Forgive Me, Ummy!

 I forgive you, Ummy! I hope you will forgive me as well! I know I was rude and harsh towards you. As were you towards me. I'm convinced now that we lived in the wrong time and wrong place. Maybe in another world, we might have a healthy mother-daughter relationship that we didn’t get in this world!

Forgive me for being away from you and for not taking care of you anymore! I wanted to do my bit till the end but they didn’t allow me. My grandmother prevented me from having you back to your house in Luxor. She said she wouldn’t let you out of the family house in Aswan. She asked her male children to keep you there even after she died.

What could I do, Ummy? Even my siblings didn’t say a word. If they had talked to her, they could have softened her up. They didn’t speak up. You are our mother and we have the right to spend some time with you in your house whenever we’re available. The house does feel differently without you being there.

That moment when I asked my grandmother to take you with me home and she said: "No." Then, she asked you whether you were happy there. You answered with that "bland yeah". I could see in your eyes that you didn’t like it. You didn’t like that another person was making decisions in your name. You were a woman who always led her life independently. Maybe you had to because there was nobody by your side, even your family who is saying what you can or can’t do now.

You decided to take care of us on your own, instead of throwing us away. You stood up for yourself and for us. You did all you could. I’m sorry for expecting you to live up to my expectations as a mother, forgetting how challenging it was for you to deal with all of that. Having to be a mother and a father was a heavy burden. Meeting our financial and emotional needs was a difficult mission. I was selfish and rude and now, it might be too late. All of that might not make sense to you.

I regret that I never told you how important you were to me. How safe I felt by having you and knowing that you were around, no matter how far we were physically and emotionally from each other. I felt secure that I could call you and ask for your help anytime. You were a good woman and you tried your best to be a good mother. It just didn’t work the way you and I needed. You were a traditional mother and woman. A woman of your time and culture. Now, I understand that and I forgive you and ask you, please forgive me!

I believe that your dementia is symbolic of the difficulties you had to go through on your own. They say that Allah wanted to make you forget that harsh past. But why does forgetting have to be this way? Why does it have to be with losing control of your life, not even being able to dress yourself up or having a subtle conversation with us?

I also come to a conclusion that I’ve been better at building relationships with females than with males, which was what my ex used against me, mainly because I was subconsciously looking for a mother. I was searching for a substitute for the turns and twists of our relationship. I was on the lookout for a mother I could confide in without fearing her reactions. I knew I could lean on you. However, I wasn't sure how to let you accept and respect the way I was, without forcing me to follow you or to copy someone else. I didn't know how to tell you I was changing day after day and that I stopped believing in things you believed in anymore without destroying what was left of our relationship.

I’m setting off my healing journey and my first step before embarking is to ask for your forgiveness. Forgive me, Ummy! I hope we will return to another world! In another world where you don’t have dementia and I can hear well, living together peacefully and forming a close bond as a mother and a daughter.