I Forgave My Mum After More Than 30 Years—and It Healed My Soul

“Oh my God, I hate you!” I yelled at my mother as big, fat tears rolled down my face. I was 12 and we were having one of our frequent fights. I don’t even remember what it was about. My mother, at 4’10” and 50kgs, grabbed a chunk of my hair and was pulling it with all her might. I tried to slap her off but she held on like a bulldog sinking its teeth into me.

She was a hot-blooded bundle of energy: an Asian Marilyn Monroe to my dad’s British Fred Astaire. They were a gorgeous couple and he spoiled her to no end—until I was born.

My birth created a maelstrom of fury and jealousy in my mother. Dad’s energy and doting ways shifted from her to me and she did not adjust well to the change. I was an only child, a true Daddy’s Girl. Mum hated me for taking her place in my dad's heart and life; she actually admitted this to me during one of our squabbles.

In an effort to regain her spot as the number-one woman in the family, Mum would constantly push my buttons of insecurity, self-doubt and shyness. I was never thin enough. She’d needle me with, “If you don’t have a figure like mine, no man will ever want to marry you.” I was not bubbly and outgoing, as she was. “You’re always so glum. Snap out of it.”

Our fights were not what I’d call vicious; they were almost like sibling rivalry. And they were often physical. There was a lot of hair-grabbing, ear pulling, slapping and screaming. We argued about everything from food to work and dating to friends. We couldn’t agree on anything, and finally, when I was in my late 20s, we more or less stopped talking to each other, even though we were still living under the same roof.

I was always sad—envious, really—to witness my friends’ healthier relationships with their mothers. Their mums would comfort them through pain, loss and disappointment. Their mothers would selflessly rejoice in their accomplishments, stepping out of the limelight to watch their daughters shine. My accomplishments were met with jealousy, my sorrows with schadenfreude.

And thus the rift continued. When I got engaged, Mum suddenly started becoming very talkative with me and hoped to garner attention from my fiancé Mike when she offered to pay for our entire wedding at St. Paul’s church in San Francisco. On the surface it seemed like a generous gesture, but I knew it was an attempt at hijacking the day: She wanted the spectacle, and we didn’t, and soon our communication ended once again.

We were never completely out of contact, as I often called home to speak to my dad. But Mum and I only spoke if she happened to answer the phone before he got to it. The only time she reached out to me was when she needed help fixing the VCR or some other broken gadget.

That slowly started to change during the first 10 years of my marriage, as it was during that decade that my mother developed breast cancer and my father developed Alzheimer’s disease.

In retrospect, I imagine her cancer was a battle she thought she had to fight alone, especially assuming the fragility of our relationship. I’m sure she felt she had no right to rely on me. But she drove to our house one day, out of the blue. I saw on her face the ecstasy of agony. She’d been in pain for over a year and hadn't yet sought help, since she was scared of surgery and potential disfigurement. “Honey, help me," she begged. "Don’t let them cut me. Just help me die peacefully.”

At my urging, she agreed to see at least see an acupuncturist. The minute he saw her, he told us she needed Western medicine right away. She ended up having six months of chemotherapy and a radical mastectomy. She kept seeing the acupuncturist throughout her treatment and never suffered from nausea or other side effects.

I used all my vacation days and took unpaid leave to drive mom to and from her daily treatments. Our roles switched: My mother became my daughter, and it gave me great joy to be able to care for her. And I know it eased her heart to know I was willing to do so. She knew she hadn’t been an ideal mum and, in a bizarre way, she became the queen again, the one who got the most attention.

Just as quickly as the cancer arrived, it was gone. (She had the surgery six months after officially being diagnosed, and subsequent tests showed no malignancies.) Like a flash thunderstorm in the desert where you’re sitting in the sunshine one moment, you smell the rain and the skies darken to an angry, boiling indigo. Lighting and thunder soon surround you and rain pours nonstop and when you take a moment to breathe, to take it all in, it ends. And the sun comes.

And with that sun, with that passing of her disease, she grew more gentle and quiet. All her treatments rendered her healthy and officially in remission, but the ordeal had taken its emotional toll on her.

The next five years brought us closer as my father’s condition worsened. Mum was his caregiver, but I would visit each weekend and spend time with them. Age and illness softened them. Dad knew he was ill and in his lucid moments had come to terms with leaving this life. He knew that Mike would take care of me and we would take care of Mum. After battling Alzheimer’s for 10 years, he passed away just three weeks after his 91st birthday and a month after he and Mum celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Shortly after Dad died, Mum started showing signs of Alzheimer’s. My now-husband Mike quit his job to be her caregiver while I kept working. She loved him as if he were her blood son, and she was always very calm around him. There was no "emotional baggage" with him as there was with me, so it was easier.

Mike and I moved in with my mum, and as annoyed as she said she was in having us in her house, we quickly discovered that she loved the company and the attention. She smiled and laughed more than I could ever remember and I was happy because she was no longer the caustic dragon lady of old. In the five years we had with her, we’d go to movies, travel, go to the beach and museums. It was…normal.

The end came swiftly, when Mom was 88. She spent the day out with Mike and the evening watching a movie with us. I had planned on taking her to lunch the next day but it just wasn’t meant to be. After collapsing then spending three days in ICU, Mom was gone. I was grateful we had the time we did together, but I was also furious about the time that was wasted. Ultimately, I was mostly relieved that she was at rest, but I was very sad, too—sad for what we could have had for so many more years, and not just during her final chapter.