She really was good enough....

Apologies for the lateness of this post -- I had a nasty bout of an intestinal virus. 'Nuff said about that.

This was a story asking the question "Are you my mother?" Allison is in a search for a mother, whether it is her biological mother or a therapist or significant other. This would have made for a wonderful foray into her journey, but for all the psychological background on noted practitioners ad nauseum. The amount of data she gave clouded my interest in HER story -- who in her life is her mother?

Her relationship with her mother was complicated, at best. I could relate to Alison's historical references and social cues of her mother; we are not that far apart in age and having had an East Coast mother of her mother's generation, I could relate to the secrecy, privacy, and "checking out" after dinnertime. I saw similarities in their relationship to the one I had with my mother; however, I did not overthink nor overanalyze the "why's" as Alison does. And that overanalysis can crowd out the obvious.

Her mother, for all her faults, foibles, and challenges with her marriage and raising three children, did the best she could. With what she had, she really tried. She was good enough.

Considering the times, her mother may have felt trapped. She becomes pregnant early in her marriage, and there were intonations that it was unplanned, with all the emotional angst that went along with her husband's clear indication that he was not happy about it. Plans of travel through Europe went flying out the window, and that window closed on Allison's mother.

She does the best she can; however, knowing she routinely "checked out" every evening tells me how stressful and, perhaps, overwhelmed she was.

Perhaps that was why, when Alison's father is taking her and her brothers out for the weekend and
Allison returns to retrieve a toy, she hears her mother crying behind a closed door.

Was her mother available to her? Not 100 percent, but it would be interesting to know how her sons viewed their growing up.

A couple of scenes struck me:
When Alison asks her mother to kiss her goodnight (ch 4), her mother tells her, a seven year old child that she is too old for that, and mother leaves the bedroom. Mother is building distance between herself and her daughter.

When adult Alison is helping her mother pack up the home to sell, she asks (at her therapist's suggestion) what she learned from her mother. The answer was, "boys are better than girls." How painful to grow up believing that, and unknowingly passing that bit of pedagogy along to one's offspring. Was that statement a framework for the distance her mother had constructed between them? It would be interesting to know.

At the end, I wanted to know more, especially how their relationship was evolving. I do believe that Allison wants to square things and enjoy a relationship with her mother. Accepting someone as who they are and, especially with an older parent, unlikely to change is liberating and I would hope Alison would experience that liberation and move on to a different, yet thoroughly enjoyable relationship with her mother.

At the book's end, I know they love each other without having to go through the socially-mandated verbage of it: I am alternately envious and contemptuous of people who finish their phone converations with a rote "I love you!" My mother and I know this; there's no need to jabber about it.
A few frames later, She could see my invisible wounds because they were hers, too.

I wish I had been able to ask my mother, "What did you learn from your mother?" before she died. What a useful question to help you know who you are.