First Christmas Without my Mother: New Year's Resolution

I have something horrible to admit. Mostly when I think of my Mother I feel relief at her passing.

My mother was ill for 21 years and so our family were basically in mourning for her from the first diagnosis to her last breath this summer. She suffered a lot from her illness. We all pretended this wasn't the case (because we were asked to) and acted like everything was ok - when a lot of the time it was f*cking awful.

In a situation like ours all family energy and focus is expended on pleasing the person who is ill and making their life comfortable and full. Very little of our time growing up was spent dealing with ourselves, our needs or celebrating rites of passage in our own lives - which while understandable was very difficult, sad and damaging to both my brother and I.

I have been feeling an almost strange calm regarding her passing. I think it is to do with the fact that now we don't need to pretend any longer and can admit her suffering is over. I have other feelings: anger, frustration and anxiety. I have behaviours: a trigger temper and excessive crying at sad stories. But really most of the time I am enjoying life as a newly-wed and am happy with the way my life is going.

It concerns me that I see my brother dealing with things differently - I read his blog or speak to him and see him feeling things I don't feel and wonder if I ever will.

Towards the end of my Mother's life she and I had made peace with our difficult relationship. Among other things my Mother was pretty focussed on herself (part of being an invalid or her natural personality?) so it was hard to get a look in when you needed something and most problems palled in comparison to hers. But after years of really unpleasant exchanges I realised that she was never going to be the source of my bliss - went about finding my own - and thus was able to begin to focus on the things that I did enjoy about her.

My mother was a strange woman from an even stranger family but she was a really great artist and this, I think, more than anything else is where we connected and found language where we neither resented each other nor competed.

I moved to England after spending a year or two living with my parents again. I finally broke free from a very unhealthy focus in my life and instead of obsessing about the inevitable death of my Mother got on with living my life. It wasn't easy at first to switch the focus from my parents to my partner...and I missed the connection horribly. What is wonderful is that I managed to sever this unhealthy connection in her lifetime - which meant that it was not the trauma of her death which accomplished this but a natural movement towards my own life and goals.

I think that my anger is the natural response to the resentment I feel and have always felt at how my brother and I were rarely, if ever, the focus of the family (as children should be some of the time). I mourn still for the way I constantly felt like my feelings and needs were not important when compared to my mother's illness - and the fact that some pretty terrible things happened to my brother and I because our parents never had time and took their eye off the ball. I love both my parents and know they did the best they could with what they had under the circumstances - but also feel angry that I am not even allowed to blame them and say that this excuse is not good enough.

After writing this I have decided on a New Year's resolution: I will not let another calendar year see me hold on to these feelings and will get the help I need to move past these long-held feelings. I will not drag these feelings with me into my new relationship with my husband and will not burden any children I have with these feelings of ambivalence. I will look to the future and start all of my relationships with the ones I love fresh this year.