My story
This is the story of my mom and her heartbreaking battle with addiction.
My mom was a calm and quiet "force". She was radiant, glowing, warm, welcoming, compassionate and kind. Her empathy was so palpable, total strangers could feel it — she was frequently pained by the struggles of others. She was born to help people — she was a natural caretaker with a "servant spirit". She believed in the potential of others and made everyone she encountered feel seen, celebrated and special. When she smiled at you, you felt like the most important person in the world.
This infectious gift followed her until her last breath.
Kathy was gorgeous, inside and out; my dad (a gold-toothed trumpet geek during his college years) still jokes about how “out of his league” she was. She had beautiful stick-straight, straw-colored locks and sparkling blue eyes. After dating a few bad eggs, my mom finally fell for "the nice guy"; she and my dad soon wed and became the parents of two daughters. She was fun-loving, attentive, imaginative, supportive, and affectionate during our early childhood years. She was the best mom we could have ever asked for.
My mom loved life's simple pleasures. She never met an animal she didn't fall madly in love with. She took in several stray cats over the course of her life and would get anxious if her birdfeeders ran low. She had a natural green thumb and a knack for keeping virtually anything alive — she loved to “putter” in the backyard (as she would often say). She knew the name of every flower in her English rock garden, and diligently tended to their specific needs almost every day. She was a magnet for children, animals, and nature — gently gracing them all with her earnest, humble, almost ethereal presence.
My mom was an angel on Earth… long before she ever reached "the best seat in the house".
During her working years, she taught Special Ed in the Twin Cities; her students were her biggest passion. She would take the kids — the cases — that no one else wanted. And she never failed.
In this story, I'll take you on the complex, gut-wrenching, life-changing journey of how my mom lived, loved, struggled silently, and eventually died.
I hope her story will help at least one person who is at odds with this beautiful yet painful life we're living.
As a young kid, I remember sitting in the car with my sister and dad, waiting for my mom while the sun came up. We were running late for the airport on the way to another family trip (my dad was in sales and we frequently joined his incentive travel). Inside she spent what felt like forever checking the locks and electronics over and over again. At home, she'd Lysol the counters and door handles almost every day. I have flashbacks of the sink full of sudsy, lemony bubbles — that memory is oddly comforting yet painful. Things could never be clean enough, safe enough, or perfect enough. It was just never enough.
My sister and I saw our Grandpa Huck's austerity at an early age. He drank a lot. Swore a lot. He was tall and skinny, with a swollen, protruding belly. He'd often ask my mom, "is this homemade?". His harsh words and guilt-ridden expectations seemed to slice right through her. Other family struggled with it, too. Years later, my mom's youngest brother's "mysterious" death was most certainly suicide.
Every severe case of empathy-itis comes with a ton of mental bricks, and that was my mom's midlife diagnosis after I left for college. Her heart swelled from her newfound empty-nest syndrome and she was consumed with constant worry about her daughters, special ed students, and things she couldn't control.
The world around her was seemingly catastrophic. The "What if!?" walls were quickly closing in.
She was a master of disguise, concealing a profound internal sadness that only the most perceptive could pick up on. (I know now that we are as sick as our secrets.) On the outside, everything was "good". She was always "good". She was radiant, smiling, and bright. She took relentless care of everyone else, but neglected herself. Pride became her perpetual sidekick — there was never anything wrong (because God forbid she ever became a burden to someone). From the outside looking in, she had it all.
Sometimes the quietest ones have the most to say.
How much was nature, and how much was nurture? I guess I'll never know. I'll question the cause (and what I could have done to help her) forever. But at the end of the day, she was sick — she was sick like anyone else who gets Cancer. Or Heart disease. Or Diabetes.
It was like she had a broken back — but no one could see it.
It’s one of the most painful things about this horrific disease. There are usually very few who know about (or notice) it.
I knew addiction was brewing. And I knew how bad it could become. When confronted about drinking, she said, "I can stop anytime". And she did.
In the Fall of 2014, I was given my real mom back for a day. It was the mom I'd remembered from early childhood. She was radiant, affectionate, loving, supportive and present. She stood by me with all of her physical body and mental clarity — utterly and totally sober — on my wedding day. I was bursting with love for her.
A week or so later, she stumbled upon a magazine article about wine being a health benefit. She held it up for my dad to see and said, "See? It's okay to have a glass a day."
And it all began again.
Denial is addiction's best friend.
You watch your mom hold the baby that made you a mom. How do you feel? For most, joy. Love. An even closer bond.
