Parental relationships

I look out at small twinkling lights. The streetlights are yellow and motionless. Then there is the steady stream of moving lights from cars. Traffic lights flash — green, orange then red. Red reminds me of my mother, a spirited, passionate woman full of joy and laughter until Alzheimer caught her. I think of her but I do not feel the ache of missing her.

I think about my mother a lot. Not a day passes without a thought of her, a picture of her flashing through my mind. Oh — my mother would not have liked that, she would have laughed at that, she would have said. . . But they are all only thoughts about my mother. Why?

On the other hand there is my father, who I never knew. He was killed when I was six months old, a little baby. My mother told me that he had taken care of me from birth to six months. I do not remember anything about my father but when I think of him, I miss him. I feel something sharp in my heart and I find myself talking to him, having a conversation of sorts, something I do not try to do with my mother. And yet I knew and loved her more. Why?

Then there’s my Daddy Toot, who was my surrogate father when I was small until he died when I was 15. This man I truly loved. I remember his scent, the raised mole on his left shoulder, the way he dressed. He taught me to dance and drink so no man would ever drink me under the table. Every time I dream about my Daddy Toot I keep the dream for days. They are rare but they are precious. I don’t think of him as often as I do my mother either but when I remember him I miss him passionately with a strong sharp heaviness in my heart. Why?

I have wondered about this all through the holidays. Why is the mother-daughter relationship, while very strong, very intellectual; and the father-daughter relationship is profoundly heartfelt, even if the father and daughter did not really make friends, like my father and me. He must have had memories of me but I had no real memories of him.

 And my Daddy Toot! I remember trips to his office, the names of his secretaries, my picture on his desk. I remember how he taught me to defend my request for money to buy expensive shoes, how upset he got when I told him that the son of his best friend had sent me flowers. I remember when I was around 10 or 11 years old how we would go to the movies and hold hands. How I loved him and I remember him passionately still 55 years after his passing.

 The same thing happens with my son. I remember carrying him around as a baby. I would sniff him and get his fine hair tickling my nose. I would carry him to my room and change his little socks and he would point and say, “Hock?” He was to me the most adorable baby in the world. No, I thought all my babies were the most adorable in the world but there was a different feeling for my son, maybe because he was my only boy. Or maybe because deep down I am a woman and he is a man. And the relationship between those two is always necessarily passionate.

When a daughter thinks of her mother sure there is love but there’s also assertion. I am a woman, you are a woman but/and I am different from you. There is something political between mothers and daughters. I should know. I have three daughters and there have been between us many disagreements. Unknowingly my daughters hurt me profoundly. Maybe it’s because I love them profoundly though I don’t think they are aware of it because they grew up with me and I had to work to keep all of us alive so I was not home most of the time. When I was home often I would be tired and cranky and I think they must have hated me as daughters are wont to hate their mothers. Sons generally love their mothers.

The most difficult task I’ve ever had was motherhood. Until today when I live alone far from all my children and don’t bother them for anything I think a lot about the parent-child relationship, the pleasure and pain of it, the deep mystery of it.

I have come to this conclusion. A mother needs to die before her daughters appreciate her. Every day they will think of her but not feel for her. The father-daughter relationship is fun while he is alive and after he dies he is still longed for passionately.

 I think that’s just the way it is.

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