My mother opted for assisted suicide in November of this past year. I wish I could say more, but I really can’t. She’d had enough. There wasn’t much going on with her health other than a recent fall, she just didn’t want to go through another winter, she claimed. Neither her children could keep her here nor her pet dog.
I don’t really know who my mother was. She was a complete mystery. She had demons that only God knew about; personal insight was not her forte.
She spoke French, Spanish, English, Latin, knew some Greek, and at one time was learning Mandarin. My father once told me that she spoke German fluently as well but hid that fact because of the war. Her father was from Buch, Germany. She used a lot of German words in my upbringing with a ‘gesundheit’ here and a ‘halt’ there. She was an exquisite painter, an excellent chef, and could look at fashion magazines and whip up clothing from sight alone. She never went to a beauty salon that I know of and instead cut her own hair. She claimed to be a member of Mensa. Having lived through The Depression she took frugal to new heights. She bought six acres of land on Prince Edward Island that had been farmed with peas. She did her best to save every pea and bought a freezer to preserve them. I ate peas until now, at sixty-one, I still never want to see another pea as long as I live.
When she died I saw that she kept a picture of me at her bedside which would suggest that she thought of me but I had not seen her in 40 years and she couldn’t bring herself to communicate with me or acknowledge me as her daughter. I let her go decades ago and instead received motherly love elsewhere.
I hope, wherever she may be, she’s finally at peace.
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