The Power of Letting Go

Accepting what can, and can’t, be fixed

Photo by Aleksandr Ledogorov on Unsplash

Hi friends, I hope all goes well with you. I haven’t written any flash memoir pieces for a couple of months as I have had a busy time. And I have been feeling reluctant to keep going back and poking at the past that I have already done a lot of work to get over. I am seeking to understand the things that happened and how they shaped me, and I think writing reflective essays like these helps me do that, whereas the flash memoir pieces I’ve shared behind the paywall, don’t.

There is one incident that keeps coming back to me lately. The one that instigated the first estrangement I had from my family, which went on for seven months.

It was in 2011 and at the time I was living in Ealing, in West London, and my mother and stepfather were still living in my hometown of Reading, about 30 miles away. Things were strained and difficult and we didn’t see them often but had felt like it was time for a duty visit, so we invited them for dinner.

My husband is the cook in our house and he was busy in the kitchen when I returned home from an acupuncture appointment at about 4PM, feeling revived and energised by the treatment I’d had. It was sunny and light and the feeling of Spring coming was in the air. Music was playing and we poured ourselves an early drink to fortify ourselves for the evening ahead. We danced in the kitchen as we prepared the food and table. We were having a nice time.

When they arrived things were pleasant enough for about half an hour. There was a table in the kitchen which had a big bench seat on one side and chairs on the other, and they were sat on the bench facing us as we sorted out the meal. Then something set my mother off. I can’t recall exactly what it was now but it was probably something to do with her sister, my Auntie Kath, who also lived in West London not far from me, and who my mother hadn’t spoken to since 1987 when their parents died.

Before my grandparents, who had been living with us since I was ten, died, I was close to my aunts, uncles and cousins, seeing them regularly and often staying with them for weeks in the school summer holidays. Then my Nana died in January 1987, and my Grandad in February 1987, and my mother argued with her two sisters and brother over the will and they never really spoke again. I was fourteen then and I never saw any of them again. Until 2009 when my Auntie Pam got in touch with my mother and instigated a reconciliation. I was reunited with Pam and Kath and now saw them, and my cousins, regularly again.

The attempted reconciliation with my mother didn’t work and she didn’t like that I was friendly with them. Whatever story she was telling herself in her head about it in that moment in our kitchen, made her furious and it came bursting out of her. She slammed her hands repeatedly on the wooden table, virtually incomprehensible vitriol about her three siblings poured from her lips. My stepfather sat beside her looking self righteous, as if it was fine for her to behave like this.

My husband looked at me with resignation. He was well used to this kind of thing. Most times when she behaved like this, I’d start shouting back. This was the behaviour I’d learned growing up and I was stuck in it. But I didn’t shout. I just stood there until she wore herself out then I asked her to leave. In a completely calm and even tone told her that to behave like this in our home when we’d invited them for dinner was rude and unacceptable. So they had to go.

My words seemed to echo in the stunned silence. I’m not sure who of the four of us was most shocked that I’d a) said it, and b) been so reasonable when saying it. They gathered their things and left.

The next day she rang but I ignored the call. Knew it would not be a positive interaction. We couldn’t have proper conversations about things that mattered. Anytime I tried to address the problems in our relationship it went one of two ways — accusations and blame dropped in my lap, or hysterical crying about what a terrible mother she was. I was tired of it. So I decided to write her a letter. In it, I wrote from the heart about how I felt about our relationship. I didn’t lay blame but said I wanted to find a way for us to make things better. For her to recognise I was a grown woman with a life of my own, and for me to stop responding like the teenager they still treated me like whenever we were together. For us both to try and get beyond the patterns we’d got stuck in.

There was no response to this letter. I didn’t hear from her for a couple of weeks, which was unheard of as she’d previously be ringing and emailing every day. Then she rang. And I answered. And she acted like nothing had happened. So I asked if she’d received the letter and she said something I’ve never forgotten:

“Yes, I got your little letter and I wasn’t going to say anything about it because if there’s anything wrong with our relationship then it’s all your fault.”

So I told her that statement just confirmed everything that I said in the letter and she shouldn’t contact me again until she could talk to me properly about it. Then I hung up. And I didn’t hear from her again for six or seven months. I grieved in that time. For the relationship I’d always wanted and would never have. I’d just started to feel better. Despite the sadness, life was the most peaceful it had ever been. Then she rang and that part of my heart that always wanted to believe things could be fixed, that she would love me, jumped for joy and made me ignore the part telling me that nothing would have changed.

So I obviously needed to learn something more by being involved with them for another five years before breaking away, and staying away. I’m not completely sure what that is yet. But I think it’s about learning to love, myself, and others, with an open heart. Learning that happiness and peace of mind is possible despite the circumstances I grew up in, and that by staying in touch with them, I’d never be able to find it.

Like Thich Nhat Hahn says:

If our parents didn’t love and understand each other, how are we to know what love looks like? There aren’t courses or classes in love. If the grown-ups know how to take care of each other, then the children who grow up in this environment will naturally know how to love, understand, and bring happiness to others. The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all.

Back then in 2011, I didn’t really know how to love properly but now I do. I think I needed to go back to my family again that time to really understand and accept that what I was inheriting from them held no value and happiness at all. Unlike the life I have now, which is rich indeed with joy, laughter and love. I don’t have children that will inherit anything from me, but I hope that what I leave with everyone I encounter is rich with those things too.

So I may, or may not, write more flash memoir pieces. I’m not going to try and make myself but if the urge to do so comes upon me, I will.

Tell me something about you — when did you do something that you knew probably wouldn’t turn out the way you wanted, but you can see now you needed to do it anyway to learn and grow?

With love,

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