Mother’s Day

I am estranged from my mother.

She once said—though not to me directly, but loud enough for me to hear—that I “want nothing from her.” What she meant was that I refused the gifts she offered. A more accurate statement would be: I declined what was on offer.

Because of course I wanted something from her. She’s my mother.

But I’ve come to accept that she lacks the capacity to offer the things I truly needed—empathy, forgiveness, grace, humility, and above all, love. The gifts I longed for were never on the table. And the ones she did extend—plane tickets, event options for my son—were never given freely. They were conditional, transactional. They required me to engage in a kind of emotional barter, to name and acknowledge the price of what I was receiving.

That always felt wrong to me. Dirty. Weighted. A gift, in my understanding, should be freely given—not something I’d be made to pay for later, emotionally or otherwise. My instincts told me that accepting anything would come at a cost I wasn’t willing to bear. And so, I declined.

Saying “He wants nothing from me” is easier for her than asking why I didn’t accept. Because the answer is complicated—and painful. The truth is, the emotional toll of accepting her gifts always felt far too steep. I learned, over time, that nothing came free.

There are many reasons we’re estranged, but this—this dynamic of withholding and debt—is central.

Children often hope to inherit something meaningful from their parents—not just wealth or property, but a legacy of care. A foundation of love. A sense that, “My parents built something for me because they believed in me.”

But the equity I needed—emotional, not material—was never invested in me. That account is empty. And when I finally accepted that, I stopped trying. Or maybe I stopped hoping. I’ll never really know if she ever tried at all.

Meanwhile, my brother—calculating, obsessive—has ensured he inherited all the tangible family assets. The house I lived in with her while he was away at college, the house where she drank herself into unconsciousness in the basement—its years of appreciation in the Seattle real estate market now belong solely to him, although he never lived there as a child. He made sure of it. He guards his stake with threats and vitriol, daring anyone to challenge him. It’s a fight I’ve chosen not to have.

If it was ever a contest: you win, brother. I just hope you find peace in those bricks and deeds, because greed and malice extract their own price in time.

As for me, I reached a point where I simply couldn’t keep engaging with this version of family. My mother’s offers—however well-intentioned—were too fraught. Gifts that required negotiation, measurement, a receipt of worth. I would rather go without than bring that weight into my relationship with my son.

I would have told her that.

I would have told her that I remember the years in high school I spent alone while she drowned in her sadness and wine. I remember sometimes forging my own permission slips, or praying no one would notice her shaky drunken handwriting or bizarre phrasing: “I suppose I’ll have to let him go on this field trip.”

She may have quit drinking, but she never said, “I’m sorry.” That’s a gift I would have cherished.

I would have told her how hard it was to raise myself at 15 in a new city while she disappeared into bottles. I would have told her that.

And the truth is—I would love to be seen. To be valued. To be part of a family that prized kindness over status, compassion over piety. I would love to be acknowledged for surviving what I did, for making it through without serious harm, for earning a master’s degree and a meaningful life surrounded by love.

That kind of recognition—freely offered—would have meant everything.

I would love to be able to say “Happy Mother’s Day” and mean it. To look at my parent and know we had endured something together—and that they were proud of me, the way I am proud of my son.

But that’s not my experience.

Instead, her defenses, her denial, her shame and victimhood fill the space between us. I tried counseling. Paid for it. She came to one session and spent it reciting my flaws. I tried taking her out to dinner once, more recently, and the silence between us was deafening. Maybe there is no path back. Maybe I walked away, and maybe she slammed the door behind me.

So I turn instead to the mothers in my life.

To my son’s mother, who deserves to be celebrated.

To my colleagues—elementary teachers who spend their days nurturing not only their own children but everyone else’s.

To the moms who give freely, who love with abandon, who show up every day with patience, humility, and kindness.

To the single moms, the moms with big families, the new moms, the soccer moms, the hippie moms, the mama bears.

You are the ones doing the real work.

The material things? They’re secondary. You already know that.

I see you, mothers—and despite my personal experience, I honor the way you raise your children, and sometimes all our children, with the things they truly need: grace, compassion, and love.