On Mother's Day

I wish Mother’s Day would disappear. Even the holiday’s founder, Anna Jarvis, felt this way.

There is no room for nuance. There are no Mother’s Day cards for “I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but it’s complicated.” There are only flowers and unconditional love.

My consciously not knowing how to feel about this day loomed in junior high school. Female peers raved that their mother was their best friend, which I never understood. Around this time I felt my mom and I were different species – how could I confide in her? That is not to say I acted out more than the average teenager or refused to hug my mother. But the bad memories stung more than the good ones comforted: verbal brawls on the long drives home from athletic events because I failed to achieve her standards, her shattering our home telephone on the kitchen floor out of inconsolable rage, and eventually being told that my departure out-of-state for college would be celebrated.

Unconsciously wondering if my biological mother was somewhere out there, maybe wondering if I was thinking about her, probably restrained potential affection for my adoptive mother, regardless of the latter’s behavior. I am not afraid to admit I was not an angel child, but I also like to think she had many chances. Those hypotheticals started consuming me. I never felt comfortable sharing these thoughts with my adoptive family, instead bottling them up until I graduated high school and confessed that I wanted to find answers. For closure. For personal medical history. For fun. After all, my adoptive mother geeked out on unraveling her own genealogical roots – why couldn’t I, too?

Her response was cold. She eventually conceded, but she only cared that I did not send my biological family members, some of whom the investigator to my delight tracked down, financial support. There was no congratulations from her.

My relationship with my adoptive mother plummeted upon starting college. Not only did we have nothing to discuss over the phone or when I returned home for Christmas breaks, but I also realized our differences could not be reconciled. I remember receiving a text demanding I not join some protest in Chicago she found on the news, her threatening to yank me out of higher education if I participated. A couple times she drove out with a close friend of mine from back home to visit or help me move to a new apartment. She never asked how my studies were going but rather professed to my friends without me being there that she urged me to soon marry a white, rich male doctor, or that my friend’s shared indulgence in dessert at a restaurant en route to Chicago consoled her because I would never do that with her.

My adoptive mother suffered in her marriage for years. Funnily enough, I maintain a semi-normal but not-too-close relationship with my father. Her purpose did not stretch beyond being household manager, as she lacked outside employment for almost my entire life. Her brother committed suicide when I was young. I still remember that phone call haunting her in our driveway one weekend evening, my dad not knowing what to say yet knowing there was nothing really to say. Her mom unexpectedly died shortly before I left for college. Total powerlessness.

But I cannot forgive her for wanting that same life for me. College marked the first time I went a day without witnessing her tantrums. It was a foreign yet fresh breath of air. Yet she insists I follow similar footsteps: marry a well-off, average white guy, have kids (that was always a “when” rather than an “if”), and well, maybe end up cheating anyway, like her own mother almost did.

It was a balmy, rainy Midwest day when I graduated college. My parents and my dad’s close (male) friend came to celebrate. I was one of few who did not acknowledge my family until the day-long ceremony came to a close, not until I Uber’ed to meet them that evening at an Edgewater restaurant, miles from the South Side neighborhood I called home. My dad revealed months later that he sensed my uneasiness on that day.

Until this point I tolerated my mom’s behavior toward me as well as her distasteful online persona. I did not want to play Twitter police. But her interactions with a particular man were too unsettling to ignore. For much of that year my frustration boiled, until I finally had cold, hard proof that she cheated on my father with a random dude with whom she exchanged DMs for months. I will spare further details and say that I broke the news to my dad, and, for the most part, contact with my mom.

My biological mother relinquished me, and in a way so did my adoptive mother. I have no plans to rectify this. This would be futile. I do not wish to hurt anyone, nor do I feel either woman is evil. Mother’s Day pricks me with rootlessness, and I will not succumb to this commercialized holiday. I hope that anyone else who struggles with family holidays knows it is okay to feel that way.