What’s Left Behind: Grieving The Death Of An Estranged Abusive Parent

This issue is dedicated to exploring my grieving process further. In My Trauma-Informed Yoga Story, I discuss the initial shock that I experienced when my estranged abusive adopted mother (and biological aunt) passed away. The excerpt below best captures the shock I felt:

A month after her death, I began writing in an attempt to process my feelings. I’ve used poetry, writing and drawing to cope with my feelings ever since I was 12 years old. These outlets allow me to release my emotions without judgment and censorship. I wrote the poem Eternal Labor below. If you’re not a poetry person, that’s ok. Eternal Labor is about grieving and yearning for the protective, supportive, and loving relationship that I never had with my mother.

Eternal Labor
May 26, 2018

Loving you has been my eternal labor.
Isn’t labor our most fitting metaphor?
My longing for you, a dull ache in every muscle.
Your rejection pulsing through my nerves.
I’ve made many deals with God to steady myself against the pain of yearning for you mom.
Each time you leveled me, capturing my air, revealing ugly naked desperation in my tears.
Every time I subjected myself to your venom, your acceptance was my aim,
but there was never a way I could contort myself to endure it all.
Never a rhythm of breathing that kept me centered.
Never a vice that numbed the pain.
But I kept coming back, exposed, knees weak with my pulse racing,
feverish with the hope that things would be different this time.
Willing all of this pain and emptiness to eventually end and your love for me to be realized.
But it never happened for us.
No matter how many condolences and well-intentioned assurances I’ve received,
I spent my life in eternal labor and I’ve only had my wounds to nurse me in your absence.

As you hopefully gathered from my poem, my relationship with my mother can not be summed up with the word “estranged”. I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that society tends to use the word estranged as a more palatable way of describing toxic or abusive relationships. According to Webster’s Dictionary, estranged means “having lost former closeness and affection: in a state of alienation from a previous close or familial relationship”. 

I’ve often struggled to apply this word to my relationship with my mom because we were never close and affectionate, even on her good days. Estranged also sounds like a mutual agreement to not have a “close” relationship versus the painful reality of having to give up on a relationship because the other person can not stop themselves from being toxic toward you. So yeah, the word estranged doesn’t even begin to describe my situation. 

It felt nearly impossible to cope with both the death of my estranged abusive parent and society’s standard for how I should feel, respond, and act. While grieving absolutely looks, feels, and expresses itself differently for each and every one of us, the death of an estranged abusive parent can be a painfully and unpredictable experience that re-exposes us to traumas old and new. 

For instance, one element that most people identify with in the grieving process is feeling a sense of loss, but I was completely missing that emotion and I was honestly feeling so awkward about it. Logically, you can’t lose something that you never had, right? I had grieved the lack of affection and closeness with my mother since I was 9 years old.

At her funeral, my throat itched and my skin tingled as others expressed that she was their rock and endless well of support. Each time, it sent me mentally searching within myself for those feelings of loss. Each time, the same “results not found” appeared before me. I felt a combination of happiness and blinding jealousy, realizing that she had eventually found her maternal side, a trait I never had the chance to experience with her. All I desperately wanted was for her to love and accept me.

I don’t think many of us are prepared for how the death of a loved one can motivate others to shove us into the “spotlight” or banish us to the shadows. Either way, it can be excruciatingly awkward and painful. Suddenly, everyone has opinions about what, where, and how you should have done things in your relationship with that person. Sometimes these are the same people whom you had longed to save you as a child. If you are on the child side of this equation, it is especially nauseating to listen to grown-ass adults tell you how you should have better managed your grown-ass parent. For me it felt like I was being forced to play an epic game of make-believe to get through it all. 

A List: Socially Unacceptable (But Absolutely Natural) Ways To Express Feelings About The Deceased 

1. Voicing feelings of relief that they are gone.
2. Appearing too happy and not bothered enough.
3. Voicing the irrational fear that they will come back and harm you again.
4. Not going to the hospital or phoning to say goodbye.
5. Not attending the funeral.
6. Not posting on social media or not posting the way people think you should.
7. Voicing newfound anger at friends and family who played bystanders or deniers of your abuse.
8. Refusing to say to others that you forgive the deceased.
9. Replaying your “trauma hall of fame” moments with others.
10. Refusing to acknowledge in the “saint status” they have been elevated to in their death.

As the months moved on, I continued to unravel into depression. I couldn’t stop myself from going through the most painful “trauma hall of fame” moments of my childhood. I was uncontrollably binging all these traumatic experiences and I couldn’t find the damn remote to turn it off. It was seemingly the perfect time for my dad to call and tell me he wanted to give me some things my mom wanted me to have. This really became a turning point for me. 

In her 2008 book Objects of the Dead: Mourning and Memory in Everyday Life, Margaret Gibson weaves an engaging and research-based account of how the objects left behind hold such a powerful and emotional place in our hearts and minds. Objects of the dead play a significant role in the grieving and healing process. I hadn’t read the book at this point, and I didn’t know about this concept. Accepting my mom’s items was scary and painful. It felt surreal; accepting her items cemented that she was gone, while also forcing me back into my past with memories I didn’t want to revisit anymore. The following story details my experience with my mother’s objects, how they brought me closure with her death, and unexpectedly restored my relationship with my dad.

My father arrived unexpectedly late on this day and swiftly unpacked the U-Haul crammed with my mother’s eight piece dinette set, tons of bedding, her coveted keuro cabinet, and way more than I had imagined. I knew he wouldn’t stay long when I saw their dogs in the car, but I felt such a surge of desperation shoot through me.

