Dear Mom,

It’s not lost on me that I waited until after your death to ask you the big questions. That I am actively choosing to ask you because you can’t answer. I realize now that there were many times while I was young when I did need to ask you questions. I did need to start important conversations. And I’m now beginning to admit the truth that, maybe, I wasn’t emotionally ready to face the possibility that I was at fault. Maybe somewhere inside I didn’t ask you because I was too afraid of your answers. And it was easier to blame you than to turn on myself.

I understand that.

But this is where we are. You’re dead. I’m questioning everything. And better late than never, right?

 I wonder, what questions you would have asked your own mother if you had the chance. And I know, with almost total certainty, that you never had these conversations with your mom. I know this because you often shared your thoughts about your relationships with your parents. With me, not with them.

A couple of months before you died, we had one of my favorite conversations. It was around the time that you helped me pick my songs for my wedding. When we facetimed and listened to all of our favorite oldies together, deciding which songs were appropriate for each moment of my big day. The day that you knew you weren’t going to be at. We both knew it by then. But it was important to us that you had your hands in as many aspects of my wedding as possible. Afterall, it was your idea for me to have a wedding in the first place. Idea is the wrong word. Your force? Your push? Your choice? You were the very reason for me to schedule an event I didn’t want. An unnecessary expense in my opinion. But you gave me some money and didn’t give me the option to decline. I had to use it on a wedding. 

You came to Los Angeles and looked at venues with me. I came to Chicago, and you helped me pick out my wedding dress. And once we both admitted you weren’t going to make it to my big day, being that it would be so soon after your second brain surgery, it became essential that you help me with my music choices.

Music was always the glue that held us together. You raised me to appreciate all of the classics. To feel the rhythm. To embrace the melody. You shared your stories about going to see the Beatles twice when you were young. All of your love for Motown and R&B. I barely survived your country phase, better than David who had an asthma attack at that Garth Brooks concert. You took me salsa dancing in the city. We’d spend car rides singing along to Boys II Men and Marc Anthony.

The last real day out we had together as mother and daughter was when I came to Chicago, and you took me to go see Motown: The Musical. We danced to all of your favorite songs, which became my favorite songs. 

 I still wish we would have had the summer wedding we originally planned on. The date we wanted but you said would interfere with too many other family functions. Maybe if we had kept that first date, you would have been there. And we could have danced to our favorite songs.

 Standing in my kitchen of my studio apartment in the Pico Union neighborhood in Los Angeles, we had the most real conversation. Possibly ever. It was a warm day. The windows were all open as I had no AC. It could have been that same day as when we chose my music. Maybe a few days later. We were talking on the phone. You confessed something to me. You shared that you didn’t like the way I spoke to you. That there was a tone. An attitude. A way that I talked down to you. Snippy. Catty. And what you disliked the most about that, was how much it reminded you of the way you spoke to your own mother. And you confessed to me that you regretted never telling her that. Never apologizing for the way you treated her.

Your mother, my grandma, was used to being talked to with complete disrespect. She was often teased for her level of intelligence. Or lack thereof. She was told to shut up a lot. To sit down. To stop talking. And you were teased as well. By family. By friends. By me. I’ll never be able to truly express my regrets for treating you the way I did for so long. I can so easily blame it on being young. On being influenced by others. On being under the influence of substances. But I know now that I can only blame myself. I knew better. I knew at a young age that I was supposed to treat others how I wanted to be treated. You taught me that. Somehow, it didn’t apply to our relationship. 

I’m sorry.

I know you wish you could have apologized to your mom. Was there anything else you would have talked to her about if given the chance? Would you have asked her why she didn’t stand up for you more? Why she didn’t stand up for herself? Or would you have asked her more about what she loved in life? What brought her joy?

You often said that Grandma’s last year was the best of her life. It was the year she was free. The year she had choice. And she chose to live for that year. To make friends at the nursing home. To dance. And when it was time, she chose to sleep a little longer that morning.

My biggest regret was not asking you more while you were mentally able to answer. We had that one important conversation, but it was already too late. By then, you were forgetting too much. Around that time, I could barely talk to you without us circling the same topics on repeat as you’d inevitably forget you’d already asked me that question. And I’d get so annoyed. So agitated. I’d hang up angry. Rolling my eyes. Irritated that I couldn’t get through one phone call with you without explaining the same thing over and over. But I think I also had anger because I knew you were going to leave me soon. I would front that I was ready. That I was prepared to be strong. But losing you was utterly devastating for me. Because at the end of the day, even if we never had more of those big conversations, you had become my very best friend. You were my first and last call of each day. And suddenly, without you, I had no one to talk to. Not just about the big stuff, but the small stuff too. Suddenly, no one cared about my meals. No one cared about how I slept. No one asked me anything. And it was quiet. So fucking quiet. 

Now, I have my own kids to talk to and I worry that I’m falling into the same cycle. I hear that tone. That same snippy attitude we both used on our mothers when my daughter talks to me. Is it inevitable? Is this what we create when we teach our daughters to stand up and demand respect? When we tell them to not be shy? To not hold back? Are we at risk of being stomped on? Are we at risk of being belittled? How does one generation of women lift up the next without falling behind? Is that what happened to us? To you and your mom? Is this just the natural cycle of mothers and daughters?

I have to admit, I’m crying right now. I don’t know if it’s the memories of your last days coming to the surface. Or Grandma’s. Or if I’m crying for the future. The possible doom of my relationship with my own daughter. 

I want to believe with each generation; we get a little better. A little closer to some version of perfection. Some sort of image of equality we have always strived for. But is it also delusional to think we can overcome it all? Isn’t there too much to fix? Too much baggage? Too much generational trauma? And am I at risk of bringing my own daughter down into this darkness by alerting her to it? Is it better, or easier, to ignore her tone? To allow her snippy attitude to go under the radar? Is that how you dealt with me? Did you allow me to be my own person at risk of losing yourself in the process? Is that why you only brought it to my attention at the bitter end? When it was too late to change?

I don’t expect you to have the answers, and I am starting to accept that I also don’t have the answers. But I recognize that this is all a process. A journey, as you would say. And just as I had to go through the stages of grief in my own time after you died, I feel like it is necessary to allow myself to take my time through the stages of motherhood. Even if that puts me at risk of screwing up yet another mother daughter relationship. I sure hope I get a longer lifespan with my daughter than you did with yours.

I love you, Mom.

Love,

Rachel

P.S. Scotland loves music. I’ve been taking her to concerts and sharing all of our favorites. We danced last night to all of her favorite songs. My new favorite songs. Wish you could dance with us.