Healing Mother & Me

Lisa* called me for the umpteenth time today crying about her mother Sabine*. Add today to all the times over the years that she has called me in the same predicament and I would say she has a problem.

Lisa had a very rough childhood. From what she told me she had been adopted from an orphanage in China. She told me that she still remembers it. She was not the youngest to be adopted so she was old enough to remember images which haunt her in the night.

She was adopted, by her account, "by a stern and cold woman who used me as a servant throughout my childhood." It was heart-breaking to think this could be true! From what she has told me, she felt different from the other children at the schools that she attended and was pretty much a loner.

It was a dream of hers to go to nursing school with one of her goals being the profession that she felt suited for and the other to gain independence from her mother's control. I have never heard a nurse so compassionate about her patients as Lisa is. She truly cares about them and has not developed the calloused bedside manner that I often see.

When she met Chris* is was love at first sight. He was a warm, extroverted and nurturing man. In him, Lisa saw everything she was not and she felt the connection that she had always craved. Chris was the real deal too, not some phony. Chris was a committed Christian man who had given himself to the Lord at an early age and served at his church whenever he could.

Sabine did not approve of Chris from the beginning and gave Lisa a hard time when they decided to get engaged. She let up a little after the wedding and things seemed to be going okay for a while after their honeymoon. Lisa and Chris found a lovely apartment close to her job and close to the community in which she had grown up in and where her parents still lived in Westchester County, New York.

Lisa was madly in love with Chris. Every day was a joy for her and she couldn't wait to get home and spend time with him. Every day seemed brighter for her. And, as far as I am concerned, no one deserved it more than Lisa. Lisa was a giver, and it was nice to see her receiving in equal measure the love that she gave. She finally had someone on her side and this made her feel a little less weak in the knees with everything having to do with her mother.

In a short time, Lisa became pregnant and they had a baby girl whom they named Elizabeth.* Pretty quickly after that they had their second daughter Margot.*  It was then that the problems arrived. Lisa's father became ill, her eldest daughter Elizabeth showed some signs of a learning disability and her husband's sales commissions started to dry up.

It was decided by her mother that Lisa needed to move home. Chris had to agree and was grateful that Sabine made the offer. Little did he really understand that it wasn't an offer for his approval but an order! I don't know why it creeped me out so much that they had to take up residence in her parents basement. The large, never remodeled, mid-century modern paneled basement was dark and dank to me. It was nothing like the well-lighted and airy upstairs quarters where her parents lived.

I met Lisa at a local church affiliated book club. She was so sweet and sensitive as she executed many a deep dive into our seasonal literary picks. Her insights were interesting and well-thought out. I admired her comments and I wanted to talk more about them so I invited her to coffee. From there we pretty quickly struck up a friendship and arranged weekly get-togethers. Over the years, we enjoyed the time that we had together when our kids were at school and we could relax with some coffee, and talk over life.

As I got closer to Lisa, I realized how strange her relationship with her mother appeared to be. She could be one way with me and then in one second turn to a quivering mess when her mother was there in person, on the phone, or texting. She seemed to have a default setting of child / servant. I didn't see any way that I could easily bring this up to her. She seemed very guarded on this topic until one day when I happened to be visiting and she got some bad news from the doctor about Elizabeth.

She was having allergy and infection issues which seem to point to living conditions in her basement apartment. Suddenly, this mother lion rose up to defend her little cub. I had never seen her so assertive. She realized her living situation needed to change for her daughter's sake. She told me that she doesn't know how she could financially manage it at this point but that she and her family had to move out!

When Chris heard the doctors report he agreed that they had to move too. After dinner and when the children were tucked into bed, Chris stated the news to Sabine. Sabine went berserk. How could you do this to Papa, he is sick and I need help. Chris told Sabine that they were not abandoning Papa and they would be close-by to pitch in. He also told her that they needed to take care of Elizabeths' health needs as well.

This was what Lisa was calling me crying about. She told me that her mother made her feel awful. Her mother asked them to leave her upstairs apartment and has given them the cold shoulder all week. She was at the end of her rope. She told me she never wanted to see her mother again. Furthermore, she didn't feel that her mother deserved any better. Lisa, had bottled a lot up over the years and now she had reached her breaking point.

I have to admit that this is one of the rare times that I had nothing to say. What could I say? Lisa was right about her mother. Indeed, from what I had seen, Sabine didn't deserved this lovely family. In addition, it was the first time that I had ever heard Lisa vent her anger against her mother. I thought that she just needed me to listen and give her a safe format to do that in. The hero of the story ended up to be Chris. Ever patient, and slow to anger in general, he put the breaks on Lisa's plans to cut her mother out of their lives.

He told Lisa he understood why she was so angry. He reminded her that the Bible says to "anger and sin not." He told her that it's okay to vent her anger but don't let her anger stir her to sin. He reminded her that God has told us to "honor our father and mother," and not just when it was convenient. If she chose to reject her mother she would be stepping into sin. He also told her that he was grateful that while not being the best of mothers that her situation was far better than her orphanage had been. He was also personally grateful for all Sabine had done to help them save money while he was experiencing the loss of commissions.

The story ended with Sabine apologizing and asking the family to move upstairs. Most surprising of all, Sabine announced she would try to do better. They chose to accept that offer. From that day on, Sabine and Lisa have taken a small but significant step forward in their relationship. That step I call, Healing Mother and Me. 

* the names have been changed to protect identity.