The Death of My Mother

There is one truth universally accepted. A mother has the most profound effect of anyone on your life; be it positive or negative. So let me share with you just how true that fact is for me.

I had just turned 17 when my mother died. She was diagnosed and dead in less than six months from ovarian cancer. That’s why the fight against ovarian cancer is so dear to me and I’m hugely involved in prevention and early detection of this absolutely deadly silent killer.

There is no one is my life, besides maybe my father and we’ll get to him later, that I have learned more from. My mother, Reina Isabel, was as close to a saint as the world will ever get. Her compassion, her emotion, her selflessness, her devotion to God, her courage, her sense of humanity, her unbiased look at the world, her ability for forgiveness, her openness, and her capacity for love are all traits that reside in me that came from her. In the very short 17 years that I had her that’s the impression she undoubtedly left on me. But she was not infallible.

My sister would have you believe that my mother was indeed a saint, an angel born of the holy trinity that was sent down to Earth. And in many ways, I agree as I stated above. But my mother, knowing her, would hate to have been seen that way. She was human, incarnate, with flaws and made many mistakes. And she learned just as much from those mistakes as she did from God. I’d love for all of us to always celebrate her humanity!  For all those lessons were not lost in me.

To humanize my mother is to tell you what I think some of her biggest mistakes were and to also tell you what I have learned from them.  I think the most noticeable mistake that my mother made was taking my sister into such a deep, personal confidence.  My sister, being much older than me, became more of a best friend to my mother than a daughter. When you think of your children,  your first instinct is to protect them at all costs.  My mother did that with me.  She never let on that there were problems in her marriage with my father.  To me I saw a happy, loving husband and wife that I still very much want for my own like (and have had).  My parents would dance in the kitchen, my father would bring my mother flowers, and kiss her while she was cooking dinner. I saw them kiss and hug and never saw them argue until much later in my life. But my mother being left almost alone in Venezuela without the support system of her family who lived in Panama, had very little friends to really confide in, thus she turned to my sister.  She would tell my sister of all the indiscretions my father would make against her, tell her about the fights, the arguments and all the negative ways that my father was hurting her.  This UNDENIABLY shaped my sister’s opinion of my father.

My sister grew to HATE my father, but she still loved him and wanted him to love her, it was a very tumultuous thought pattern that my sister grew up with.  There were times where my father would come home from a business trip with gifts for all of us, and when it came time to give his gift to my sister, she would snuff out his enthusiasm by her attitude. My father felt ashamed and felt like his baby daughter, his first born daughter who he undeniably loved, HATED him!  And he was right.  It is a hate that got worse throughout the years, a hate that she has NEVER EVER resolved.  To this day, my sister hates my father, yet still loves him as her father as the man that brought her into this world… to love and hate someone at the same time must be so exhausting to one’s psyche.

That my dear readers is the BIGGEST MISTAKE any parent could ever do.  You have to SHIELD all your children, regardless of their age, of issues that pertain to you and your spouse.  You will shape their opinion of their parent, and that folks has such a lasting effect on how your children view relationships — the men or women in their lives will pay for those feelings.  So what I’ve learned and counsel others to do, since I do not have children of my own, is allow your children to develop their own feelings and emotions about their parents without your influence.  If the father or mother is a good parent, allow them to be loving parents and allow your children to be loving to them, regardless of how you feel about them.  If the father or mother is not a good parent, your children will develop their own thoughts and feelings about them on their own.  But you should not get in the way of that.

Being a mother is hard enough, being a single mother is ALMOST intolerable!  I know so many single mothers that work incredibly hard to be good parents to their children and many that are BOTH a mother and also a FATHER figure to their children because there is no father involved.  And I know it is incredibly hard to NOT show your emotions when that father is mentioned, but understand that children pick up on everything.  If you are going to have a heated conversation with said father, do it PRIVATELY and away from the ear shot of your children.  Your kids will SEE for themselves what a shit head their father is. You don’t need to reinforce that.  But you NOT drilling that into their heads makes it more personal to them, and not reactive about what has been done to you. That’s where the scars come in.  It also allows that father to learn, grow up, be a man, and possibly have a future relationship with their children, which is HEALTHY for them!!!!  They need that door to remain open and its your job as a mother to put a stopper at that door and let it stay open.

