The story: A mother of transitions

I would like to start the following personal story by emphasizing in advance that I feel strong love and gratitude towards my mother for everything she could give me given the knowledge, the difficulties and the opportunities she had - for the material, for the emotional, for the spiritual and for the mental, as well as for all the lessons I have learned and continue to learn thanks to her. I may not find any explanation for everything she did or said, but I know I was always on her mind. I also know that I am the person I am today precisely because of how my life has gone with all its ups and downs, riches and shortages, pains and joys… Because one can grow out of the pain the way the phoenix is reborn from the ashes, only if one has the will for that.

I will not hide, I feel a little sad. Actually a lot. Especially now writing these lines with tears in my eyes in the late hours of the night. When our mothers are gone they leave a big hole in us, no matter what kind of people they were and what mistakes they made, and filling this hole requires a lot of work on and with ourselves. No one is ready to say goodbye and there is no universal textbook to help all of us equally and to teach us exactly how this happens. The process is long and painful and sometimes it can take a lifetime. After all, the mothers are our first contact with the material world, our first lesson, our first example of love (both its presence and its absence) and the archetype of a woman.

Therefore, dear fellows, appreciate your mothers (and not only them) while they are here. But even after that. Because nothing is being lost in the Universe - only transformed. And remember that behind every misfortune that has happened in the material world, there is a higher cause, firstly born in the spiritual (perhaps more about that in some other post). I know that my mother's soul has fulfilled the plan as it should be so that I can become who I am, and that she is still with me wherever I go. That is why I not only forgive, but also thank.

Thank you, mom! I love you despite and because of everything…

As you may have learned from my previous post “The Story: A child of transitions” my parents were not in a very healthy relationship at least not in my conscious life. I don't know much about my mother's life before I was born, as well as my father's (I will write about him in another post). All I know is that my mother and father met on a train through a mutual friend, and since then they have clung to each other, or at least my mother to my father.

My mother was born in the mid-60s in Plovdiv in an average family, a second child with an older sister. I don't know exactly how she was raised and educated, but I've heard that my grandfather was a very strict father. I have not witnessed any disputes or misunderstandings between my mom and her parents, my grandparents, on the contrary. They looked quite calm and down-to-earth. My grandparents did not show much of affection (both earth signs - he was Virgo, she is Capricorn), but on the other hand they were stable or at least created such a feeling. But I still think they loved each other. I remember one afternoon in grandma and grandpa's apartment it was just the three of us. My grandmother was doing something in the kitchen, and my grandfather and I were in the dining room, and suddenly my grandfather turned to my grandmother and said, "Fanche (he called her that way, even though her name is Tinka), I hope I die before you, because otherwise I will to be able to handle it. " Then I did not understand him and reacted sharply to the fact that he was talking about death. But today, more than 15 years later, I fully understand. It was not much, someone would even consider it selfish, but I think that was the way my grandfather tried to express his love for my grandmother. Strongly imprinted in my mind and the only memory of love expression between the two and in general between my relatives. And so it happened, he left before her, but that's another story…

As a typical earthly sign, a man who grew up in the 20th century, with a university degree in economics and many aspirations, my grandfather had the dream of his two daughters following his example. Unfortunately for him, however, neither my mother nor her sister decided to continue their education after 12th-13th grade (at the time there was also 13th grade, yes). My mother graduated from the “Anna May” Professional School of Clothing, and whether because of the fact that clothes and sewing were her passion, or because of my father, she decided not to continue her education further. My father wasn't an excellent student, nor did he seem to do much at school, and maybe that's why he wasn't my grandfather's favorite. I haven't seen them argue, but honestly, I haven't seen them talk even.

So one spring in the early 90's I appeared, and a few months before my appearance the wedding of my parents took place. I don't have many photos from that time, but even the few I have from the day of my departure from the hospital, my mother's parents are not in the pictures. I don't know if they were present at all. I dare to say no. This leads me to the thought that my mother did not have much support (and perhaps no support at all) from her parents when she decided to marry and have a child with my father. But as I mentioned in the previous post, this relationship does not concern me directly and I am not looking for any answers to the question "why", at least because hardly anyone could adequately explain to me why everyone behaved so childish. My guess is - because of the ego.

