Letters from a Greenish Lumpy-Skinned Fruit

[Contains references to fictional people who have died, including a newborn.]

Dearest Mum,

It’s weird writing to you - as you passed on years ago - but it’s a writing class exercise, so here goes. Life is pretty much OK these days. My admin job’s going great, relationship ditto, kids also (grown up now), grandkids chaotic but great, too. Not sure how your life is, Mum, wherever you are. (Joke!)

Stella XXX

Dear Mum,

All these years later, huh? Memories keep dribbling in…

Stella XXX

Dear Mum,

I can’t believe you gave up on me.

Stella XX

Dear Mum,

I know I could never live up to your expectations, the daughter you wanted, but I really did try, you know?

Stella XX

Dear Mum,

You wanted me to be a delicate, beautiful, pink peony, dependent on you as the gardener, to grow in a certain way. What you got instead was me. A green (sometimes blackish), dumpy, rough-skinned avocado. (Heck, most people don’t even realise avocadoes are fruit, not vegetables. Life-long identify crisis!) No wonder you were always disappointed in me.

Stella X

Hi Mum,

Of course, what you need to remember is that I am a product of Dad and you! So it wasn’t exactly my fault that I turned out the way I did, right?

Stella

Hi Mum,

I wonder what my twin sister would’ve been like if she’d lived beyond those six hours….Poor little thing.

Stella

Mum,

You once told me, ‘The wrong twin died. I’ve known that for years.’

Well, thank you very, very much. Deep in my bones, I knew that’s what you thought.

Stella

Mum,

I’ve carried the burden of that my whole life.

Stella

Mum,

Now it’s time to tell you something. I haven’t been known as ‘Stella’ for ages. ‘Stella Grey’. No way. Stella Grey, no way, Stella Grey no way! Suzie, that’s my name. Suzie!

Amelia,

You haven’t felt like my mum since you told me that ‘wrong twin’ thing. No mother should ever tell her remaining daughter that. So instead of calling you ‘Mum’ I’m now calling you by your name instead.

Suzie

Amelia,

I gave you the chance for years to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘I didn’t mean it.’ Years, years, years of my life. Waiting. You never apologised. You didn’t even pretend.

Suzie

Amelia,

My head hurts.

Suzie

Amelia,

My heart hurts.

Suzie

Amelia,

When children are tiny they know if their mothers love them or not. But the strange thing is, even if they feel she doesn’t, the child keeps striving, striving, to earn that love. That’s what I did. And it never worked, did it? I was never enough for you!

Suzie

Amelia,

So what did I do that was so bad? Tell me! I’d have done anything to please you. I always tried so hard to be The Good Girl - at school, at Sunday School, at other people’s houses, and (usually) at home. But you wanted ‘perfect’, didn’t you?

Suzie

Amelia,

I remember how you told me loads of times over the years that you’d wanted a cuddly baby, one that you could hold after you’d done the housework and just snuggle in together, an adored baby with her adored mother. Instead you got me! A premature baby focussed on survival, who no doubt missed the bodily presence of her sister, and who had been in intensive care for six weeks, and came home to a clinging, judgmental, possessive mother. No wonder my body went rigid whenever you picked me up. No wonder I screamed. But it wasn’t my fault!

Suzie

Amelia,

Of course, there is a big fat joke here. If I had been the baby who died, and if my twin sister had survived instead, how did you know she’d turn out to be the daughter you craved?

Suzie

Amelia,

She could’ve turned out even worse than me. (Joke!)

Suzie

Mum,

Time has got away from me. Work stuff, family stuff, a few dramas. And it’s all prodded at me to keep thinking through all this. Your ‘best’, as my mother, wasn’t very good, in my opinion. But I suppose it was the best you were capable of. Which is all any of us can ever do….

Suzie

Mum,

You made the ‘me’ that started out in life, and your lack of approval (let’s call it that) influenced me for years. Then I took over. I learned, I observed - myself, you, others. I became more aware. I grew. Now, at last, I rather like who I am. (I just need to get rid of these residual feelings of hurt. Rejection.)

Suzie

Mum,

So maybe I can now thank you for helping me become this person that I like. This Suzie.

Mum,

Well I’m getting on a bit in years. How did that happen? (Joke!) Looks like, statistically, I’ll be joining you and my baby twin sooner rather than later. Maybe the three of us will be able to start from scratch and be, well, kind of friends? Is that a bizarre wish?

Suzie

Mum,

Have you actually met up with my sister, wherever you are? Is she still like a newborn baby? Or is she like a grownup? Or aren’t you ‘human’ at all, any more? I wish I knew what it was like there…

Suzie

PS: You know I’m just being fanciful, of course.

Mum,

I said in an earlier letter that my relationship is great. It is, even though it’s a damn hard slog sometimes. I take offence easily (he says the same as you used to tell me: ‘You’re hypersensitive!’ Well, is that surprising, considering you were always criticising me?) You and Dad always got on pretty well. What helped, I wonder? Wish I could get some tips from you about your marriage.

Suzie

Mum,

The kids. All grown up and left home, of course. When we started out we had no idea that bringing up children was such a minefield of uncertainties and mistakes and heartaches. (And they’re discovering that for themselves now, too.) Was that the same for you and Dad?

Suzie

Mum,

It’s hit me at last, the grief you must’ve felt when you lost one of your babies. I guess I was always thinking about how it affected me, rather than also realising how devastated you must’ve been. No counselling back then. You just had to get on with life. Your grief, then your ongoing disappointment in me, coloured your whole life. You really weren’t a contented woman, were you?

Suzie

Mum,

You said to me numerous times, in these exact words, ‘Well you can never say you weren’t wanted!’ Almost like you were arguing with me. Or with yourself? But then you’d launch into reminiscences about how as a young girl you would walk miles to get to people’s houses, so you could stroll their babies in their prams. So that’s how you built up your dreams of being a mother, and of the gorgeous babies you’d have one day. You knew who and what you wanted. Thing is, you didn’t like what and who you got - me.

Suzie

Mum,

Ok so it’s been a while since the last letter. Something I’ve been thinking about is this. If it’s true that we all come into this life to learn and grow, how much learning and growing did you do? And how much have I done? (And still have to do?)

Suzie

Mum,

In the ‘next life’, are you still learning and growing? What do you think, now, about your attempts at being my mother?

Suzie

Mum,

If people really do connect ‘in spirit’, then when I pass on, what will you and I talk about? Will we even talk?

Suzie

Mum,

I’ve been doing a lot more reflecting since my last letter. About you, about me, about our family back then. And although I’m a grandmother, I feel that through writing these letters, I’ve finally grown up. As you and I both did the best we knew how, can we call it quits?

Suzie

Mum,

I read about a Hawaiian family healing ritual. Profound. I’ll get back to you.

Dear Mum,

So it’s taken me a few days to think that Hawaiian thing through (I can’t spell the name without googling it - starts with H and has lots of o’s) and at long last I can say it. To you, Mum. From my heart.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

I love you.

Thank you.

Love from Suzie (a.k.a. Stella) XXX