Mother Anger - Essay - Julia Smillie

(Anthologized in Spike Gillespie’s Pissed Off: Women and Anger. Seal Press, 2006)

My mother and I had an understanding, or so I thought. Beginning when I was in my teens, she would fail to understand me and I would strike the match under a seething anger and resentment towards her. I would spend my twenties fanning those flames, furious that she was not the mother I wanted her to be. She would admit no wrongdoing and I would acknowledge no right doing. I was unsure how we would reach the inevitable point where she realized the error of her ways and came to me, repentant, begging to be forgiven.

At that point, I imagined, I would forgive her and all would be well. Sort of. We would move forward, our relationship changed, both of us operating with the knowledge of how wrong she had been. Her love for me would be filled with regret and eagerness to make up for all her transgressions and mine would be gracious, slightly guarded and forgiving – but not forgetting. This was how I planned to manage my resentment towards her over the course of our lifetimes.

When I was 32, however, my mother threw a wrench into my plans. On a chilly Sunday morning in October, she suffered a massive heart attack and passed away two weeks after her 60^th birthday. There had been no warning signs, no inkling at all that our family was about to change shape in the most drastic way possible. My mother left us reeling from a shock so great that the days following her death remain largely a blur to me. My immediate reactions included the textbook mixture of disbelief, denial, guilt and a pain so strong and searing, it felt physical.

What amazed me most, however, was what I felt within a few short months of her demise: my anger at my mother returned to me, fresher and hotter than ever. I was furious.

As a teenager, I had always found my mother to be emotionally selfish, holding back from me the parts that I needed. Her death – induced, at least in part, by the smoking we all prayed she’d give up – seemed like her last selfish act. She had abandoned us, after all – my father to unspeakable loneliness after 38 years of marriage, her children and grandchildren to a place of deep sadness and confusion. My anger was large and volatile, deeply penetrating and I felt consumed by it. Thus, I found myself acknowledging the six-month anniversary of my mother’s death from a green armchair in a grief counselor’s office.

I was, of course, no stranger to anger or, more specifically, the simmering resentment it leaves in its wake. Over the years, I had culled massive amounts of self-righteous bitterness. I resented my family for the genetic legacy that was depression, obesity, near-sightedness, chronic sarcasm, alcoholism and the overwhelming urge to correct other people’s grammar. I resented my sister for being born first, my brother for being born last and another brother for being so goddamn smart. I resented the exes who dared move on with their lives and all the former teachers, employers, friends and coworkers who had failed to acknowledge my greatness. I resented people for taking my parking spot, for having 12 items when the sign clearly stated no more than ten, for daring to procreate and then raising children with bad manners.

I didn’t just have these resentments, either, clustered at the bottom of my purse like loose change. I lived in them. At some point over the years, it had become a full time job – and not a particularly pleasant one. I wanted out. In my therapist (and in the 12-step program with which I was already involved), I found the guidance I needed to dig out some of my anger and scrutinize it.

I had to fully acknowledge that there is a difference between righteous and self-righteous anger – and I had to embrace the painful truth that most of mine fit in the latter category. My anger wasn’t just self-righteous, however. It was also self-defeating. It was eating me up. Certainly, a number of my relationships had suffered as a result of my anger and resentment, but at the end of the day, I was the one with the bile building up inside. It festered inside me. No one else.

I came to understand that what really angered me about my mother was that she wasn’t the mother I needed or wanted her to be. In other words, her main transgression against me was that she was herself. I was the one who couldn’t accept it, who expected her to be someone different and then punished her with my anger for being who she was. In fact, as I fanned out many of my resentments for inspection, every single one of them existed because of my failure to accept. I was railing against people, circumstances, events, odds and outcomes that simply were. I discovered at 32 that I was still throwing tantrums like a child who has her ball taken away. I was angry at the person, the situation and, hell, even the ball.

The most motivating factor in doing something about these resentments was my increasing awareness that I simply didn’t want to carry around all that weight anymore. I was tired of being angry, exhausted by grief, and unwilling to continue being a person of unreasonable expectations. After all, as people around me pointed out, there wasn’t much I could do about these things. Being angry at the person, the situation, the ball – none of it changed the outcome. In fact, it rarely changed the person and certainly never the ball. My anger was not the righteous sort inspiring nations to change for the good. No, it was selfish and indulgent, short-sighted and miserly – the very same things I had once thought of my mother.

As it happens, letting go of many of my resentments was not nearly as difficult as reaching a place of acceptance. In fact, once I arrived in such a place, I was surprised to find certain resentments just petered out, robbed of fuel. Others require yet more work, both in letting go and in making living amends to those I have harmed.

My mother is gone and I’m unable to tell her my regrets. I know now that she and I were both very different and very similar and had I reached this understanding while she lived, we still likely wouldn’t have been close – but I doubt there would have been the animosity I breathed into our exchanges. That said, I can’t afford to replace my anger with guilt, especially over circumstances that I can’t change. What I can do, however, is change the relationships I do have now – try to be a slightly better daughter to my father, a better sister, granddaughter, friend and wife.

None of this has made me perfect – or even consistent – in the way in which I deal with anger and resentment in my life. An arrogant driver, rude waiter or unreliable friend can still inspire in me anger I seethe from hours later. But I’m slowly learning that as I let go of my resentments, it leaves a lot more space. In that space, I’m able to build a fuller, more peaceful life. Most of the time, anyway.