Another mistake my mother made was tolerating the affairs my father had throughout their marriage.  Not just because it was awful to do, but because it never pushed my father to address the huge issues he had that were causing him to flock to these emotionless relationships.  It prolonged his ability to HEAL from the scars he had as a child, perpetuating a mental illness that was largely unaddressed for pretty much almost the entire duration of my father’s life.  Not until my mother passed away did he ever even attempt to address these issues. And my father only lived 6 years and change longer than my mother.

As women, we must set the standards by which the partners of our lives operate (be it a man or a woman that’s your spouse).  We have to set the rules.  And those rules can be fluid, they can be whatever is acceptable to you.  But when men cross the boundaries that we set, there needs to be heavy consequences to those actions.  If you sweep them under the rug, or look the other way like my mother did, they learn that the rules and boundaries mean NOTHING.

For me, I accept NOTHING LESS than complete honesty.  With honesty comes everything else; even if its hard. So my mother taught me that you MUST draw the line, no matter how hard that is.  And she did!  She packed all my father’s things and tossed him out on his ass over Darlene, my father’s last mistress. To have Paul Carlton (Darlene’s husband) come to our door with private investigator photos and humiliate her in front of my sister was the LAST STRAW for her.  She put him out on his ass!!!!  And believe me, my father did not know what to do with himself.  He had NEVER seen that side of her.  In some ways I think he was proud of my mother for it.  I saw a woman FINALLY stand for herself and value herself more than her own marriage.  To me that’s pure bravery.  I will always be proud of my mother for that.  She never LOVED anyone else in her whole life… she died completely in LOVE with my father.  And I KNOW my father loved her. Regardless of my sister my say about that.  He loved her, he loved her so much that he was there with me and my aunts (Tena and Chela) to care for her EVERY SINGLE DAY when she was fighting ovarian cancer and loosing that battle.  EVERY DAY.  From like 7 am to almost midnight… my dad bathed her, clothed her, wiped her butt, feed her, read to her, talked with her, laughed with her.  Now you tell me how many EX HUSBANDS would do that??? NONE.

That’s one of the many gifts that my mother gave me, an inside view at what REAL LOVE looks like. My father also showed me that love by the way he took care of my mother during her last moments on this Earth.  I want a LOVE like that. Luke loved me like that. Jake loves me like that.

And speaking of my mother’s gifts to her children,  I think that of all the gifts she gave me the biggest one is my FAITH in our Lord, Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.  My mother was raised in the Roman Catholic religion but she taught me that religion and faith are two very different things and that although we may love the traditions of our religion that’s been passed down to us, that it should not stand in the way of our FAITH.  She taught me that faith was far more important than religion.  Something I live my life by every single day.  She taught me that Jesus was our example in following a good, Christian life. And that the accounts of his life in the Gospels give us insight into what faith is really about.  Its about TOLERANCE, ACCEPTANCE, LOVE, FORGIVENESS, and DEVOTION.

These are the lessons that Jesus himself taught us… when he hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors and lepers and the blind, when he showed us that anyone can become a disciple of his if they are willing to accept God into their hearts, if they are willing to forgive those that trespass against us, if they show kindness and tolerance of the differences of others, and if they are devoted to following Him and the holy trinity in all they do.  And my mother taught that this is what FAITH is really about… not a set of rules or doctrines that a religion wants to shove down your throat.  My mother was one of the most tolerant, accepting, loving, forgiving, and devoted human being I have EVER known. In that sense I agree with my sister, she was as close to a saint as one could get.  But she also taught me we are ALL SINNERS, and sinners will sin… and she was no different.  She is far more beautiful as a flawed human being than she could ever be as an infallible saint.

I only had my mother, unfortunately, for a very short time here on Earth.  I have lived my entire life without her, pretty much.  But she left her mark on me, and I hope when she looks down on me she is proud to know her baby girl LOVES the people around her, sets an amazing example for others, is tolerant, accepting, and forgiving… and is truly devoted to the following of Jesus Christ in her heart.

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