Processing the death of an absent parent

“Let’s call mom,” Principal McArthur said to me. “What’s mom’s phone number?” I was sitting in a chair in the band room after passing out while cheerleading.

“Dad,” I clarified. “I don’t have a mom.”

Of course, this isn’t entirely true. Everyone comes from somewhere, and I also had a stepmom, though neither of us cared much for the other.

I have only one real memory of my birth mom, Jennifer. I think we were in a basement at some kind of gathering and she told me I could call her mom. At most I was 6 years old. That was the last time I saw her.

Late Monday night, she died. The woman who created me, carried me and birthed me is no longer on Earth, and I don’t know how to feel.

I spent so much time hating her — I mean truly hating her. But I suppose you need some back story for that. When I was just a few months old, my dad took me and left. They went to court for custody of me, but she never showed up.

Jennifer struggled with alcoholism much of her life. It’s because of this disease that I didn’t touch alcohol for the first time until several months after I turned 21. I was so scared that I would have this genetic disease. I think I associated alcohol with abandonment. I was determined not to end up like my birth mom.

I think the biggest reason why I hated Jennifer was because I grew up without a mom, something that made me different. Everyone else was “Mary, daughter of mom and dad,” and I was “Cheyenne, daughter of Chris.” Luckily, I have the greatest dad, but as a kid, it’s hard when you feel different. I felt different.

As a young adult, I was simply resentful. I wasn’t mad, but I had no interest in being part of her life. I have two siblings on her side that I have had very little contact with, though they have had her in their lives. I kept them at arm’s length for fear they would try to convince me to reconnect with her.

In the last few years, I’ve been set back by my struggles with infertility. Where I may have made progress toward true forgiveness sooner, I wasn’t able to because I was now resentful of her ability to have children and then simply relinquish me.

After my second miscarriage, my husband Patrick bought a bunch of cheap glass cups. He took me to a small concrete room in our basement, gave me safety glasses and told me to break all the cups. Side note — those cups were sturdy! The first one I threw literally bounced off the concrete.

When you’re finally letting out emotion that’s been bottled up, you don’t always know what will come out. I think I surprised us both when I yelled, “I’ll never get to be a mom, and my own mom didn’t even want me!”

When I finally got pregnant and had my daughter Eliza, I felt even more disconnected from Jennifer. How could someone hold a newborn baby in their arms and not be willing to give every single piece of themselves for their child? But I have never struggled with alcoholism, so it’s not my place to understand.

I don’t know what her thought process, intentions or life situation was like when she decided not to fight for me. Maybe her giving me up was the hardest choice of her life, and she did it for me. No matter what it was, I know my life was better because she made that decision. I didn’t have the greatest childhood, but I grew up with my dad who loves me the way I love Eliza, and I was never exposed to drinking or drugs.

I always assumed I’d have more time. For the first time in my life, if Jennifer had reached out to me and wanted to meet, I probably would have gone. Most of my life, that would not have been the case.

By the time I found out Jennifer was dying (they were kind enough to let me know after all these years), she was in hospice five hours from me and didn’t recognize anyone but her mom. It was just a few days later that she died.

I feel guilty that she died thinking her daughter didn’t want anything to do with her, maybe even hated her. I wish I could have told her that I forgive her before she passed.

I plan on attending the service, so I will be gone for a few days in the coming weeks. I don’t know what to expect. I hope it gives me the chance for closure.

I recently saw a photo of her posted by my half-sister on Facebook. I can see the resemblance. Somehow that hurts worse.

There’s also the guilt that I ostracized myself from the rest of the family. I have grandparents, siblings, nephews, in-laws who I haven’t seen or talked to. Have I been mad at Jennifer for abandoning me to turn around and do the same thing to them?

I don’t write this actually looking for answers or sympathy from my readers. I think as a writer, this is how I best collect my thoughts. I do find, however, that when one is willing to share their personal experiences, they often find there are others out there who have gone through something very similar.