So, to get to the point of this story - my mother. She was an extremely gentle, kind, sincere and generous person. She had her dark side, of course, but I believe that this was her initial true self. After all, we are all born perfect and then they break us as much as they can and as much as we allow them. :)

As I mentioned, sewing was my mom’s first love. She made something out of nothing - she made bags and backpacks out of old jeans. She sewed formal clothes for me. And she was so good, maybe even naive, that it was hard for her to ask for money from someone when she fixed their clothes or sewed something for them. She was giving and just waiting and hoping that others would do the same for her. And maybe this is what killed her slowly - the expectations and the hope that someday people would get better and show their good side. To date, I dare to say, from personal experience, that it is expectations that destroy us slowly, or maybe even quickly, but they certainly take a lot of our life energy. That is why I believe we should give wisely, without expecting anything in return. Whatever is meant for us will come back to us someday, because nothing is lost in the Universe, right.

As for my mother's love for me, I think it was boundless. Like most mothers, she would jump into the fire to protect her child, she would stay awake endless nights and starve, just to keep her child well and full. She gave me as much as she could and understood. Surely this is the thing I would like to take from her and apply it one day when I have my own children too - the strong maternal instinct and care.

But as for the dark side of my mother - this is certainly something I would not want my children to see and feel from first hand. As a typical representative of the zodiac sign Pisces (without intending to offend anyone), my mother sometimes lived in her own world, which I would describe indeed as dark. She was often emotional and unable to hear or see the surrounding reality. Deep in her own pain and unjustified expectations, she often thought that if someone was not on her side, then, firstly, they did not understand her, and secondly, they must be against her. This happened both to her parents, when they expressed disapproval of my father's behavior, and to me when I grew up and began to express my personal opinion about the unhealthy relationship between the two, and in particular how this relationship affects her, and from there me as a child victim. This, of course, happened at a much later stage, only when I was in my late teens. Before that, my mother's dark side was not invisible to me. Again in the previous post I gave some hints about me being the object of physical assaults. I was not beaten, fortunately, but there were certainly many cases in which I was attacked without the need for any aggression. Again, to this day, I explain it to myself as a way for my mother to bring out the tension of the emotions raging in her, as well as the time when all this was happening. Namely, the time when if you beat your child it was considered normal and part of the upbringing. I don't justify my mother’s behavior, I just understand it.

The truth is that until 2 years ago I myself did not know, I did not realize at all, that my mother behaved incorrectly towards me. Then, during one of the therapies I had undergone, I was recommended a book called “Toxic parents”. Not very big book, not more than 300 pages, but it took me more than 300 days to read it to the end. And the reason for this was precisely because I found myself in some of the examples given in it - how parents ruin their children by abusing them mentally and/or physically and how this affects the children when they grow up to be adults. The irony was that I started reading it because of my father, and when I finished it, I already knew that he wasn't the only one who had broken me. For years, I blamed only him for my pain and unhappiness, and finally I realized that the person I loved most in this world shared the guilt with him. The shock was huge. The pages slid slowly. Tears were falling from my eyes even before I started reading another chapter of the book. There were evenings when even just looking at the book made me cry and I didn't have the strength to open it. I'm not sure if I'll be able to read it again, but I'm sure it was one of the things that started to turn my mind and transform it. The truth was ugly and scary, but also painfully necessary.

