respect to the woman who did the best
she could with what she had available for her children.That all changed on a snowy Wednesday morning in February of last year when I received word that my younger brother had been killed in an unfortunate accident at 34 years of age. His passing left a stain on the month that will follow me until the end of my days.
Little did I know how soon that stain would darken.
My mother was admitted to the hospital this past Saturday morning with a sudden and acute health issue. On another snowy morning in February – this past Sunday, to be precise – I was notified that my mother had passed away at only 54 years of age.
As I write this, I am preparing for a 3 day trip home to Cape Breton to visit with the remaining members of my family and say goodbye to the woman who brought me into this world. It’s a very confusing time for me, as a big part of me feels like I’m bidding farewell to someone I hardly know. You see, despite what you may have thought, not every mother/son relationship is the stuff of 80’s sitcoms where the Huxtables or Keatons sat around the dinner table and solved all their problems over meatloaf. Family relationships can be difficult, messy, and even destructive entities – and my mother and I are the perfect example of this fact.
A single Mom at 16, my mother gave birth to four healthy boys by the time she hit the age of 32 – the age where I became a father to my first child. My mother was largely alone throughout her child-raising years and handled three of her four rambunctious boys while being little more than a child herself. As a self-absorbed teenager and 20-something, I didn’t understand what fueled many of my mother’s behaviors. I didn’t approve of many of the decisions and life choices she made and I had no issue with questioning them loudly and often. It was her behaviors and my aggressive criticisms and reactions to those behaviors that drove a wedge between us for the better part of my adult life.
We went years hardly speaking, and when we did it was only unkind words that were exchanged on both sides of the equation. It seemed like the rift between us was irreparable, and I had all but given up in trying to patch things up; it was then I found out I was going to be a father.
I called my mother when I found out my wife was pregnant. I told her I would like for her to be a part of my life again and my child’s life as well, with the rule that things needed to remain civil between us. I didn’t want any of the issues between my mother and I to spill over to my child, and she agreed. For almost five years and with the arrival of my second child, she showed a loving side of herself that I had either never seen or long since forgotten. She was the perfect Nana to my boys and took an exceptional amount of pride in the role.
It’s only now, as a father of two preparing to lay his mother to rest, and having seen her affection for my boys that I finally understand her.
I went into parenthood with an emotional toolbox filled with the experiences that only 30+ years on this earth can provide. I also had the most loving and supporting spouse a man could ask for. I’m not a perfect parent – but I’m far more equipped to deal with the stresses that raising children can bring than my mother ever was at her incredibly young age. I sit and ask myself today how I would have fared as a single parent with three children before my 21st birthday. An asylum probably would have been a pretty safe bet.
As a parent, you give every bit of yourself to your children and they become the center of your universe. What happens, though, when you haven’t had that opportunity to figure out who you are? How difficult it must be to provide a foundation for your children when you, yourself, are built on a bed of straw.
I get it now, and I only wish my mother were around so I could tell her how sorry I am.
My mother’s funeral is Friday, and I am likely sitting in a church as you read this – an oddity in itself. I was chosen earlier in the week to write her eulogy and I feared that I would have nothing to say that anyone would want to hear. I see now how wrong I was.
I won’t talk about the woman who I butted heads with so much through my life. I’ll recall fondly the woman who walked me to school on my first day of kindergarten. I’ll laugh about the woman who tortured me throughout my childhood with viewings of Dirty Dancing and Grease. I’ll talk about her love for animals and her wonderful singing voice. I’ll talk about how her surprising me with a big plastic swimming pool in my room on my sixth birthday was one of the best moments of my life and how her bringing me to see E.T. as my first ever theatre movie was an event that brought me to writing movie reviews 30 years later for this very newspaper.
I’m going to talk about my Mom.
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