I felt those things in 2015. But I was terrified. Terrified to be a mother. Terrified to mother without a mother. Terrified for how my mother would grandmother.
I thought about boundaries. I thought about patterns. I thought about genetics. I thought about lies and truth and being whole and healthy for my kids. Could I be trusted? Could I be honest? Could I love them well enough while loving myself? I knew my mom would be the best Grandma on Earth, but there was one (huge) thing in the way. My own anxiety was in overdrive, fueled by now having a daughter. The only mom/daughter relationship I’d known was so painful and complex.
Fast-forward a few years: "Grandma isn't coming tonight, honey.", I said to my kind-hearted (now oldest) toddler daughter, her big blueberry eyes tearing up. Her early years were full of Grandma plans — then different plans or no plans — always at the last minute. When my mom did visit, she was eager to leave an hour or two later. "I have to get up early for work tomorrow.", she'd say at 5pm. She'd be gone by 6. I'd call her on weekends hoping to see her or just chat and only a few minutes into the conversation she would say adamantly "I really need to get groceries”.
The rejection was devastating.
My second daughter joined us in 2018. My mom would shake uncontrollably when she held her. I had nightmares of my mom dropping her by accident. It broke me to think they might not ever really know each other.
When the they did spend time together, it was magical. Sober. Endearing. My mom said she loved her granddaughters differently — deeper than her own. She was protective, involved and affectionate. I hoped having Granddaughters might inspire her to change. I prayed with every bone in my body. "I would do anything for my granddaughters!", she would say. That was her sober self talking.
But the addiction was louder.
"Why does Grandma shake so much?", asked my oldest daughter one day. I explained that too much alcohol over many years had made her sick. I had to tell her the truth. I had to be a different mom.
Acceptance. To me, it feels synonymous with settling — and I don't like to settle. I’m always on the move and want to constantly grow and learn. I've got a lot of belief that people can rise to their utmost potential.
But in 2019 I accepted fate. Despite teary-eyed, pleading interventions, my mom was drinking wine every night (sometimes multiple bottles).
We took our last family trip to Grandview (a resort in Northern Minnesota) in August 2019. We had to accept that to spend time with her, she would show up very sick. We met her demons firsthand, fed them wine, and put them to bed — just so we could make memories. I can't imagine how hard it was for her to be away from home with such raging addiction.
In December 2019, we celebrated her 67th birthday with fondue. A Vikings game was on all of the restaurant monitors; she loved Minnesota sports.That was the last family photo we took together.
My mom had been riddled with "random" GI issues in the past (I always knew the cause). In mid-March of 2020, she collapsed in her bathroom floor, hemorrhaging blood from both ends of her body. “Dennis!!” she screamed. My dad called an ambulance after finding her there and she was taken to the ER on the evening when a new visor called Covid-19 was starting to surge. I waited in my car in the parking lot until I could see her for a few minutes (the waiting room staff only allowed one person to come in). When I showed up, I held her hand tightly. “Why are you here?” she asked. To be denied by your own mother in her moment of need is excruciating. She was as pale as a ghost. Struggling to breathe. And appeared nearly 9 months pregnant.
She looked me in the eyes and said, "I know what I need to do".
But it was too late.
Once she got back home, her body never recovered. She was incredibly weak, her muscles had atrophied, and she was becoming poisoned by the ammonia her liver couldn't process. She could barely move and wanted to sleep most of the day.
After false hope from one doctor (that she could improve with sobriety), she kept declining further. On my 40th birthday in late April 2020, I was gifted a global pandemic and a mom in the hospital (again). To-date, she’d had a handful of ER visits. So we knew it was time to start home hospice. She always said she wanted to die at home…and I wanted to give her that gift.
A million elaborate feelings encased us in that room where she laid; it was a beautiful, heavenly four-window veranda facing the sunsets. The next few weeks were raw and sober — beautiful and excruciating. My mind has blocked a lot of it out as a coping mechanism, but I remember the big little things.
We surrounded her with beautiful pungent flowers, photos of her granddaughters, and cozy blankets. The Spring breeze sang fresh melodies through the open window screens. We never left her side. We spent the overnight hours feeding her popsicles and rubbing her legs with lotion (in end stage liver failure, many times patients lose their circadian rhythms so they start to become nocturnal).
In her sober state, she finally accepted the deep care and attention from others. She was soft and sweet, grateful and loving. It was the darkest, lightest time.
It was the first time in nearly 20 years she’d felt like my mom.
