My aunt died recently. She was my mother’s sister. My mother hasn’t spoken to me for 15 years, nor have my three siblings. What is this over? It’s because I married a person who is Jewish and my mother, carrying her own baggage, decided she didn’t want a Jew in the family. It’s much more of an elaborate drama than that, but for the sake of brevity, that’s where it’s been for all of these years.
My mother’s Caller ID popped up on my phone one Saturday afternoon, the day before my birthday, and I took the call. My husband afterwards expressed surprise by my quick decision to answer the phone, but to a fault, I’ve always been a person who lives in perpetual hope. My mother was crying and said her sister had died. I expressed my condolences and told her that my memories of my aunt was that she had been a very kind woman. Mom seemed to appreciate that and asked me if I wanted to attend the funeral. I told her yes, I would like to do that and she said she’d let me know the details when she found out. We hung up the phone.
It took two weeks for the funeral arrangements to work their way back to me. During the first days, the ‘should I or shouldn’t I attend the service” conversations swirled between my husband and me. He, being the level-head, reminded me that I had done nothing wrong and if it was important for me to pay my respects to my uncle and cousins and to say goodbye to my aunt, that this was something I should do and that he would be at my side throughout. I decided to attend but still hadn’t received the details nor did I know how I would deal with this. With my mother having been so upset during our last conversation, I decided at the start of the second week (by then I had received the funeral details from a cousin), that I would call her to see how she was doing. It felt like the right thing to do and I thought it might open the door to further conversation, so I called her after work on a Monday.
She still sounded upset and tired and we talked about the funeral and my aunt. Then the conversation transitioned to her asking me about my life and I talked about my job and my grandson. In the moment, it was nice to talk to this woman who was my mother about things that weren’t contentious. We fell into a relaxed cadence, laughing about some things. She had a lot of questions which I was happy to answer. For the first time in fifteen years, I felt hopeful that maybe there could be a sort of truce and I might have a mother again. She ended the conversation saying a teary, “I love you,” and I responded, “I love you too.” I felt good to have been in that exchange. I pushed away the doubts in my head, telling me that this was a ruse to get me to the funeral so that she would feel good having all of her children under the same roof for a familial ritual.
So, I went to the funeral and saw my mother. Now in her 80s, she had grown much smaller in stature and voice. Age seemed to have declawed her. We hugged and socialized with other relatives during the time before the Mass started. My female cousin, close to the same age as myself, spent so much of the time chatting to me almost non-stop and I welcomed the conversation, as my relationship with my siblings ranged from strained to non-existent since this estrangement and being able to focus on someone else was a relief. As we walked out of the church at the end of the service (me walking with my mother, holding her arm, up the aisle and her leaving my side as soon as we exited), I said to my husband, “I have a feeling my cousin was assigned the task of keeping me occupied. It seemed like her job was to talk to me non-stop,” and he laughed and I said, “I’m not kidding.” Before the service had begun, my cousin pointed out that she hadn’t contacted me in over 15 years because she didn’t have my number. I made sure to provide her with my business card, with my cell phone hand-written on the back of it.
We entered the repast luncheon and my family occupied an entire round table with no seats available for me and my husband. We sat at my cousins’ table and spent a nice lunch chatting and catching up. At the end of the meal, we all said our goodbyes. I gave my mother and sister hugs and my brother who was there (the other one was a no show) carefully avoided me while his wife made a point to say goodbye. My parting words to my mother were, “Don’t be a stranger,” hoping to make it clear that I wanted to continue to build on this new found communication if she was open to it.
A week went by and then two. I spent the first few days Monday morning quarterbacking with my husband and daughter. We all agreed the situation had been handled as best as could be expected. In my own hopeful head, I had hoped to hear from my mother, her calling me to thank me for attending her sister’s funeral and making the choice to keep that communication door open, volleying the ball into my court. That call never came. A few weeks and Easter have come and gone with no contact. A week after Easter, I heard that my other aunt, my mother’s other sister, had died. No calls from family to let me know this time.
My husband thinks I’m overthinking this, but I feel the old saying “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” applies here. I believe the ruse that was perpetrated at the first funeral supports me remaining disconnected for the second funeral. The feeling that the chatty cousin was set up just to keep me occupied so that no one else had to talk to me is supported by the fact that she never reached out to me again in the days and weeks afterwards. So now I sit back into my unassuaged grief in a feeling that is so familiar, but this time with the twist of having it confirmed to me that these biological relations to me are only just that.
Geneiveve Kaufman Writes 