Hi Rachel. So sorry for the loss of your mother. I also wonder that. My mother died over 9 years ago. I love her, and hope she is in a good place. I always wanted good for her. We did not have any relationship for about 8 years before she died, then she became very ill and lingered for months. She wanted myself and my siblings to come to her bedside, but I couldn’t and didn’t. Another of my siblings also did not. I still feel that I made the right choice for myself. My mother was a mean drunk. She had her reasons for being miserable, but none of them seemed worth all that misery. My siblings and I survived her madness, but unfortunately the relationships that I have with my siblings have suffered. I guess there has to be some, (what is the word?) dysfunction when being raised during so much emotional distress on a daily basis. All my siblings and I are successful, but have struggled in many ways with our personal relationships between ourselves and our own families (I am married to an addict). But, I feel that I lost my mother years before she died. I had already lost and grieved her during those so difficult living years. It still surprises me that she lived as long as she did (78), as I expected her to drink herself to death years before. My she rest in peace, finally free from the grip of alcoholism.
