awkward

How do I respond to a friend, pleasant acquaintance or stranger who stops me after church or pops off a note with glowing comments about "what a wonderful relationship you had with your mother!"  

How do I respond, truthfully?  In many ways, it was wonderful.  But it was massively challenged, too.   In ways that were hard on both of us.

To her dying day, Mom was never truly comfortable with me.  Not like she was with my older siblings.  She never had to worry about them asking her about things she didn't want to look at, let alone answer.  She never had to fret about them taking her out of her long-established comfort zone.  They understood & played out their roles, she played out hers.  Life was as it had always been.

It's not comfy cozy, being a goad.  Which I was.  No one likes to be goaded.  Especially my mother, the anti-goad.  She was all about preserving the status quo, while I was about blowing up the bits the seemed useless, didn't work or did actual harm.  We were constantly colliding.  

How to get through all that without seeing their eyes glaze over or suspect they stopped reading my reply?  Because the last part is crucial.  In the end, something special came out of countless challenged difficult painful moments, beginning with our mutual determination to stick it out.  At the end of her lifetime, Mom finally had a sense of the person she was, not just as someone who helped others get what they wanted.  She learned it was okay to stand on your own two feet, to speak your own mind, even to ask for what you wanted - and it was okay if the answer was NO.  

Mom didn't get there because I pushed her.  She got there because I helped get obstacles out of HER way.  But it was always her path.  Whether it went in one direction or another was up to her, not me, not my siblings.  It was up to her.  

But it didn't make for a comfy relationship between the two of us.  Although nothing Mom wrote reflected conflict - one of the few things she truly loathed - it was a constant.  But that was our reality & we got through it, or at least didn't let it ruin what we had.

See why I ponder how to respond when others say, "If I had as good a relationship with my mother as you had with yours..."  Am tempted to give a quick smile in reply - but that sort of is a bit like a lie.  But giving a more honest answer is at best long, at worst convoluted.  Whatever answer I give, it's AWKWARD!!!!