the face of it

The door opens and then slams. She comes down and makes noises - little kind of noises like there has been an injustice. Noises that say 'Notice me - I want your full attention.' She decided that she was going to do a load of washng herself - but actually its all too much and she is sweating - why have i not read her mind and done it already.

She did not see the breakfast being made and cleared and surfaces bleached and the floor being swept. She did not go with me to do the shopping for the new water filter, special juice and meat, special bio food, rat poison, the chemist, then come back then find out what she wants then put everything away, give her a foot massage, put around the rat poison, prepare lunch, call the clinic, sort out the phone line, serve lunch, clean and put everything away again, get her an afternoon snack and listen to her fears of the next chemo and the operation and her ex and sooth her crying again and again and again until I wonder if tears are being absorbed by the humid atmosphere and having to force their way out. She only saw that I did not wash her towel before she pointed it out.

She wakes up and comes down and says 'when i do something I cant just leave it' jibe one, I ignore it. 'why did you not phone kristian back' jibe two. She walks past me three times more noises of injustice and seething.

Still saying silent prayers in my head she sits opposite me, over me and says 'Why didn't you bring your own computer down, I thought you said last time that you were going to.'

'Mum you were asleep and I am doing something now - for myself - I just need half an hour and then I can do everything.' I say calmly. Silence was the better option. She goes for it.

'You see!' she screeches, 'I cant say anything to you - I cant say anything and you just freak out' she says raising her voice.

I say nothing

She then goes up and slams a door, but needs the fight, wants the fight and comes out looking for it and says 'You cant take any criticism - you just want to make me feel bad for doing things for me, you just guilt trip me.If I am too much of a burden then just leave - I can look after myself.'

I sit there and watch - the hooks she uses to draw me in and the little chips she does to make me prickle. I watch this time - but this makes her angry. She wants me to say something - anything to fuel a fight so she goes and gets on the phone to my brother or father or someone and tells them that I am doing something to upset her. That I have said something that makes her feel ill. It happens a lot - like I am some malignant force in her life.

There is silence as I think of what to do - she must not sit up there in her anger and get more ill. I go up and ask is she ok. Silence. Then as I leave she starts again, over and over about what I said and how there was no need to say it and that it means I am trying to make her feel bad, make her feel sick. I see it is the insecurity driving her, the fear of being alone that makes her want to push me away and have control over me going. I see this because I used to do this with men - this kind of rejection due to insecurity that they do not love you enough. I see how angry it makes me - I see how normally i then try to tell her all i have done and how she then uses that as fuel - every last thing I have said is used for the next fight. Come to think of it any fight there is, is always a fight about the last fight and what i said or did not say - words dragged up and recycled as if 'time for myself' actually means 'you are a burden and I do not want to look after you' instead of just 'time for myself'.


I think I see - now having written it down - that this is a kind of bullying.

What I cannot see is why my own mother needs to do that to her only daughter. What I can't see is why the love I give is not enough and why in the end pushing me away and testing me constantly is all I know.

The evening ends with her screeching and me crying and her suddenly trying to hurt herself and getting the car keys and trying to leave in her nightdress in the night and me having to try and get her back to bed and calling for help - anyone help - please and stop her from hurting herself because I cannot anymore - but noone is there.

Is this the face of cancer?