Grieving the Mother I Never Had

It is a strange kind of grief that arises when an abusive mother dies.

I call it naked grief—Raw, uncensored. 

It is not a simple grief. It is not only sadness. It is a difficult mixture to explain — sadness, anger, sorrow… and also sorrow for the mother you never had.

When a mother who manipulated the dynamics of an entire family dies, what one feels often does not resemble the traditional grief people expect to see. Sometimes sadness is not even the main emotion.

What is mourned, many times, is not the woman who truly existed, but the loving and caring mother you deserved to have — and never did.

Death also closes forever any possibility of change.

It closes the door to an apology that never came.

To a reconciliation that never happened.

To the hope — however small — that one day the truth might be acknowledged.

And when that door closes for good, pain and anger can return with unexpected force.

There are also contradictory emotions. There can be relief — relief in knowing that the abuse, the lies, and the manipulation have finally ended.

But that relief can also exist alongside a deep sadness — sadness for the loss of the idealized mother, and for the painful realization that the family that remains may never come to know the truth.

When a mother lies, distorts facts, turns the family against you — or sexualizes you and commits sexual violence against you — her death can bring to the surface a profound sense of injustice.

The injustice of watching the distorted reality she created continue to endure.

There is no “correct” way to grieve.

And there is no “correct” way to feel.

I do not owe anyone a conventional display of sadness, ceremony, or farewell — especially when the relationship was marked by abuse.

The damage has already been done. And I was deeply wounded.

The family and friends of hers who rejected me after being manipulated — who abandoned me when I most needed support, when I had to go to police stations, to the Medical Examiner’s office, deal with burial arrangements and bureaucracies, and face all of it practically alone — do not have the right to judge me now for choosing a simple burial, just for the two of us.

My last conversation with her was private, away from the people who shunned me for years.

If they wish to crucify me for that, let them.

You do not know the truth. And honestly, even if I told it, I know you would not believe it.

All I know is that I am suffering.

I suffer for the mother I idealized and never had.

I suffer for the friends who turned against me because of her.

I suffer for the loss of my family.

And above all, I suffer for the irreparable loss of my firstborn son. Not loss by death, but a much deeper and painful loss. Loss of his love, his affection, his respect. Loss by abandonment—his abandoning me.

Suddenly I remember... After my father died, my mother and I were walking along Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana, one of the main streets in Copacabana, in Rio de Janeiro.

At one point in the conversation, I mentioned that I remembered almost everything from my life with vivid detail.

She suddenly gripped my arm, hard enough to make us stop in the middle of the sidewalk. She looked at me and said:

“You must never tell. If you do, I will deny it until the end. And, they won't believe you. They'll already be on my side.”

I was already past fifty years of age. Even so, that gesture and those words intimidated me. I stood there paralyzed, in silence, trying to understand what she meant.

At that moment, I did not yet know that in the years that followed, many of the things and people I loved would slowly be taken away from me.

That day, on Rua Nossa Senhora de Copacabana, I had not realized the progound meaning of those words, or that those words were in fact a warning of what was to come.

—~—~—

Art by Marie Bonet. This piece was drawn using graphite on watercolor paper and originally titled "Soledad." It was then digitized, stylized, and modified with the help of AI to bring forth this particular female archetype.