by Carol Wohlfeil

Created on: March 19, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

Cancer took my mother 18 years ago. I have tried to find a reason to miss her. I never have. I've stopped trying.

I was the third of her four daughters. Never as smart as her first. Never as pretty as her second. And never as perfect as her baby. I was supposed to be a son or so the story goes. A grave disappointment, to say the least. I tried to make up for it by climbing trees and playing baseball, but my father left her anyway, apparently the result of my faulty gender and the not the affair she had with a dark-haired bartender.

I grew without her approval. I succeeded without her acknowledgement. And I left her as soon as the law opened that door.

I called my mother regularly and dutifully suffered my weekly dose of ridicule. During one such conversation, my mother informed me, quite casually, that she had never been able to love me as much as her other daughters because I never needed her as much as they did. And, of course, everyone knows that mothers need to be needed. I learned that day that she still had the power after 23 years, across 1200 miles to tear my heart out.

A year later, she was diagnosed with cancer. It wasn't long before she needed constant care, but her other daughters were much too busy with their own lives. I took care of my mother that final year. She thrived on the pity of others. She told doctors, nurses, and family members that I was starving her and stealing her money (of which she had none). I prayed that this time with her would somehow serve as restitution for my ill-fated birth, that she would forgive me for never being the child she wanted me to be. My prayers went unanswered.

In a hospital room, days before she died, she again told me that she had never loved me as much as her other girls. This time I gave her no tears. I did not falter. I had become strong in the absence of her love. Then she whispered, "But I have always liked you best. You are the one I would have chosen for my friend."

I didn't cry when my mother died. I have not cried for her since. Her death brought me peace. I have always loved my mother. I was grateful for her final words, and grateful that I no longer needed them.

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