Going back to my mother… Her physical attacks stopped when I was around 12-13 year of age and when we left my father for the first time and moved in with my mom’s parents. Fortunately, she didn't touch me after that, maybe because I was already old enough. But then her emotional crises began, or rather became more frequent, which turned me into her parent. Days and nights when I had to explain to her that even just the two of us could handle it on our own, that if my father wasn't with her, it didn't mean she wasn't lovable, that life does not end because of one separation. … In general, things she should be teaching me, not the other way around. I asked her if she would file for divorce, but she never saw it as an option. She said she loved him and he was the love of her life. But to me that was not and is not love. Love does not destroy, it builds. Love does not kill, it gives life. I had a strong feeling and understanding of what love is even then, although I did not have a clear example, but life has always taught me the opposite way - with examples of what is not… So far I said that I was born with these parents, to learn certain lessons in this life and to grow from them, but I think that I too was born TO these parents, to teach them certain things as well. Whether I succeeded, they must decide. Still, I tried to teach my mother to value herself and understand what true love is. I did not succeed. I also tried to teach my father what was right and what was wrong, and that you should give, not only take. I failed again. But then I realized that the battles, the lessons I was trying to give them, were actually for me. I can't change others, but I can change myself, at least not to repeat their mistakes… I went too far again…

When I turned 19, shortly before my prom, my mother developed peritonitis as a result of stress and an improper lifestyle, because in addition to smoking, she did not eat regularly and properly. She underwent a surgery and I thought it was over. But a few days before my prom, my mother told me that she should have to have another surgery again, and she asked for this to happen after my graduation. When I asked her why a second surgery was necessary, she replied that it was simply to "clear her of peritonitis." I didn't understand medicine, but I doubted it. An inner voice whispered to me "cancer", and I asked my mother if she was lying to me or hiding something. She replied that I had nothing to worry about… A few weeks after my prom, it was my mother's second surgery. 24 hours after, she suffered complications and collapse of the spleen, which necessitated a third surgery. After that, my mother needed a blood transfusion. So one day, when my father was talking on the phone with an acquaintance of his, whom he was asking for help to get blood donors, during the conversation he told the lady that my mother had stomach cancer removed, and that's how I found out about the real diagnosis. I'm not sure what I felt, but I know my whole being froze. This was definitely not the best way to find out, but my father is not one of the most delicate people you can imagine…

The recovery period had passed, my mother got better, she told me that the cancer was gone and she did not need chemotherapy. I calmed, but still went to bed every night with a prayer. I had never prayed before, I didn't even know how, but I was falling asleep with the words, "Please, God, let my mother live for at least another 10 years." My prayer was heard to some extent. Two years later, when my mother and father and I were already living together in the apartment she dreamed of (more details in the first post), the diagnosis came back.

I spent the summer of 2011 working on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast like most young people. Every day of those 3 months I spent in one-hour conversations with my mother, in which we just talked like friends. This is one of my favorite memories that I have left. Everything was fine until August came and my mother's tone slowly changed. At first I didn't pay much attention, but my inner voice told me something was wrong. I returned on September 10, my father picked me up from the bus station in Plovdiv and took me directly to the hospital to see her. I remember that the hours for visitors had passed and we had to beg a nurse to let me in because I had not seen my mother for 3 months. I got in. I saw my mother and she assured me that the doctors kept her only “just in case”. She lied to me. At 8 pm that evening, she called us to let us know that she would be taken to the surgery room in an hour. I don't want to imagine the fear she felt. My father and I took my grandmother from her home (who, too, had no idea that my mother had ever been diagnosed with cancer because my mother hid from her under the pretext she did not want to bother her), and left for the hospital. Doctors said the surgery should not take more than an hour and a half. In reality, however, it lasted over 3 hours. When the surgeon came out, it was after midnight on September 11, my father ran to him, and I heard only the words, "I'm very sorry." At that moment, my whole body shook, I was drenched in cold sweat, and I had the feeling that time had stopped. I knew that either my mother had died on the table or it was expected to happen soon. The doctor said that nothing more could be done, that she did not have much time left and that the mistake was because my mother refused to undergo chemotherapy after the first diagnosis… Then I realized that my mother had lied to me again. I found that the first time the tumor was malignant. I learned it again in a not very delicate way, but rather in shock. I don't blame her anymore. I know that she must have been filled with a lot of fear to refuse treatment and pretend every day that everything is over, knowing that the worst is yet to come…

