Ex-Mother
I.IV.II
EX-MOTHER
Much like my time in neurology, this rotation proved to be a relatively easy-going one. I mean, yeah, sure, we did have our busy days, but I don’t ever recall staying later than my normal working hours – except for those pesky on-call shifts that would have us taking care of all orthopaedic patients and their medical issues.
During our downtime, Emily and I were free to do whatever we wanted. I continued my studies for the MRCS Part A exam while she worked on an audit. We also had enough time to take care of our patients’ other needs – with Dr Sugar’s biopsychosocial approach still a strong part of my practice. Connecting with patients, on occasion, proved to be troublesome. When you become invested in someone’s life and make it too personal, the fallback can be quite catastrophic – especially when things go wrong.
Enter Mrs Sunshine – one of the kindest people I ever got to know. She was still in her fifties and had undergone what should have been a simple, routine total knee replacement. But one complication after another followed, and she kept deteriorating until she was finally surrounded by her loved ones on her deathbed.
Throughout the whole ordeal, she kept up a brave face. She’d give us this smile that exuded warmth and happiness despite all her suffering. She was hanging on for her kids, she told us. She would have done anything for them. The way she spoke about them broke my heart to pieces. Hell, it made me reconsider my entire relationship with my mother – something I hadn’t done in ages.
You see, for me, that relationship felt practically unsalvageable. Completely hopeless. But it wasn’t always like that. My mum was the person I loved the most when I was a kid. It wasn’t just affection. I adored her, venerated her, worshipped her. She was my best friend, my favourite human being, my home, my safe haven. She was my person. Until she wasn’t anymore.
Looking back on my childhood, my fondest memories are the ones in which she features. Like how we’d spend hours on the couch, huddled together watching TV. I’d sit through endless soaps and dramas she loved, until it was finally time for my favourite animated series. From The Bold and the Beautiful and Guiding Light to Pokémon and Dragon Ball, I spent hours wrapped in her warmth. Or when my father used to beat me whenever I misbehaved, only for her to come and console me, sitting me down and explaining why it was so wrong to burn his work documents.
She’d walk me to school every single day, unfailingly, rain or shine. We’d talk along the way, and when we finally arrived and my friends gave me funny looks because I was still holding her hand, it didn’t matter one bit cause we were that close. She’d share her deepest, darkest thoughts, and I’d share mine – though understandably less deep and dark at that age. My brother had my father, and I had her. It was her and me against the world. I’m not kidding – we were that close. Lorelai and Rory from Gilmore Girls kind of close. She was my person.
Then it was time for me to start secondary school. Being the nerdy A student I was back then, my parents always took it for granted that I’d go to a private school rather than a public one. I was the family’s golden boy, the one destined to do big things.
That, of course, posed a problem for a middle-class family already barely making ends meet, while also supporting another child who was completely uninterested in education. And so, after much discussion, they agreed that she’d start working to pay my tuition fees. I had begged her not to – I could very well attend public school just like my brother had and I’d be just fine. But she simply wouldn’t have it. There was a nice boutique in town where she could work at. She always loved clothes and fashion, so this would be the perfect job for her.
And that’s when everything changed. It felt like an overnight shift. From being a full-time mum to working part-time, we suddenly spent far less time together. At first, I thought that was the issue – not watching TV together anymore, not having time to sit and talk, having to take the bus to school on my own. But as time went on, I noticed her to be not only distant, but also kind of hostile towards me. We were growing apart.
It wasn’t teenage rebellion. It wasn’t me wanting to come up with some melodrama to make my life less dull. It took overhearing an argument between her and my dad for me to finally understand what had changed. She was unhappy at work. She was stretched too thin. It was all too much. And she blamed me for it. She blamed me for having to work so I could get the education she wanted for me. And this education seemed to be costing them an arm and a leg. My brother, on the other hand, was as unproblematic as they come. He went to public school – no tuition fees, no costly books or special extracurricular activities. And, most importantly, he showed no interest in furthering his education. Suddenly, he was the golden boy. And I was on my own.
