My Best Friend, The Void

Moving from the need to forgive to the freedom of acceptance.

I was fifteen when my mother left. Sitting on the couch, I watched her come into the house, exchange a look with my father, and start crying. I thought I knew what was gonna happen next. But then she uttered the words - “would you like to meet him?” - and that was the end of it all. She left a few days before my birthday in 2010. She died July 17th, 2023. I saw her once for approximately five minutes in between, I couldn’t stand the sight of her. I didn’t go to the funeral.

She had, supposedly, gone to a birthday party over the weekend while my dad was on a business trip. He was supposed to be out until Sunday but he decided to surprise us and come back home sooner. He arrived Saturday afternoon to find her missing. So he took us out for dinner that night. I remember that feeling like such a treat, we rarely did it - I was so happy. That ended pretty fast when later that night he revealed that my mother was having an affair.

I thought I understood what that meant. “I’m not a child anymore, I’m fifteen years old” - I thought to myself. I had seen similar situations in movies - they were simply going to get a divorce, go their separate ways and I would be spending time with each individually. I wasn’t angry at her, I had resigned to what was to come, I was sad.

Sunday afternoon came in the blink of an eye. When she started crying in front of the door, I knew she knew I knew. She started apologizing and trying to explain. Sadness started taking over me, I didn’t like seeing her like that. She decided to leave but before she left, she said something I will never forget: “he’s outside, would you like to meet him?” Anger boiled up from my chest to my throat. I was suddenly choking on this massive lump that appeared out of nowhere. My whole body was shaking. Then suddenly, snap! The heat disappeared. The lump vanished. My body was still. I wasn’t angry anymore, I felt nothing. I looked at her and replied “please leave.” That’s when the void moved in, it became my best friend.

A few days passed and it felt like life was back to normal, she simply was no longer part of “normal.” I had to start doing a lot more around the house, but I just saw that as part of becoming an adult. Never blamed her for it. The void made sure I never thought about her after she left, it was too painful. She made it easy, she never reached out.

I told this story on a date when I was 18. I remember her reaction so well. She teared up and said - “how do you not cry yourself to sleep every night?” - I smiled and replied - “there is nothing to cry about.” Looking back, I used to be a huge cry baby when I was a kid. I would easily start crying if my brother beat me in a game. To this day, ever since she left, I cried once - at my grandmother’s funeral.

Around 2017/18 I met her in a grocery store. The void was not strong enough to hold back all the resentment. All the anger that I had shoved deep down came rushing back. All the fibers in my body wanted me to get away, to shout at her, to do something. We talked briefly for around five minutes, mostly small talk - “How are you? How have you been?” I’ve never cursed someone so much in my head - I gave her short, polite answers, took her number which she offered and I walked away. Found a place to hide and stayed there until I was sure she was gone.

It took awhile for the anger to settle down, which allowed the void to kick in again. A few days after everything was back to “normal.” Life went on. I decided to save her contact to be able to reject the call in case she ever reached out. She never did.

A few years after, I had already moved to London, I got a call telling me she was sick. She had been diagnosed with cancer. I felt indifference. Not fully true, I felt that familiar resentment pop up because we were talking about her. The void was still on duty at the time, protecting me, making sure I never thought about her. Keeping all the unprocessed, repressed emotions deep down so my life could go on as “normal.”

I was a kid, of course I didn’t want to meet the man she cheated on my father with. Of course I was upset. Why did she have to utter those words!? So many years went by after. To never pick up the phone and try to call. To never send a cheesy happy birthday message. To just give up on us like that…

Looking back I think that is what hurt the most - she just gave up. Her love was not strong enough to make her fight. And of course I didn’t make it easy on her, I hated her for what she had done. I was too dumb to see anything beyond it. She allowed that hatred to win.

In 2023 it happened, I got a call to tell me she had died. I had a decision to make - fly back and attend the funeral, or stay in London. After a quick look at flight prices I decided to stay. I wasn’t ready to face her. I wasn’t ready to face the resentment I still felt every time her name came up.

A few months ago, I was journaling about gratitude. I was writing about things that happened in the past that I was grateful for and suddenly it hit me. If I love who I am now, I have to be grateful for everything that has happened to me - for those experiences led me to be the person I am today.

To love my life meant being grateful to the woman who walked away when I was fifteen. For being my mother over the first fifteen years of my life. And for not being there for the last fifteen. It meant being grateful for that day when it all happened. Being grateful she uttered the words I will never be able to forget.

As the ink carved the thought into the paper, a weight on my chest grew increasingly heavy. The math was undeniable, but my body wanted nothing to do with it. As I finished writing, I could no longer hold the pen. It had suddenly become too heavy.

After that, I started thinking more and more about forgiveness. It was the only way I saw to bridge the gap. But now, after so many years I’m finally starting to understand it. There never was anything for me to forgive. I realized that, for all this time, I was refusing to see her for who she was.

I went to visit her grave for the first time after Christmas. So many years had passed since the last time I saw her. There was a picture of her on the gravestone - I didn’t recognize the person I was looking at. I hadn’t known her when she left, and she went on to live another 13 years after. I stood there looking at her grave as if looking at the grave of a stranger.

I had a bit of anxiety before going. I wasn’t sure how I would feel when I faced it. I checked inside for the old anger. I waited for the lump in my throat. But having since made peace with the void - having invited that dark, repressed part of me to sit at the table instead of locking it in the basement - I found only silence. It was the quiet of knowing. There was no sinking feeling, no change in the heartbeat. I stood there looking at her grave, fully present, feeling absolutely nothing.

The mother my fifteen-year-old self had envisioned would never be able to utter those words. I believed she loved me and would always be there - even when it wasn’t easy. But she was her own person, not this creation I had made up. She was going through her journey - she was the main character of her own story. I just couldn’t accept it - the dissonance between the two was too far apart. She was not living up to the standard of what I had been taught a mother should be.

I’ve mostly been able to let go of the need to forgive and since have been trying to accept her for who she was and the decisions she made. Even if they were very painful ones - they were her choices to make. But that is easier said than done. Once again, I’m at the intersection where rationally I understand it, but the body keeps the score. I have a long way to go. From plateau to plateau the climb continues.

I’ve learned recently that a part of me is grieving. Over the past few months I noticed this very subtle feeling something was missing - that I was owed something. But that debt doesn’t really exist. The universe doesn’t owe us anything. Life just happens.