I don't remember how many days my mother stayed in the hospital and when and how we picked her up. Everything was merging. Then my father and I started looking for all sorts of solutions - conventional or not, it didn't matter, we clung to every idea, no matter how crazy it was. We went to fortune tellers, to monasteries, sought the opinions of various doctors… Then we learned that there was a doctor in another Plovdiv hospital who would do another surgery with the hope that this could help my mom. We all agreed and my mother was under the knife again. But that didn't help either. I don't know if it did not do more harm. Then, for the first time, I unlocked to say the words "I love you" to my mother and to anyone in general. I repeated them every day because I was afraid that I didn't have much time left with her. I tried to make up for the lost time during the years when I considered these words a weakness… In the meantime, I had started reading medical literature on cancer in all the languages ​​I knew, as well as in Russian. I translated for myself - sentence by sentence, hoping to find something. And I found it. I have found that in Russia, there were therapies that were administered with huge doses of intravenously injected vitamin C, which shrinks cancer cells. But I did not find a place in Bulgaria where to apply such treatment, at least not then or at least I couldn’t…

November came and we took my mother home. Every day I continued to read specialized literature with hope, and my mother was losing more and more weight. I remember the two of us holding hands in the evening without talking. Both knowing what was coming, but scared to say it out loud. At one point she began to speak incoherently, to answer questions I had not asked. We hired a woman from a specialized institution for sick, dying people left by their loved ones in their last moments, who came home on the weekends to help us. I couldn't leave my mother in such place, knowing that every day could be her last. Then the woman told us that when she starts to behave strangely and vomit brown liquid, then the days are numbered. And so it happened.

On the morning of December 7, 2011, I saw my mother for the last time. She had changed so much — I dare to say my mother was gone, even though her body was still breathing. Her body - skin and bones, the face - shrunk, the eyes - empty. Apparently the shock was written on my face when my father, seeing me, told me not to enter the room anymore. I went out and went to the university. In the evening, when I came home, shortly after 8 pm, my father told me that my mother was gone. I don't know how I felt then. I know that many people came to express their condolences to me, and the evening seemed like an eternity. Everything happened like in a dream. 2 days later was the funeral. I held on, I didn't cry much during those days until we went to the cemetery. I couldn't get out of the car. My body stiffened and I thank my father for not forcing me, but actually he asked me to stay in the car and not get out. I cried a lot and out loud. I saw the hearse passing by me and I kept crying. I heard that my mother did not look like herself, that they could not recognize her, and I thanked my father and all the forces that made me stay in the car, because the memory of my mother in a coffin would haunt me for life. Instead, fortunately, I was left with the one from the day I went to work on the Black Sea coast - my mother came with me to the car that took me. We hugged, I kissed her on the cheek, soft and tender, and said goodbye. I decided that I wanted this to be my last memory with my mother - when she was still on her feet and healthy (at least seemingly), when she smiled at me and we knew we would see each other again after a while. I'll see you again someday, I know ...

In the months following my mother's death, I could not stay home alone. I went to lectures, enrolled in a student organization that kept me quite busy, met a lot of new people, took on an internship… I was coming home only to take a bath and sleep, and for months my sleep was no more than 5 -6 hours a day (while before a normal sleep for me was about 9 hours). I couldn't stay alone, I didn't want to. I knew that the memories and the pain would burst out. So I locked them deep inside me along with the emotions of my childhood. I stuffed them in the darkest and deepest part of my soul and walled them up with a mixture of steel and concrete. Almost no one understood what I was going through. And those who knew about my mother admired me how strong of a girl I was and I did not show my emotions. Everything was seemingly fine, until a few years later when all these emotions and feelings such as fear, anger, pain and sadness began to come out on their own in the form of panic attacks and began to destroy me. Initially short, rare and caused by stressful situations, however, later they became part of my daily life - frequent, long and came without a visible real threat and reason. I was completely exhausted, which led to a breakdown in the system ...

* If you have reached the end of this story, thank you so much! More about my father and the panic attacks in other posts.

Peace, Love and Light

Author: Vania Dzhoneva - Soul Healer

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