Dismantling the dutiful daughter role
I was telling E that I am a tangle of love and guilt seeing my mother hooked to all of these life sustaining devices and wishing that she find her peace soon because this isn’t living. I said I didn’t go see her on Sunday and felt guilty afterwards. We talked a lot about the past years after I came back to New Orleans and the years leading up to my return when my trips home became more frequent because of my mother’s health – emotionally, physically, financially. E said that I had been the dutiful daughter even though many times because of my mother’s addiction, she hadn’t been there for me. So give up the guilt.
I was walking Loca around the Big Lake in City Park this morning – calling it the Big Lake seems a little absurd as it is not that big – and I was thinking about an acquaintance of mine in San Francisco who told me 15 years ago that she had no parents, no pets, no progeny, and that she felt like ping she could float off into outerspace. Years later she acquired a pet bird, a perfect companion for her weightless existence. I ran into her husband the other day, the bird had died and she had left for Southern California where I now imagine her floating like a balloon over the waves.
When I think of the role of a daughter with a rage-aholic for a father and an alcoholic for a mother, the emotions that come to mind are anger, sadness, guilt – all emotions that do not bear fruit. I know that between trying to calm my father and cheer my mother up, I have spent a lifetime learning the skills of a caretaker.
But now, I want to learn some new tricks.