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A friend of mine has recently come through her third bout of breast cancer.  She's not out of the woods yet.  The though of losing her has me thinking that if something were to happen to me, my son would for better or worse not have had a chance to talk to me again or for me to say Goodbye to him. 

I am thinking of putting together a video and leaving it with my will.

Now, what to say.

There is a saying in public speaking "Be Good, Be Brief". 

I'm going to try to whittle down my life experience into 3 lessons or pieces of advice for him.  I'll have to give it some thought, but I thought that maybe the wise ladies here might have some suggestions for me.

What 3 "life lessons" or pieces of advice would you leave to your estranged adult children?  This would be in addition to the sentiments that "this is not the way I thought things would work out".

CP

I was in a shopping center today......the posters, perfume boxes piled high in the stores near the huge posters of smiling Mothers being given gifts and flowers had me murmuring "Whoop-de-doo" under my breath. 

My son and I have been estranged for 4 years.  I do not check anyone's Facebook page, and don't know where he is, what he's doing or how his life has unfolded in that timeframe.  There are 4 days of the year that bring the memories flooding back, and on Christmas Day I watch other happy families with a powerful mixture of envy and regret, Mother's Day is a day that I try to celebrate with myself, to honor everything that I tried to do (and hoped and expected that things would work out, although that hasn't happened) and his birthday (right after Mother's Day) and my birthday later in the year.  Those days and the lack of contact in any way are like a giant theatre where the seats are totally empty and the silence is deafening in a space where joy, laughter and applause should be ringing out.  In the first year or two, my blood pressure was well into stroke and heart attack territory, but thankfully that has settled down as the years have passed.

My aunt gave me some advice at the time of the break, I poured out my heart to her and she told me in that wise, calm voice that has listened to my tales of woe and whoopee over the decades, "I hate to have to tell you this, but that's life.   Sometimes you don't get what you thought you would, expected you would and felt deserving of".

That's it, I thought to myself? "That's life?"

I don't remember signing up for that, I signed up for "I have a plan, and I always achieve my goals once I set up the plan".  At an advanced age I found out that life can throw you all kinds of curveballs, the sudden death of a beloved after a sudden cancer diagnosis three weeks earlier, sinkholes in Florida that are sucking in cars and houses and even unfortunate people and so many other disasters recently in the news involving a lost plane in the Pacific and the ferry disaster with horrible loss of life in South Korea.  The unexpected outcome when the "That's life" fairy shakes out those dark tragic sprinkles is a subtle reminder that we are all just a heartbeat away from a major tragedy of some sort.

I met some other wise women some months ago and we shared our tales of relationships with our adult children, some rocky and tempestuous and some of the deafening silence like mine.  One woman told me, "You'll always be his Mom, and everyone needs their Mom", another woman whose relationship with her two sons had evolved from a place of constant strife to a more stable relationship told me "Pray for him.  The power of prayer is enormous".  I've never considered myself a deeply religious person, I'm more of the recovering Catholic type, (gotta say that Pope Francis is tempting me to give the Catholic Church a second chance....but I'm digressing.)  I decided to take her advice and pray for my son.  Every morning when I open my eyes I send him a short prayer that goes "I don't know where you are, or what you are doing, but I hope that somehow these vibrations will be go out into the universe and find you and that your life will be just a little bit better for it."  I say the same prayer at night just before I close my eyes.

I don't have any expectations, but perhaps one day the universe will unfold in such a way that we'll be in touch and we'll have a relationship of some type.  If those days should ever come to pass I know it will take a long time and a lot of effort on both parts to rebuilt ties of trust that went up in flames like a dozen cords of wood thrown on a campfire.

I've heard that the cockpit voice recorder has often heard the words of a pilot (or two) whose last words are "I love you, Mom" just before they crash into the ground.  It's a powerful testament to the bond that was forged at birth.

This Mother's Day, I'll go for a walk, find a nice park, maybe buy myself a nice meal or a whole cheesecake to bring home and eat for a week.  It might not be fancy or expensive but I'll remember the good times and fun that we did have when he was growing up and trust that perhaps some day those prayers might just nudge the universe evolving into a slightly different direction from where it is now.

I hope you'll take time on Mother's Day to give yourself a pat on the back no matter where your relationship with your adult children stands.  Being a parent is the most difficult job in the world and much of the time I felt as if I were struggling along trying to figure out the best thing to do for him and to still have an identity and life as an individual.  I never wanted to wind up like some women I had met whose lives were a constant stream of daily phone calls to their adult children because they hadn't filled their life with any type of interests or hobbies of their own and now they were lonely and were grasping for a new purpose in life.

It was a difficult balancing act, I used to feel as as if I was inching my way down a path at the edge of a cliff at midnight (without a full moon of course) trying to be a really good mother but also trying to carve out some time to be a person who had a life of their own, as well as being the breadwinner and everything else that being a single parent entails.

This scene from the movie Parenthood always reminds me of the constant feeling of inching along on a tightrope strung over over Niagara Falls (and my name is not Wallenda) from those days when I first became a Mother. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z18vJwmxFFY

Hope you'll be able to get through the days leading up to Mother's Day without any types of regrets and that you'll find a way to add some joy into your life on the day itself no matter what your relationship is like with your adult children.

'Cause ya know, that's life!  I recommend the chocolate cheesecake, have it for breakfast for a week.

CP

This Christmas was the worst one I've had in a long time......I'm no longer in touch with my son, it's been about 4 years.  We had a close relationship that overcame some incredible obstacles until he became engaged and then his bride-to-be made it clear that she would determine how high he would jump to do whatever it took to make her happy and then played that game with me too.  I declined to jump and after some major hostilities, (some of my doing in response to some passive aggressive behaviour) the relationship was severed. 

I was a single mother, and struggled to get everything done, and pay all the bills.  I thought I had done a pretty good job, and his bride-to-be once said to me "He has you on this pedestal".  I said to myself "Well, sister, I earned it".  The problem with being on a pedestal is that once you get knocked down, it's a long way down. 

I have always found Christmas the last few years to be a sad time, it seems to bring everything up to the surface, and listening to the Christmas carols (that seem to be everywhere) and watching other families was pretty tough.

CP

Hello everyone, I'm like many of the women here who brought up my son on my own, and rarely had a minute to myself or a penny in my purse.  I now finds myself the target of his hostility/animosity as he's now an adult with a household of his own.  After some major and minor hostilities, we are no longer in touch.  I don't know if he's dumping his hostility towards his father on me or if he's punishing me for marrying the man who was his father, when he felt like it, on his terms who continually told my son how horrible I was from the first few days I decided to make a life for myself without him.

Everyone once in a while, the Guilt Monster will arrive at my door, triggered by some event or another.  It's been an ongoing battle to not let him take over my house.  I find it particularly hard when attending a party where a large and happy family hugs and kisses everyone just before leaving.  It's a mixture of envy and regret that overcomes me, although the express of love that all these people have for each other, still warms my heart.  It's a continuing reminder that I don't have events like this.

One of my best friends said to me "One out of three is still one".  I think of myself in a lifeboat, with my son, and his father in the water fighting with each other.  Neither one decides that it's better to sit in the lifeboat than it is to battle each other.  Maybe some day that will change but from time to time when fighting guilt I imagine myself safe and sound in the life boat.  I'm not jumping in the water, although there are days, when I grip the side of the boat when others try to get me into the water.

Nice to know I'm not the only one in the same boat.

C.P.