When I got married, you can be sure my mother was not in the picture. I was on my own shopping for my dress, 
picking centerpieces and menus, and all the trials and tribulations of making a wedding. My mother showed up as a guest, late of course as always, cordially invited yet coolly welcomed. She watched from the sidelines as I married the man I had chosen as my husband and I made no attempt to hide my satisfaction at finally being free of her apron strings.
For too many years, I deeply resented my mother. I unconsciously held her accountable for her inability to acknowledge the pain I felt she inflicted on me as a child.
However, when my children were born I found her to be a much better grandmother than I ever imagined. She and my father were lovingly there for every step that each of my daughters took. Of course I would find fault in anything she ever did. With each passing day, unknowingly I was passing on my entrenched anger and resentment to the next generation, giving my children subtle vibes that their grandmother was really nothing special.
Our favorite, time-honored tradition together consisted of getting into an argument, then analyzing our dysfunctional relationship, crying together, vowing to reform, and then blowing up at each other anew. Most of the time it was best not to have anything to do with each other at all. But I could tell she never gave up hope that one day I would come back to her and give her the pleasure of allowing her to be my mother in more than just a figurative sense.
One day, a friend who I admire for living with such exuberance and joy, told me that she and her mother had always had a severely strained relationship. But one day she thought about the fact that her mother was getting older and would eventually pass on to another world. Suddenly she realized that she wasn’t comfortable with the status quo. She hated the thought of her mother dying as a stranger to her. So she did a good bit of praying, took a deep breath, and made a move toward reconciliation.
It was a long process, she told me, but they both invested much time and effort and it paid off. Finally, she and her mother were able to find the love that had been lost between them for so many long years. A short while later, her mother passed away, and my friend felt very at peace with her mother’s death.
“When I meet my mother in heaven,” my friend told me, “I know she will tell me, I love you and I’m proud of you.’ And we will hug and embrace.”
At first, her story didn’t move me. Very nice that she and her mom had reconciled, but me and mother? Forget it! Our relationship was beyond resuscitation; the patient was long dead. Besides, I was battle-weary from thousands of attempts to reconcile our differences and attempt to stoke the cold ashes of our “love,” searching in vain for even a single ember that could get the fire going.
And then my father passed away, my marriage was falling apart and my mother lost her entire life savings due to all the money that was given to my family and never repaid. I blamed myself for the devastation that this caused both my mother and father. I couldn’t fix what had been done. As a terrible twist of fate, resulting from my own failures, my daughters have now sadly become estranged to me.
And in the lowest point of my own sadness and pain, I said to myself, “Why?” and thought about the message I had sent my own children and the tragedy of feeling orphaned despite having a real, live mother whose professed love for me I constantly spurned. And suddenly I imagined myself, with grown children, and wondered how they would treat me. After all, they had never seen a model of parental honor and respect in their home; what made me think my children would treat me any differently than I treated my mother? I deeply regret what I had unconsciously done.
And I realized that my utter disregard for the respect and honor I was obligated to show my mother was creating a huge hole in the fabric of my spirituality. Even as I made excuses about why I wasn’t required to respect my mother (after all, ours was a “special circumstance”), deep down I knew my obligation was just as binding as anyone else’s. And the pain of this honest revelation drove me to give it one last try.
So I flew my mother out to visit me.