She withdrew. She stopped spending time with me. Stopped confiding in me. And most painful of all, she stopped being there for me when I needed her the most. She used to be the only person I could turn to, in both good times and bad – when classmates picked on me, when I was chosen last for football, when I was rejected by a girl I liked. Also when I passed an exam, scored a goal, or made a new friend. But now? Now there was no one. I was completely alone.
Over time, I pulled away too. I shut down every time I caught her in a lie – like the first time I saw her smoking after years of telling me how disgusting the habit was. Every time she played favourites with my brother. Every time she made excuses not to spend time with me. Every time she got up from the couch to watch TV alone in her room. Every small thing her old self would never have done. There was never this one, life-changing, tragic episode that tore us apart. She never hit me, tried to sell my organs, or threw acid in my face. None of those headline-grabbing horrors. It was just a thousand tiny cuts that made me give up.
But I wasn’t one to wallow. I sucked it up and got on with my life. Our paths diverged – she went hers, and I went mine. Eventually, we reached a point where we merely co-existed. She cooked, cleaned, and gave me money. That was it. She became nothing more than a convenience. She had a functional role, but no emotional one whatsoever. In a matter of months, she went from being my mum to being my mother. From Lorelai and Rory to Lorelai and Emily. We now existed in a strange, commensal relationship where I reaped material benefits, but nothing else.
And that brings us to the present. Most days, I feel no urge to rebuild what we lost. Like it would add nothing to my life. The person who adored her is long gone. The woman I once thought was the coolest, funniest, most incredible human alive now feels boring, trivial, and uninteresting. Confiding in her isn’t something I even consider, not when I have friends who’ve become my chosen family. To me, she exists on a functional level alone.
And yet, there’s this scene stuck in my head. A man walks into a fancy restaurant, late as usual, and finds his unimpressed mother sitting at a table with a glass of red wine. He apologises, kisses her on the forehead, and sits beside her. They spend the night laughing and talking, until it’s time to say goodbye, promising to meet again next week. I can’t get that scene out of my mind.
As disinterested as I appear in rebuilding our relationship, deep down I think I want it. And for the life of me, I don’t know why. Maybe it’s some remnant of the love I felt as a child. Or maybe it’s the biological, innate instinct to love one’s own mother. Maybe it’s the feeling of regret, that I feel as if I failed as a son. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the simpler, infantile feeling of wanting my mom. Someone to hold me, to tell me everything’s gonna be okay, that she’ll love me no matter what. I don’t know. I honestly do not know.
What I do know is that for years on end, I put the entire weight of our dysfunctional relationship on her. I tried my hardest to open myself up to the possibility that maybe this could all change one day. At first I tried to include her a bit more in my life. I’d tell her about what I’d be up to and what I was planning to do. She didn’t show much interest. Then, in a move that drained me of all my pride and resentment, I gifted her this really cute book where she could write all about herself and her life in an effort to get to know her a bit more. It was too late with my dad, but I figured I was still in time to change things with my mum. But what the hell do I know? She never so much as opened it. It lay wrapped in its plastic cover on her nightstand for months on end until she boxed it up with some other stuff.
As Momma Bear – one of my closest friends and, ironically, a mother figure – used to tell me, parenting doesn’t come with a guidebook. Despite her many shortcomings, I think she did her best. Maybe her best wasn’t always enough, but it was still her best. She cooks, cleans, and gives me money. Maybe that’s how she shows love. It’s not the affection I once had, and yeah, that friggin’ sucks, but I need to let go of the past. Of my expectations. Of the grudge I’ve been carrying. I need to grieve the loss of who she used to be and learn to love the version that’s left. So that, one day, maybe, I can be the son who meets his mum for dinner and spends the night laughing with her.
Watching Mrs Sunshine’s children, wrecked with grief, as she took her final breaths, I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d feel if that were my mother lying there. Would I be as distraught? Or would I be haunted by the guilt of not having fixed things while I still had the chance?