Searching For My Mother: Loved One?

In the first year after my mother’s death, people kept offering condolences that called her my loved one.

I would rather they’d called her my mom or mother.

Calling her my loved one makes an assumption: that there was love involved. The fact that she’s my mom isn’t disputed. One could nitpick and call her my adoptive mother; that’s a distinction without much merit to me. Whatever the state of our relationship, my adoptive mother is who I will always consider my mother.

I have scant information about my birth mother and no consuming desire to find her. I’m curious about what she looks like. Does she have blue eyes like mine? Do I have her nose or my birth father’s? I’m curious about medical history and DNA origins, so I did a DNA test some time after my mom died. It didn’t amount to much, and since they’re likely in their early eighties now, the idea of meeting feels long past.

My birth mother was never part of my life. My adoptive mother was part of my life for fifty-one years. She earned the right to be called mom, in spite of the conflicted nature of our relationship. She changed my diapers. Fed me. Gave me shelter. Mom things.

But loved one?

I’m not certain of that.

There was much wrong with our relationship. We rarely agreed on anything. We fought constantly. She never fully accepted that I was gay. We burned a lot of bridges. Being her caregiver as her health and mind slowly deteriorated, we may have managed to build a new bridge or two. Perhaps so.

She would never admit to anything so sentimental as new bridges. “What’s done is done,” was as far as she’d go. The words were innocuous enough. It was the tone that was open to interpretation. She’d say the phrase with a gesture: arms slightly extended, palms down, moving as if to say “calm down.”

“What’s done is done.”

It suggested bygones being bygones, yet there was always something in the tone — an accusation, an implication that I should feel guilty for the things I’d done. Sometimes I wondered if I was adding the tone out of guilt I should have felt but didn’t always. Now I believe the tone was there. My mom was good with vocal tones. She knew how to wield words with devastating accuracy, smiling sweetly while slicing me to the bone, while others listening barely noticed the wound. (I never learned that particular art. I can deliver a brutal insult, just not very subtly.)

What’s done is done. Is that a path toward acceptance? Or what the sailor says as she sails away, leaving me on shore, wondering.

Did my mother and I love each other? Or did we tolerate each other? Maybe bound by the realization that, of the nuclear family I was born into, she and I were the only two that remained?

Perhaps there was love.

Was she my loved one?

I don’t know.

I’d have called her my hated one. Not so much anymore.

In the months before and after her death, I read several books on death and grief. Loved one is the term they all used.

Loved one.

What does that even mean?

Isn’t it an assumption that the person who passed is your loved one? I’ve known people who were overjoyed at the passing of a not-so-loved-one.

I wasn’t overjoyed. Relieved? I think so. Happy? She was no longer suffering.

Being someone’s loved one implies a great bond of affection, that their death creates a great well of loss and grief. That’s how I feel about Julian, my husband. He’s my loved one. Losing him would cripple me with grief.

Sure, I miss my mom in many ways. (Only a few ways?) I am not, however, crippled by her loss. That was about it.

Does that mean she’s not a loved one then?

I don’t really know.

As I made my way through her things, I thought I was searching for her. Searching for memories. Seeking reminders of the unique person she was. I don’t have family traditions to cling to or an endless amount of happy memories to comfort me. The best I can do now is find the stories. The ones that shed light on her personality. The ones that made me laugh. The ones from when we were a nuclear family of four. There are very few people left who remember my mom, most only knew her on a surface level. Only a handful had a deeper idea of who she was. The stories and memories are nearly all that remain.

Will I find a loved one among those memories?

Maybe I’ll simply find some laughs and smiles — things that patch up the wounds of our relationship.

Is it possible to discover love in retrospect?

That’s part of what this journey is. Searching for my mom in the neural pathways of my mind. Finding reminders tucked away in her closets and drawers.

What might I find? Good things and bad. About both of us.

The last years of her life were difficult. My mom at ninety-three was so very different from the mom of my childhood.

Perhaps, at the very least, I will find remnants of the young, active woman who was my mom.

It’s been eight years since she died. I’m ready to find some good things along the way.

(Revised 2025-9-3, 11:45. Realized I posted an earlier draft, rather than the new version)