My mother has been gone a long time, since 2012.
Yet I still feel her presence and I still carry her truth.
Sometimes I am amazed at how much of my mother I see in myself because there was a time when I believed we occupied opposite ends of every spectrum.
We disagreed. We argued. We gave each other the silent treatment, especially during my teen years. On many occasions, I swore to never be like her. And I’m pretty sure, under her breath, she returned the favor.
Back then, before I had my own children, I didn’t know my mother as a person who had endured considerable hardships, as someone who had deferred or completely given up on dreams of her own for the sake of her children.
I only saw her as the woman who yelled too much, worried incessantly and was overly skeptical of just about everything. She seemed controlling and, at times, insufferable. To her, life was fraught with all kinds of dangers that she’d been assigned to protect us from.
To me, then a teen and young adult, life was inviting, a big bundle of adventure waiting to happen. I was its marionette.
The gap between us seemed unbridgeable.
I wanted a career. She urged me to get a job. With benefits.
I set my sights on college. She thought that was ridiculous. There was no money for tuition.
I loved the freedom that driving allowed. She hated any trip that involved making left turns.
I loved nature. She tolerated it.
I loved being in the city. She was afraid of it.
I embraced opportunity. She shrunk from it.
Everything gave her anxiety — storms, driving, new social settings. Her anxiousness annoyed me.
Sometimes I think she hated my courage as much as I hated her fear.
Life went on. I got myself into college and managed to swing it on my own. I loved my newfound freedom and I loved my choice of career paths. My confidence was off the charts.
My mother and I continued to squabble well into my 20s.
And then I married and had my first child. Suddenly, I was terrified of messing everything up.
And suddenly, my mother seemed to have newfound confidence. She embraced her new granddaughter, even offering to babysit while I worked. I was doubtful at first.
It was around this time that I began to piece together her story, and that I began to see her in a different, more reverential light.
My mother was born just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her mother, my grandmother, would soon leave her allegedly abusive husband and raise her four children alone. The family endured all kinds of financial hardships during World War II.
At the tender age of 13, she met my father at Chicago’s Rainbow Beach. She married too young and became a mother too soon. Life introduced new hardships. Because neither of them had any marketable skills, they relied on their large extended family and network of friends to cobble together jobs and housing.
At last, my father landed a union job and their financial situation stabilized. But my mother’s demeanor remained on high alert.
When she was 16, an age at which she should have been pondering prom and sleepovers, my mother became pregnant with me, her second child, and life became even more chaotic.
More Top Picks Best Foot Massagers For Feet Neuropathy
My mother didn’t finish school, even though I believed she often was the smartest person in the room. In later years, I encouraged her to get her GED. She’d certainly pass, given her penchant for reading — she tackled every book in my Thomas Hardy collection — and her ability to file taxes for just about everyone in our family.
She declined, saying she had nothing to prove.
I, on the other hand, often felt like I had everything to prove, especially to her.
“Life is not always scary,” I’d remind her. She’d roll her eyes.
As both of us matured, we began treading into each other’s viewpoints. We listened to each other. We learned from each other. And we grew closer to the middle of every spectrum.
In the end, as she lay dying on that Sunday morning 14 years ago, we seemed to share more common ground than points of divergence.
I had indeed become like her, and she like me.
We both loved reading and music and theater.
We loved games, particularly Trivial Pursuit, “Jeopardy” and the bunco groups each of us had formed with friends. Mine is now 35 years’ strong.
And we shared a deep respect for journalism. Home delivery of the newspaper was a staple in both of our houses. We’d discuss local happenings, national scandals and whether or not she agreed with the — ahem — columnists. She never held back, especially when there was a typo or a delay in delivery service, as if I was responsible.
Today, when I think about my mother, I mostly remember the good times that came after my tumultuous coming of age. We enjoyed many gatherings and outings together. One Mother’s Day I took her to the Art Institute and she teared up because she hadn’t been there since she was a kid. She’d long been afraid to go into the city. I was not.
For most of my adult life, I tried to give my mother opportunities and adventures because she’d missed so much growing up.
But they pale in comparison to the gift she ended up giving me: She helped raise my children with patience and calm and laughter and creativity. Sometimes I couldn’t believe she was the same woman who raised me.
Both of my daughters have grown into kind, capable adults who are perplexed by the notion that I ever didn’t get along with my mother. That makes me happy.
People evolve. So do relationships.
I think about how once you know a person’s story, you see them differently. And how once you understand a person’s dreams, you are inclined to get onboard.
A mother’s job is to work herself out of a job, to give her children a storehouse of skills that enable them to reflect and problem-solve.
And, if they’re lucky, she also will give them the gift of empathy. She will tell them her story.
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at [email protected].