Reflections on The Ten Challenges, Chapter 5:
To honor my mother and father didn’t used to be an easy task, but with time and growth I do believe I’ve become better at doing so. My mother is the only of the two who is still living and sometimes it is hard to keep from getting angry at her, saying things that I wouldn’t like to keep saying; however, the older I get, I find those times have less to do with my own selfishness.
When I “lash out” or get irritated with my mother it is usually because she is not taking very good care of herself. It is difficult to watch her be overweight (like me) and make poor choices for herself (like I have) and refrain from exercise (like I have) and, as a result, contract all kinds of diseases and disabilities (like I am afraid to.)
I see reflections of my mother in my own behavior as an overweight woman. For a long time I chose to blame my mother’s weakness toward wellness as reason enough for me to ignore my own. And there have been times when she and I have “partnered up” to take on the big jobs of losing weight and getting healthy, and one then both of us simply quit(s).
When my mom says she is starting a weight loss or exercise regimen of any kind, I have lost the ability to support her wholeheartedly. I have come to expect failure from her because I have invested anew so many times only to see expectations she has for her progress (and ones that I have for her) fall short. I’m tired of being disappointed in my mom to where I get tense, angry, frustrated, worried and tired by just the simple mention of what she had for dinner – or by the admission that she couldn’t walk up the stairs or needed to sit down to breathe without finishing her walk through a pharmacy or grocery store.
I forgive my mom on a daily basis, then this kind of situation comes up again and I find myself getting angry again… so there is a cycle or pattern of “I’m okay with mom, I’m frustrated with mom” going on kind of constantly.
The truth is, I love my mom so very much. She is so important to me that I am fearful of her leaving our world too soon! My mom is funny and smart and clever and has a lot of great ideas. She’s adventurous and silly…. but a lot of people wouldn’t know that because she is a prisoner of her own flesh now (like I have been!)
My mother’s advanced stages of asthma and rotator cuff injury and diabetes have made her less healthy than me, but I can see myself heading in her direction if my own choices go unchanged. I make more attempts to right my diet and to get exercise than my mom does; however, I wouldn’t consider our lives a competition.
I want to be healthy and I want my mom to be healthy, too. I am working with a physical trainer and will soon have a dietitian and a plan to work with so that I can fulfill my want – I am feeling able and ready to commit to this. I wish my mom could do the same.
I sometimes wonder if having my weight is one way I’ve been able to stay with her and not leave her behind. I will share a significant life story of mine to explain why:
When I was only nine years old, my family went to California. It was a big, big trip and very exciting to do together. My stepdad and his kids, my mom and I went into this adventure as a family, but as it turned out, this time together provided an opportunity for us to become a divided one. Again.
A lot of my childhood was spent being “Carole’s daughter” in a house full of “Jimmy’s kids.” They were known as privileged and I was known as poor, or that was the assumption. Jimmy was the Be All in our family – the decision-maker, the heart-breaker, the provider of all things, the captain of our ship…you name it. Mom was understood to be the “housekeeper / babysitter whom Jimmy took pity on and allowed to stay in his home with her daughter” despite the fact that they slept together and my mom was, in every respect besides paperwork, a wife.
There we were in California where the high cliff walls turn into sandy beaches. I was jazzed about going down the side of the cliff just to get down to where the water was. My stepbrother and I were the first ones most of the way down and everyone else followed.
My mom got stuck. She wasn’t very heavy back then. She was just scared and couldn’t get her footing right and didn’t want to tumble who knows how many feet, so she cried out.
Jimmy was up there with her, but I saw him coming down. His two daughters, teenagers at the time, were coming down also. Mom was crying, sitting in the dirt, wanting Jimmy to help her back to the top where the pavement would be sanctuary, but he razzed instead and told her to stop being a wimp and to follow along.
By then, my stepbrother was down on the beach. My stepsisters were climbing over me to continue down. My stepfather was in a bad mood and cursing about my mother’s uselessness and I was frozen in place. I watched my stepsisters scuttle past, easily digging their feet into crevices of rock. I heard my stepbrother shrieking in delight because he was the first to make it down. I asked out loud if anyone was going to help my mom because I knew she was too afraid to make it.
“She’s your mother!” they said. Every single one of them left it up to me, at nine years old, to climb all the way back to the top of this cliff and help my mother (then at least twice my size) get back to the parking lot.
It was hard, but I did it. The place where she was had too much sand to get any good footing and she couldn’t go up. I tried to convince her to follow me down because it would have been easier, but she was freaking out too much. I couldn’t get up the sandy ridge any more than she could, so we were kind of stuck there – until some guys who came to park and view the ocean overheard my mom crying and came to lend us a hand up with some rope.
From below, I could hear mimics of my mom’s crying – my stepsisters – and comments of how useless she was – my stepfather – and laughter – my stepbrother and I thought they were cruel and I loved my mother, but I was angry at her because I didn’t want to be her rescuer. I was angry at everybody else for the same reason.
To say that this scenario was normal is an understatement. Within our home, I was often forced to “deal with” my mother or was forced out of the family unit because I belonged to her. It bothered me that no one else would help her or care about her. I love my mother with great, great love and would not deny her or disassociate with her for anyone. But would I hold onto my weight and poor eating habits and keep from exercise to continue to be “with” her? Sometimes I wonder if I do.
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