Making Peace with Mom

My mother passed on in 1998. She was a warrior to the end, refusing the food substitutes my father wanted her to eat - "why should I feed this body?" We had a tough relationship - I inherited her fierceness, her inability to love herself, her method of rolling through the world with armor thickened by doing everything herself. I know now, via age and information, that she built her defenses through ugly experience, and I wish I had that knowledge long ago. What happened this morning is peace. Irene Elviena Nisula Robinson had no help to sort out the pain, no resources as we have today, no guidebook for raising children without passing along the anger and resentment, no close friends or champions. Her circle was small, and Mom's strength was sapped by being a friend rather than having a friend. She did not love herself. She had thousands of admirable qualities. She taught us tolerance, patience; rational, critical thinking; gave us the opportunity to truly learn, and to appreciate the world for what it is. She gave us experience of knowing God, and gave us the freedom to choose how that manifested. She created the powerful, capable, creative, spiritual woman I am today. And I love her for me, and for herself.