"Do I still have Cirrhosis?", mumbled my mom to the hospice nurse.
"Yes. And you're not going to get better. You're going to die from this, Kathy", she stated.
Until the previous week, my mom thought she'd get better. That there was hope. A prayer answered. It was equal parts denial (from the disease) and her failing poisoned brain.
In a way, the latter seemed to protect her. She was barely aware. Barely there.
"...so you have permission...to go whenever you're ready...to the best seat in the house", said the nurse. She had the perfect balance of candor and compassion. My mom nodded her head in receipt. We were all gathered around her with tears rolling down our sunken, exhausted and depleted eyes.
I'd give her massages with “the works”: Aspercream, Lemon Verbena oil, and Lubriderm — she loved it. At night, shadows from a wooden-wick candle danced on a hexagon ceiling while the tv played in the background. Her disease kept her awake during the darkness and she had colorful hallucinations, which I engaged in frequently so she wouldn’t feel alone. We alternated overnight shifts to allow each other rest. It was painfully taxing — the kind of debilitating depletion only a new mother knows. Except my mom wasn’t growing older and healthier like a newborn does. She was withering away.
We witnessed unconditional, beautiful love from my dad. He whispered sweet nothings. Changed my mom's soiled diapers. And was there whenever she called him. During the night, she alternated between mumbling witty one-liners and trying to get comfortable. We moved her lifeless body into many different positions so she wouldn’t develop bed sores.
As the days progressed, her conscious moments were fewer and further between. She was slowly slipping away into a comatose state.
We never left my mom's side, except very briefly on one Friday mid-May morning. In classic “mom fashion”, she took her last breath when no one was there. I don’t think she wanted any of us to see it. She passed exactly how she wanted to — peacefully, pain-free, and at home. A beam of summer sun washed over her face. It was tilted south towards the light.
I thought I would be afraid to look at her, but I wasn’t. Her tranquil expression told me everything I needed to know.
I always say it wasnt alcohol that killed my mom. It was pride. The irony of pride in her story is that in the end, there wasn't any. She became more vulnerable and exposed than ever. But for most of her life, she was too prideful to ever ask for help.
Addiction is a mental illness. It is genetic. Chemical. Powerful and all-consuming. It creates a wall of prideful protection and denial. And it doesn't discriminate.
She was a well-educated, well-loved, wholesome white Special Ed teacher from North Dakota who only drank wine.
It will never care who you are.
You're not supposed to lose your mom - especially like this. After her death, we scattered her ashes into nearby lake — they artistically morphed into an airbrushed angel-like shape. We enjoy spiritual walks around that lake (which we lovingly refer to as "The Church"). She shows up in the birds and blooms and breeze. On her one year angel anniversary, we each dropped flowers over the bridge. My dad wrote her a love note.
It ascended into the water, magically turned right side up, and gently opened to face the sky as it drifted away to meet her.
My mom left me way sooner than in 2020. Her soul left the Earth long before her body did. That's the worst part of addiction. It steals the entire identity of the person you love, and leaves nothing but a shell of them behind.
The author, Glennon Doyle, refers to addiction as a boulder in the river. The river of love is free and flowing. But something can get in the way. The moment I learned to separate these two things: my mom's love (the river) vs. the disease (the boulder), it brought me so much peace. She wasn't making her own decisions. The disease was making them. She wasn't acting like herself. The disease was acting for her. She had the ability to love openly and deeply until an obstruction stopped the current.
I mourn the real mom I knew and I mourn the disease that took her away in different ways, at different times. It’s a complicated grief, full of guilt and relief and regret and sorrow.
But I forgive her. There are no hard feelings. It's the disease I’ll never forgive.
The truth is, I feel closer to my mom now than I have in nearly 25 years. I can't see her in the flesh, but I feel her presence every day. I see her flying free in the form of eagles. I know she is whole, healthy and alive — the most alive she's been since the day her addiction died.
She taps on my shoulder in simple, symbolic ways. On warm Summer mornings, I love to "putter" in the silence of my garden just like she did. I hear my mom whisper with a chuckle,, "Erin, that's not a weed!". I feel her tenderness in the rescue dogs I foster. I honor her with creative expression. I talk with her often.
And I see her connect with my daughters in profoundly spiritual ways. When they see her and feel her brings me a gift no one else could give. And I’ve been told many times that my youngest daughter looks just like my mom did as a little girl!
What once felt like the end is now a bittersweet new beginning.
I can only try to be better. Healthier. I will try my best to break the cycle.