First Mother’s Day Without Mom

I’d planned to visit my mother’s gravesite Sunday. I’ve not gone back there since the funeral in September. But Sunday came, and visiting there didn’t feel right.

I was actually OK with everything until about 9:30 Sunday night, when Older Sister called. Mom’s estate is still tied up, she reported, but it should be resolved by mid-June. My Younger Sister visited Mom’s grave, Older Sister said, which made me just as happy I didn’t go myself. Running into Younger Sister there would have been more than I really wanted to deal with. Younger Sister can be fairly melodramatic. I don’t doubt that she feels things deeply, but she has a pressing need to make sure that everybody around her knows she’s feeling things deeply. I’ve come to the point in my life that I admire people with control far more than those without, and I find being around overly emotional people tiring, especially when I’m dealing with issues myself.

As for dealing with issues … my inheritence from my mother continues to bother me. For the last fifteen years of her life, my mother made a point of doing without so that she’d have a “nest egg” to pass on to her three girls. I feel as though this is blood money more than anything else. If the last year hadn’t gone as it did, I’d have taken the whole thing and donated it to the Zoo, which was one of her favorite charities. I’d have had them do something with it that would have gotten her a plaque of gratitude somewhere on the grounds. She’d have liked that, and it would have been a fitting memorial. But a year ago, I was wealthy and could have afforded that largesse.

Today I can’t. I made a point of seeing that the divorce settlement divided things up so that what was his was his and what was mine was mine. He was the huge breadwinner, not I. So the house, most of the finances, most of the stocks, stayed with him. The stock market taking a dive when it did didn’t help much. I’m not penniless. But I’m not in a position to give away thousands of dollars, either. Still, I do not like taking the money that my mother refused to spend on herself. I told her often that I didn’t want the inheritence, that I wanted her to have some fun with the money instead. To take it now makes a hypocrite out of me.

Odd that I should have been fine yesterday, but messed up about things today. Perhaps I’m better at suppressing things than I thought.