About 20 years ago, my mother lost her job, went on unemployment, and when her benefits ran out, at the age of 50+, she found herself without any income in a city where job opportunities for people her age were very limited. Her solution was to work as a foster parent. She took in a 4-year-old girl with a disability and an intellectual disability. Twenty years later, after years of not having her by my side and seeing her only twice a year, the time came for her to retire. The system did nothing to help her give up the work she had chosen. I won’t go into details. Humanly speaking, you can’t just walk away that easily, but physically and given her age, it had become increasingly difficult to care for a young girl with an intellectual disability—who was physically stronger than her own mother, had mood swings, and was “little but feisty.” In all these years, she never took a vacation because leaving the child with someone meant also taking in that person’s child or children during their vacation, and for my mother, having just one person with a disability in the house was enough. I’ll stop here with the details.
Last December, after countless discussions with Child Protective Services and their failure to offer any solutions, she had found a private foster home where she could place her daughter, she told me happily. I got excited, but in the end she decided to give up on it because she wasn’t satisfied with the conditions there. I was already picturing myself spending much more time with her—her coming to our house, playing with her grandson, all of us going for walks together, making up for everything we’d missed out on for 20 years. I was shocked when she decided not to give her up after all… and that shock is what prompted this post.
In April of this year, things took an unexpected turn—within two weeks, a spot was found in the city-run nursing home, with excellent conditions; my mother was happy, and she managed to regain her freedom… and I became a mother again. After mid-April, she came to visit us for two weeks, during which time we did everything we’d been dreaming of for years—we went to the theater, ate out, went for walks, visited relatives, spent time in the garden, and caught up—and I finally saw my mom calm, free, relaxed, without the ever-present “burden” that was always weighing her down and constantly demanding attention. Yeah, I know it sounds harsh and mean coming from me, but all this time I didn’t have a mom, and my child didn’t have a grandma—we’d talk on the phone, see each other for about 15 days total a year, and that was about it. I don’t know what it’s like to have help as a new mom and all that.
To make a long story short, a week after my mom came to visit us, I developed an annoying dry cough that got me thinking. A dry cough means either a strong shock during the healing phase—you feel it in your larynx, and cough drops help in this case (though not in mine)—or a conflict involving territorial loss, also during the healing phase—you feel it in your lungs and bronchi, and cough drops or syrups don’t help. And one night, as I lay there awake, trying to sleep amid bouts of coughing, a light bulb went off in my head—my mother; I had lost my mother and had only recently regained her. She was my lost “territory.”
After becoming aware of the conflict, the cough lingered for about two more weeks, but it grew weaker and weaker. Honestly, I was hoping it wouldn’t last too long, even though the conflict had been a long-standing one. Fortunately, becoming aware of it helped.
Wishing everyone good health,
Geo
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