5-10: When my mother died, someone said to me that the main grief I probably felt was knowing that no one would ever love me again the way my mother did. Unconditional love, she meant. An archetypal mother’s love showers her offspring with shimmering, protective, fierce passion, no matter what. A mother’s children are like miniature gods and goddesses and can do no wrong. That is what my friend believed I would miss most.
I was surprised by her comment, because I think our relationships with our mothers are much more complex than the old archetype of unconditional love. Every one of us has had to entangle biological love with psychological threads of guilt, rage, bitterness, hurt, and longing, to name but a few. Simply by growing up and individuating, we—as sons and daughters—have created judgments, found independence, broken off, abandoned in some way, and felt bad about things at one point or another. I think that is the real grief—it’s in the complexities. It’s wrestling with so much that remains unresolved. Yes, of course underlying it all there’s love, even with the most narcissistic or not-present of mothers, but that doesn’t make the psychological and spiritual inter-connections and separations any easier to untangle as we go on through our lives, whether our mothers are alive or not.
The original intent for celebrating mother’s day was centered around honoring the incredibly hard work women used to have to do to keep their houses running, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year. For many, many women, there was no respite, no rest, no pay, and no appreciation for the unceasing workload of taking care of a family and home. Things are very different now (especially this year) and our over-commercialization of what had been a much-needed celebration from a hundred years ago makes this day feel even more complicated.
I like days that honor people and events, especially our mothers, but the memories are sacred and personal, not happy and flowery. Our mothers helped us to become who we are-—that is their great gift to us. There’s richness in the powerful bond we all had with our mothers, but it rarely has to do with happiness. It’s better than that.