Unconditional Love in Unconventional Way

“My life found I gotta live for the right now. Time waits for no man, can't turn back the hands once it's too late, gotta learn to live with regrets. You used to hold me, told me that I was the best. Anything in this world I want I could possess. All that made me want is all that I could get. In order to survive gotta learn to live with regrets...” Jay Z.

For so long I have had feelings of guilt over my mother’s death. I was so angry when she passed away. I was mad because she was an alcoholic and I felt as if she no longer cared about her family. Alcoholism consumed my mother until the day that she died. Everyone tells me to remember the good things about her and I try, but those times were so long ago. I was a child, maybe six or seven years old the last time I remember my mother being truly happy. The above picture is how I like to remember my mother. She was happy, full of life and always smiling, but even then I remember there being so much turmoil. I remember all of the arguing and fighting between her and my father and they could find just about anything to argue about: food, Kool-Aid, bills, me, my brother our dog, the house, the chores, work, television, etc... I mean just about anything and most of their “fights” ended with the police knocking at our door. I remember thinking to myself when I have the chance to get out, I ain’t ever coming back and I didn’t.

I left for the University of Cincinnati (UC) in 1997 and I have lived in Cincinnati ever since, only returning for breaks, holidays and an occasional weekend visit. Cleveland holds so many wonderful memories of my childhood but also a lot of heartbreak: my parent's divorce, my father's denial, my mother's alcoholism, and bad relationships with previous boyfriends, so much pain. By the time I got to UC I was over the feeling of being annoyed, angry, and even embarrassed by my parents and their behaviors. I was numb to it all. Ever since I can remember I made jokes about their behavior to cover up my pain. I never wanted people to have the first punch or the last laugh. I struck first to let people know that I knew my family was dysfunctional, I got the last laugh and even though I cried inside you would never know it. In fact many people considered me strong...I was so fragile back then, but these were my parents and I didn’t get to choose them but I do have choices. I knew that then, but I know better now.

I made the choice to stop visiting my mother mid-sophomore year. When friends would call and say, Nicki you gotta come home and take care of your mother, she is not doing well; I made the choice to say no, she’s just drinking, pour out the alcohol, give her some food and she will be okay. When she would call, I made the choice to have my roommates tell her I was in class and when she was hospitalized a week prior to her death I made the choice in believing her when she said that she would be okay and I stayed in Cincinnati, but like me she covered up her pain, masked the fact that she knew she was dying and told me she was fine. However, I made the choice to believe her as I had so many times before. Maybe she did not want me to see her the way she was, maybe she knew I was upset. I don't know what she thought but I had made those choices, like she made the choice to drink and alienate herself from her family and friends, at least this is what I told myself to make myself feel better about the choices I made. When my mother passed away I heard two things day after day, her voice from our last phone call telling me she would be fine and to finish my finals and It Will Rain by Kelly Price. I walked around the day she passed in disbelief, because we had just spoke 5 days prior and she told me she was fine. However, I made the choice to stay away. Not seeing my mother for almost 6 months before she passed.

Why, was the question I have been asking myself since her death almost 10 years ago…why did I refuse to talk to her...why did I not go home to see her…why was I so selfish…why did I let this happen? Why did I let this happen…that is a big question for me, as if I had a way to stop it from happening, but I truly believed that had I been there I could’ve protected her as I did when I was little. My mother smoked cigarettes, Newport was her brand, and I was scared that she was going to die like a friend’s mother so I would break her cigarettes in half and put them back in the box. She would grab one and the butt would be the only thing that would come out. When she started drinking, or at least when I realized it, I would pour all of the liquor out of the bottle and replace it with water. I got in so much trouble doing those things but in my mind I was protecting her. The point is I made choices that I cannot change and as I sit her trying to overcome the guilt that I have behind my mother’s death I realize that no matter what problems my mother had, her love was unconditional but it took her death for me to realize that.

My mother the great! She attended school plays, games, cheerleading competitions, conferences, and my first week of college. She made a big deal of holidays, birthdays, prom and whatever else I wanted to do. Send care packages to school filled with all the things I loved. She’d give her last to make my dreams come true. As a mother I now understand the importance of being in the now for your child. She was always in the now with me, knowing what was going on and asking how I was feeling about every aspect of my life. Even as she got deeper and deeper into her alcoholism she was there for me, but I was too young, too selfish, and too ungrateful to realize that her love was unconditional. I could call her any time of the day and she would be there to talk to me, walk me through a messy breakup, an argument with a girlfriend, a headache, or just uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. I turned 31 last year and I am still getting over the death of my mother. I cannot change the choices I made and knowing that I have to live with them has proven to be difficult. As I have grown older, I’ve found the only things I regret are the things I didn’t do or didn’t say.

So I will say them now. Mommy I am sorry. Mommy I love you. Mommy you were right about so many things.

"We should regret our mistakes and learn from them,

but never carry them forward into the future with us"