a daughter's love, a mother's legacy
by farrell sylvest

I didn’t feel close to my Mother in the growing up years and in all honesty, as an adult, there were many things I didn’t like about her. I usually focused on the negatives, always seeing her as very different from me and wishing she would change. I loved her of course. But I didn’t understand the meaning or depth of that love, the power of our connection, until she was old and dying. There is a lingering sadness that, once I left home, we had many turbulent years and that it took her long illness and our shared vulnerability to dismantle our guards of protection.

I was a shy, fearful child having been molded to silence by an older sister who entertained herself by bullying me. I learned early on how to avoid getting in trouble. From Mother, it took no more than a glance to keep me in line. My needs and fears remained silent, as the risk of expression was too great.

Outwardly, there were few conflicts with my Mother, save one. At age 5, she started me on piano lessons. My sister’s protests resulted in her being allowed to quit the lessons very soon. I, on the other hand, was required to sit at that piano bench every day of my life and attend lessons every week until I graduated from college with a Degree in Music. I hated piano lessons, my teacher and my Mother for making me continue in spite of my constant begging to quit. The piano bench, however, also became my safety net, ensuring I stayed the perfect child and avoided the negative attention my sister constantly received. I didn’t know until later years the gratitude I would feel for this one area of attention and the consequent pleasure my music brought, both to others and to me.

The clarity of distance reveals the pettiness of our early mother-daughter issues—her refusal to make that little red skirt just a wee bit shorter, her determination to have me one of the popular girls, always wearing the current fashions, even though she couldn’t afford them. Under her insistence on what “they” would think of me, I felt I lived a lifetime of facades. As long as I practiced piano, went to church, always looked impeccable, she was pretty much at peace.

Our dynamic changed dramatically when I went to college and was exposed to thinking outside the strict religious restraints, which until then had defined and shadowed my every step. A delayed rebellion ensued and our troubles really did begin. Feeling safe from repercussions, supported in my independence by people outside my family, our childhood squabbles were replaced by intense on-going conflicts. As I continued to grow into an adult, my independent thoughts and actions were intolerable to her. Mother’s constant reminder to me was that my priorities were backwards: the woman is to be last on the list, after God, husband, children, neighbor and family pet. Her greatest complaint was when I expressed my feelings: the honesty just stirred things up. The truth was, it terrified her that she no longer had control.

In the years after I left home, I began to see other parts of my Mother that I’d previously been blinded to by my own narrow mindedness. She was fiercely independent, stubborn and outspoken. I had previously seen her as a Mother and wife, not a person in her own right. After my dad died suddenly, still a relatively young man, she had three daughters to be responsible for. I was awed at the manner in which she stepped to the challenge. A different image of her began to emerge, a woman who was capable, strong, determined, resourceful. She still fit the image of a “Southern belle” never leaving the house without her make-up and matched outfit, only now I was able to see beyond what I’d seen before as mere shallowness and superficial values.

As the years passed she buried her parents, two husbands and one daughter; I have had two divorces and two children. We both found ourselves mellowing, much less invested in the issues we had once held so dear. Toward the end of her life, her years in a nursing home gave us much time to talk without provocation about times past. We even laughed at earlier memories that used to cause us so much grief. We found a peaceful common ground in gratitude that we had so many moments to share, freed from the heavy expectations that had bound us up for most of our shared history. We found our mutual likenesses and came to a place of admiration and respect.
In time, I let fall away the resentments and feelings of disappointments that she hadn’t been all I’d hoped for in a Mother. Almost simultaneously, I saw in amazement that all the qualities that were good and valued in me, I’d been given by my Mother. I began to see how very much like her I was and rather than disdain that connection, I was proud to be her daughter. Having gone back to playing piano and organ in recent years, after an absence of more than 30 years, my gratitude for her insistence chokes me with great emotion. From those lessons comes the pleasure I receive and give to others, now, as a piano teacher, organist and music director.

As she was dying in a nursing home, a horrendous experience and a story of its own, I shed many a tear at the lack of compassion and sensitivity to this now frail, childlike person who yet was still my Mother. The passions in me, which she hated so for me to express, screamed in rage at her ill treatment. As our roles shifted and I became the parent, I fought fiercely for her basic human rights of dignity and respect.

After Mother died I saw what she had given me during her three years in a nursing home. She’d told me her story from the perspective of being a dependent, vulnerable, helpless person. She spoke of the lack of compassion, sensitivity, the loss of dignity and respect. A story which so haunted me that a journey began to uncover the reasons why the very system created to care for our beloved elders, instead became a system to merely warehouse them, void of compassion and heart.

When she died I wept for the years we spent on unimportant issues, the petty stuff that seemed so alarmingly large. I wept that we didn’t spend more time together once I moved away. I wept that she didn’t know how much I loved her; that I loved her because of who she was, not just because she was my Mother. I wept that she didn’t hear me play the piano for so many years, longing for those happy days when we jammed together, her on the sax and me on piano. I wept that it takes a loss to put it all in perspective. Although she died almost seven years ago, I still grieve. What does live is her legacy of the value of service to others and her uncensored accounting of her life as she became dependent on others for her care. Both of those seeded in me what is now a major force in my life’s work. Because of her story, it is my intention that others will be saved from her silent suffering. My anger and helplessness have finally come to rest in my creation of Compassionate Care training for caregivers I call Heart Connection.

During my Mother’s long illness and a stream of trips to visit her and attend to her care, my own daughter was my frequent companion and consistent confidant. I was so absorbed in issues related to Mother’s care that I was blind to my daughter’s personal battles. She was there for me as a listener, supporter, and a comforting healing balm. I regret how I burdened her, assuming her availability to listen to my urgent cries of helplessness and frustration. I suppose it would have been as difficult for her to not embrace my struggle as it would have been for me to turn my back on Mother’s needs.

If there is any redemption in our shared journey, it is that when the time comes, we will be able to make our own path around the territory of aging.

As a Mother, I long to bring a perspective to the relationship with my daughter that I didn’t have with my Mother until it was almost too late. While we are close and pride ourselves on having better communication than most, there are gaps and facades. It’s difficult for her to understand my longing for a more active heart connection than we have had now that she has moved far away. It’s impossible to explain to her the desire to behave from the perspective of potential loss. So much in a lifetime is held at bay from the illusion that there will always be more time. As much as I’d like to give my soul-felt reality to my daughter, I know that she has to live her journey into her own awareness and growth. I see her multiple gifts, her passion and her strengths and wish I could give her wings that have taken me a lifetime to find.

 

Farrell Sylvest lives in Asheville, NC. She is a partime music director/organist, piano teacher, certified nursing assistant and has a new endeavor, Heart Connection, providing compassionate care training to nursing assistants. [ Farrelleez@cs.com ]