Loving Like A Mommy

My first inspiration for “saying it with flowers” was my mother. She was a woman who welcomed a bouquet of long-stemmed roses in a way that a spoken “I love you” or a warm embrace never could be. It was as if, like wading into a patch of poison ivy, she believed words of endearment and full-body hugs might cause a rash that would overwhelm all her emotional defenses. As irrational as this seemed, it was not a risk she was willing to take. As such, “FTD Florist” became a code for what couldn’t, and never would, be said between us; in time, I learned to accept that in my relationship with my Mom, it was okay to let a floral arrangement stand in instead.

Later in my life, I began sending baskets of affection to other family members and friends. Even now, nearly eleven years after my mother’s death, this routine continues to delight me; it never grows old. And I probably receive as many vases of blooms as I ship. Best of all, perhaps, no one in my circle is allergic to hearing or voicing the “L” word.

So it was hardly surprising when one recent morning, after a phone conversation with a young pal in Albuquerque, I sought out the method that had always worked so well. She was a friend besieged by demands from a mentally-ill sister whose behavior had now spiraled out of control again. I whipped open my laptop. Poor Sarah,  she’s been doing this primary caregiver gig for nearly twenty years! I found FTD on the internet and began to search for an appropriate arrangement.

I settled on a bunch of hot pink, Gerbera daisies, to be delivered to her that very afternoon. After hitting the “pay now” button, I pushed back in my chair, ready to move on to the day’s next task. An internal voice, however, annoyed by my facile compartmentalization of emotions, began pulling at my thoughts: Your friend is at her rope’s end and you’re content to toss her a nosegay? Is that all you’ve got?

My mood turned pensive then, and the gesture of sending flowers suddenly seemed borderline lame. The truth was that I felt awful about Sarah’s plight and at a loss about how to provide “real” help. Now, sitting back into the chair I’d been so eager to vacate, I recognized these feelings as akin to those I sometimes experienced when working with “well-siblings” (as they are often called by researchers) in my clinical psychology practice.

Although now retired, it was easy to recall the frustration I’d heard in the voices of those charged with the responsibility of coordinating the care for an ill brother or sister: daunting emotions which intensified whenever a new emergency arose. I remembered, too, the exhaustion I saw in these patients’ eyes.

Sometimes, an image of my own vulnerable sister would appear in my mind as I listened—a sib whose mental illness first emerged when she was nearing thirty and I was still in my teens. Because she had a full complement of support, I had never functioned in the role of sibling-caregiver. Nevertheless, we were close: I knew the fear; the grief.

In the ensuing quiet that introspection requires, I thought of a research paper written by a well-sibling that I’d discovered some months before online. In it, the author analyzed her own personal experiences with a severely mentally-ill brother and drawing upon the research literature, noted that “guilt and resentment are closely related; paired like ugly sisters.”

Undoubtedly, as many of us can attest from our own experiences, the emotional well-being of every family member is deeply impacted by the needs of a loved one whose ability to care for themselves is compromised in such ways. Everyone suffers. Yet, understanding that the burden will be different for each only makes sense.

Focusing again on Sarah, I wondered why I hadn’t been paying closer attention to the challenges she’d faced. And whether I shouldn’t be offering her something more substantial in the way of support than flowers––even if I had not yet been able to place my finger on what kind of help that might be. These and other questions dangled as I threw myself into the demands of the day, but my mood remained subdued nevertheless.

Later that same evening, as I was setting up the coffee pot for the next day’s pour, I made a vow to follow-up with Sarah and ask her, explicitly: “Honey, what do you need?” The idea barely had time to register, however,  when my cell phone pinged. It was a text from Sarah with a pic of the “Gerbers” and a short note: “Feeling your embrace and prayers. Thank you for loving me like a Mommy!”

Touched by her message, I couldn’t help but smile: Remembering Sarah’s Mom,  who had passed many years earlier, I laughed. She, too, had been a serial posy-peddler.

My pledge to reach out to my friend stands. I will call her in the coming days, first with an apology that I haven’t asked directly about how she’s faring, as well as a question about how she has managed over so many long years. And then I will attempt to find out what more I can do to help her get through the rough patches she will continue to encounter. I want to open the spigot of love that nurtures our relationship even wider.

After all, isn’t that what anyone who loves like a Mommy would do?