What I Didn't See

Every Wednesday I participate in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. 
This week I challenged Michael Webb with 'You have to move unexpectedly.' Ace challenged me with: 
'She looks out of the window all day, not moving, not making a sound. What does she see out there?' 

She lost everything: her husband, her son, her mother, her will to survive. She had me, of course, but I was the daughter who could never live up to her expectations; the one who was just never good enough. She didn’t approve of my tattoos, of my ‘alternative’ lifestyle, and she definitely didn’t approve of my girlfriend whom I loved so much. It didn’t come as a big surprise that she just stopped caring when I came around, ignoring my every word and staring out through the big clean window that looked out onto the street, never making a sound.

When I would visit her on a rare occasion, she would always be sitting there in an old rocking chair that belonged to her mother, just staring out the window. I worried constantly about when she would die because I knew it wasn’t very far off, and I always hoped it would be the nurse I hired to take care of her that would find her limp in that chair and not me.

She loved the nurse more than she loved me. It was the nurse’s gentle touch that awoke my mother every morning, ready to give her a bath. It was she who fed her like a baby three times a day, asking her to open her mouth and wiping the food away after it spilled back out. It was her steady voice that read aloud my mother’s favorite books, hoping that one of them might ‘awaken’ her and bring her back to our world.

Last week the nurse called to tell me my mother passed away. I never thought I would feel such a deep sense of loss. I definitely didn’t expect to feel like I missed out on something incredible, like I could have made the relationship with my mother better. I felt like I was the one who should have been taking care of her this whole time, like I should have been there for her despite her negativity and hatred towards me. I was her daughter who was supposed to be there for her, no matter what.

I went to her house today to pack some things up and I sat in that old rocking chair. I looked out the old window, hoping to see what she saw. Was it really that wonderful to just sit here and stare all day?

I saw a father walk by, attempting to teach his daughter how to ride her new pink bicycle. I saw a young boy walking his overweight German Sheppard, thinking about how the dog could escape its owner easily if it wasn’t so loyal. I saw birds, so many birds. They ate from the bird feeders that surrounded the yard in the tall trees, on the gutters, and in the green grass. I saw car after car drive by with businessmen going to work, parents taking their children to school, and teenagers who were newly navigating the road.

What I didn’t see was how my mother could throw her life away and settle for this instead. Life was much more beautiful and it made me grieve for her, knowing she missed out on it so much. When she lost the ones close to her, she lost herself. I lost my brother, my father and my grandmother, and along the way I ultimately lost my mother, the woman who should have been my favorite person in the whole world and the person I should have always been able to turn to.

I luckily haven’t lost my mother or any close family yet, but I think this story came from a place in my childhood. She was an alcoholic so there were times when I didn’t see her for a long time as I lived with my dad or grandparents. For a kid things are usually out of sight, out of mind, but not when it came to my mom. I always wondered what made her choose alcohol (or the ‘rocking chair’) over me, and it’s something I will never know. As an adult, I definitely feel like I missed out on a lot with my mother. Out relationship isn’t as great as it could be because of that, but it’s coming along. She’s been sober for quite a while now, but it’s still hard to get over the past that you’re reminded of every day.