Reflections on being Leanne's mother

My daughter Leanne just had her 46th birthday on the 23rd of December. I don't talk about my daughter much because it is too painful.  I am her mother and we mothers, well, we feel responsible for how kids turn out, even when they have mental illness and even when they are 46 years old.

We planned to meet this year on her birthday. I got her some sweaters and went down to the facility where she lives to meet her. She was not there and after waiting a while, I left a note with the bag of things I had brought for her and drove home. This is not particularly uncommon, for her not to show up.  It is one reason I don't see her often. She is hard to reach by phone or in person.  And I hate the whole parking thing in Seattle. When she called me that night at 8pm or so she said she forgot I was coming but could I come back the next day. I said I would come back on Christmas in two days.

On Christmas day I called on my way to meet her and she met me out front of her building where she lives with other people who like her have HIV/AIDS and are mentally ill. The staff help her to take her meds every day and help with other facets of her life. She has lived there and previously at another similar place for the last 15 years or so. 

When I picked her up we went downtown to have brunch.  We found one place open and had to go in the back door. On our way in a woman asked for money to buy a hotdog across the street. Since I live on social security I said no, I didn't have anything extra. Leanne had breakfast and I had coffee.   I noticed she did not have on either of the sweaters I had left for her on her birthday nor did she have on the new shoes she said she was going to get on her birthday. She was also not wearing the jacket I had given her in September when her brother Mark was visiting from Kansas City and we went to see her.  I asked her about these things and she said yes, she got the sweaters, yes she got the shoes and still had the jacket but the shoes and jacket were dirty. My fear was that she had sold or traded them for drugs.

She also asked me for ten dollars, which is nothing new. But her caseworkers have told me not to give her money or anything she can trade or sell. 

We talked. I had taken her baby book to show her pictures of when she was a pretty little girl. She is not a pretty girl now. Her teeth are gone, her skin is sallow, her hair is dull, she looks older than I do. But she is my little girl. And I was very sad.

We left the restaurant when they closed at 2pm. We went by a group of young men and she stopped to get a light for her cigarette. I heard something about a "dime" and asked her if they charged her for the light. She said, "No, they are drug sellers, selling cocaine."  Then I felt very sad again, and when we got in the car she said, to assure me, "I wanted the ten dollars to buy cigarettes."  As if I would buy cigarettes.

I dropped her off at her building and drove home. I was screaming inside and my heart was crying. A heavy darkness overtook me that did not leave for many days.  It never really goes away completely.

I am not sure I can do it next Christmas. I am not sure I can see her again. But I always think that and I always go back.  Because she is my daughter, my little girl.  She needs to know her mother loves her, no matter what. I guess it is the most important and costly gift I have to give.