 After all, I did not want a single item that we were unloading from the U-Haul. As a matter of fact, I could’ve sworn some of the items literally burned my hand when I touched them. When my father uncovered the dining table, the sun placed a spotlight on numerous dents and scratches from my mother’s long-standing practice of banging butcher knives into counters and tables. I did not want anything, except for my dad. I needed my daddy, to be more precise. 

I was willing to re-traumatize myself in exchange for a new budding relationship with my father; this was not possible when my mother was alive. Without even gracing our living room with his presence he unpacked the U-Haul quickly and left. I was crushed. I’d woken up my family early this Saturday morning, scrubbing our home and fighting the urge to stock our fridge with his favorite black walnut ice cream. As the clock melted from minutes to hours my usual paranoia and anxiety began to build, until my cell phone, turned up extra loud, blared Beyoncé’s partition song announcing that he was in fact still alive and had arrived.

Of course, I had not asked my dad to stay or to spend time with us. He also did not indicate that he would. So why was I now muffling my sobs in my bedroom away from my family? Why did I feel so abandoned? A fresh batch of newly resurfaced, self-deprecating voices began attacking me. “Of course he left, he hates you.” “He doesn’t care about you, he just wants to fulfill a dying wish.” “He has his real children.” “He’s ashamed of you.” “He’s embarrassed of you.” “Why are you so upset when you never even told him what you wanted?” Our humid garage was now forcibly stuffed with my deceased mother’s most prized possessions. The garage remained sealed like a tomb with only the sorrowful and triggering scent of my childhood sporadically wafting into our kitchen.

He called me a couple more times after, with more items to give me that I did not want. I lied to myself that I would not get my hopes up, that I would ask for time with him. He ended up coming in a day early and not being able to deliver the remaining items while he was here. He left them with his niece who lived in town. There was no room in my garage so we left the five boxes in the back of our SUV, for months. 

You can imagine the storm that I went through. This all but confirmed that he was just fulfilling my mother’s dying wish. Why the hell was I expecting a relationship with my father when we had not had one since I was 16? We didn’t even know how to talk to each other or what to say. We had short disorienting chats as if we were two strangers. Now I had all the items, what would we talk about?

Thankfully, he kept calling me and each conversation felt a little less awkward. He was out fishing, he was hanging with friends, he was watching basketball or Beverly Hills Cop for the millionth time. Maybe it was the weekly random calls that kept coming after I had my mother’s items or maybe it was the $10,000 dollars of needed repairs to our vehicle that forced me to go through my mother’s things, but I finally had to make contact with the boxes in the back of our SUV as we transferred them to our rental car and subsequently into our home. After this harrowing experience,  I felt brave enough to look through the boxes. 

So instead of my hands catching on fire as I sifted through the items, I felt unexpected nostalgia and gratitude. Don’t get me wrong, I did stumble upon an orphaned crystal egg set that contained two pieces, or it used to until my mother lobbed one of them at my father as I happened to be walking by. It had shattered off the wall and into my face. It was my first day of junior high school. I worried about stumbling onto more items that brought up unpleasant memories like this. 

Instead, I got reacquainted with my mother, which felt surprisingly good. I learned that she apparently loved collecting or hoarding beautiful glasses in sets of six. My heart warmed as I imagined her at a garage sale or Goodwill, with my dad probably not too far away, praying for an end to the trip as I had done a thousand times. She probably spotted the item, and called my father over in a low dramatic whisper, “LOOK”, she would whisper/yell. 

And suddenly, I was transformed. “Look Colice. Isn’t this so pretty?” She would get this marveled little girl look on her face, with sparkles in her eyes. She would tap my shoulder over and over and pull my shirt, even though she already had all of my attention. She would instantly start putting together how she would use this item. Sometimes it felt like she had been searching her whole life for this item as if she were Indiana Jones. Buying it was logical because it would go with everything in our home except for all the other things she would need to buy to go with it. She had such an eye for rare treasures. She would kinda sway and do a little happy dance. I loved these moments with her. 

As we went through the boxes, I saw so many things I remember her purchasing. I saw so many new things and I imagined her delight in them. I noticed that my dad had somehow sent things that I had always secretly loved. I noticed the love and care he had put into packing these items and delivering them to me. I felt such an unexpected surge of gratitude. I finally went to our garage and went through those items too. I picked three boxes for me and my sister. I donated the rest in hopes of someone stumbling on them one day and lowering their voice to a whisper/yell. 

I still do not have a desire to have anything specific from my mother’s home, I realized that I did not feel worthy enough to have them. There were obviously some bad memories in there, but there were also surprisingly good memories too. The items sat, washed and out in the open now, and when I walked past them I thought of how much I loved her and how she wanted me to have a piece of her when she was gone and, for today, that is ok with me. It’s actually great.

So what can we do with all these uncomfortable feelings and awkward encounters after the death of an estranged abusive parent? Obviously, the answer is starting a blog. Seriously, opening up about my feelings and confronting my mother’s belongings allowed me to grieve and begin to heal. We all deserve safe and supportive spaces to work through all those big and complicated feelings. 

Find a safe way to work through those reactions without judging yourself. Find out if your community has any free grief support groups. I am currently privileged enough to not only have health insurance but to have an excellent therapist. If you have health insurance, maybe now is the time to look into therapy. At the very least, use the internet to join and/or follow a support group. Just be sure to check the credibility and credentials of the group first.

Lastly, don’t forget that you are not that little helpless kid anymore. You choose if, when, and how far your journey back into your old life goes, even if that means not saying goodbye or going to the funeral.

Note: Managing your mental and physical health is a serious and important issue that should be pursued with trusted and competent healthcare professionals. I am not a healthcare professional. I am not a licensed or trained expert. I shared my specific experiences and what worked for me, in celebration of my growth