Essay 58: The End

She’s dead.
The woman who birthed me and raised me but couldn’t love me.
The woman who should have been my safe place but wasn’t; who should have been my refuge but will never ever be.

She’s dead.
The woman who was my world when I was a child but couldn’t make space for me in hers.
The woman whom I wanted to please but never could.

The day after my daughter’s first birthday was the last I ever saw her. Six years and two months ago.
I couldn’t take it any more. The jealousy, the contempt, the disrespect, the negativity. After I gave birth to my own child, I finally understood there was nothing I could ever do to make this woman act as a mother should. I stopped trying.

She was no longer a part of my life. The dark clouds parted.
I could finally come to term with the pain. I could let the wounds heal. They did.

My mother died six years and two months ago. I mourned then.
I don’t regret my decision (just because the Lion is dead doesn’t mean that staying out of its cage was the wrong choice) I just feel ripped off once again.
The woman who just exhaled her last breath had become a stranger to me but she managed to deny me once more. She took away my claim to sadness, my right as a daughter to weep at my mother’s death.
It’s not supposed to be this way.

None of us are all good and certainly none of us are all bad.
There are some good memories. Not enough to ever tip the balance towards a different outcome but they exist and I will hold on to them.
She was a great cook. She dressed well. She had a beautiful singing voice.

She’s dead.
From cancer.
Only 68 years old.
I didn’t know she was sick. I don’t know if she suffered.
I hope she didn’t.

I wish her well.
I hope she can find the peace that eluded her here on Earth.
I hope her heart can be mended.
I hope she can now feel the Love she couldn’t give me in her lifetime.

She’s dead.
The woman who never was wrong and never said sorry and thus relinquished a connection with her younger daughter, with her only granddaughter.

Among the ashes of our relationship I discovered a jewel, a present she unknowingly left behind: the gift of perspective.

How you lead your life matters.
How you treat people matters.
Growing older is not necessarily growing wiser.

She has shown me the path I do not wish to take.
I will not choose selfishness.
I will not choose anger.
I will not let my pain torment others.

When I exhale my own last breath, I pray my death will not elicit indifference or, worse yet, relief.
I WANT TO BE MISSED!

I shall strive to be kind, do good, love a lot and live well…
…for how we live is how we’ll die.

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”

Reine-Blanche Payet died on 03/31/2017 in Reunion Island. May she rest in peace.