I'm an only child to my mom who died Dec 15, 2008. She was Korean and my father was American. I was raised in SC. She sheltered me from my Korean side and I never learned to speak the language. Her English was broken, and we never was able to communicate like other mother and daughters. This lack of communication had a huge impact on our relationship. We were still close in many ways, but it was an odd relationship. I don't think she ever had a moment where she was really proud of me. If she did, I never felt it or was told so. She said that in college I changed and that I used to be a good girl and I turned bad. I really don't think I did that much. My father died from a 2 year long battle with pancreatic cancer just before I graduated high school, and I'm sure between losing my father and leaving for college that I did change. I went into a depression my first two years of college. My mother took care of me b/c she felt obligated to. It's a mom thing, but a Korean mom thing. You're supposed to be completely devoted to your children with no regard to yourself. I ended up after two years of depression and Prozac, turning to the Grateful Dead, weed and acid. Ironically, those were the things that got me out of my depression. I know that sounds awful, but unless you've been there, it shouldn't be judged. I actually stopped drinking heavily during that time, and became spiritual again. I gave up religion during my dad's illness, and never found religion again, but I became more spiritual than I had ever been before. I won't go into long, drawn out details about that.. but that's just the story of my life. I have no reason to hide any of this. Anyway, my mom didn't understand any of that lifestyle at all, and thought it was evil, when in reality, I was finally feeling a connection to something beyond me.
Back to my mom... so I had my daughter when I was 31 (don't worry.. I had grown up a good bit when she came along, and was long over my lsd era. lol). Having my DD caused a huge conflict with my mom. Nothing I did was right. I wasn't feeding her right. I wasn't wrapping her right. I wasn't bathing her right. It was everything. I even had to make her leave after coming home from the hospital. I spend the entire birth week of my child fighting my mom. They even made me stay in the hospital when I went back to get checked b/c my blood pressure was sky high.
Skip ahead 5 years to the spring of 2008. I'm pretty certain my mom had lost her mind. Looking back, I have a feeling this is the same time cancer set into her lung. She thought I was conspiring against her with my MIL (if you read the inlaws thread, you'll see that there is no way in hell) and trying to turn my DD against her. Never in my life would I do that as my DD worshipped my mom and loved her so much. I was never jealous of that affection, either. I was so happy she actually had a grandparent she liked. My DD has never loved her other grandmother.
Anyway, it got really ugly, and I told her that if she was going to believe that nonsense, that it'd be best if we didn't see each other for awhile. I got off the phone, in hysterics and told my husband that the only way I was going to be able to put an end to this tumultuous, misunderstood relationship was that one of us was going to have to die.
Little did I know...
Well, we didn't speak .. for almost 2 months. We went there for my DD's birthday in July. On Aug 19, I got a call from her pulmonologist saying that there were two masses in her lungs and that he was almost certain they were malignent. That was the day before my birthday. The pulmonologist was a foreigner, and my mom speaking and understanding broken English didn't understand what he was saying, and pretended that she did. He called me b/c he knew she had no idea what he had just told her.
I went and picked her up from her home in SC and drove her here to my house. I never did tell her. I waited for the results. I took her back home and we went to the doctor together to get the confirmation. Before we went.. I told her that I had gotten the call and that it could be bad news. It was.
On Nov 1, I went "home" for good until she died on Dec 15. I spent that entire time with her, taking care of her. I think she was probably the most proud of me right before she died because I took care of her alone.
So did we get along? No. But she took great care of me, and provided more than a child could ever want. She and my dad took me to Disney almost every year (I was born in '71 with WDW. She did what she thought was best, and considering the life she had before moving to the US (lived in war-torn Korea and under Japanese Annexation, watched people die, starved for days... etc...) I think we did ok.
I miss the heck out of her. I would give anything to have her here raising cane at me again. My whole family misses her. I learned so much about her those last few months.
None of us are perfect. I hope that she forgave me. I forgive her.
