How to Write a Eulogy for a Bad Mother / a Mother Who Didn’t Love You

(This is a re-post from 2013. To read more about this topic, I encourage you to read all of the posts in my “Eulogy for a Bad Mother” category. There aren’t many, but they may be helpful to you.)

Tomorrow it will be four months to the day since my mother died. I cry less, but I still cry. My dreams are not as disturbed as they were at first—but I do still have those particularly troubling ones wherein I am leading my mother out of her nursing home and tucking her into the car to get her the heck away from there. And as I am doing so, I’m thinking to myself, “This is so great! They said she would never leave this place, but here we are. Leaving! But uh-oh. How are we going to care for her? She can’t even move three steps anymore to get to the bathroom. Why are we doing this?!” !!POOF!! I’m awake. And then I have that SUCH GOOD feeling/thought: “Oh! It was all a mistake. SHE’S ALIVE!” And then reality clicks in and I have to admit that no, she is gone.

Death is confusing. Death is painful. We grieve on conscious and subconscious levels that I’m sure I will never understand this side of Heaven.

But death comes for us all. Sooner or later. Younger or older. Without warning or only after a prolonged fight to survive. Lonely in a nursing home for weeks or in a moment. A breath. A hairsbreadth.

Death is the reality that focuses our senses—or tempts us to run away and hide away in denial. But we’re still going to die one day. So is every person we have ever loved and will ever love. You know this true. You may not want to think about it. But you know it’s true. So what are you doing about it?

Well. A large number of you are googling “eulogy for mother” and ending up on my blog entry from four months ago:

My (Potential) Eulogy for My Mother

So that seems to be a hot topic these days … and I thought I would just jot down a few ideas for when we are called to write a eulogy for a “bad mother” (doesn’t that describe us all!?) or a mother who we feel didn’t love us. (Maybe that’s true—maybe she really didn’t love us; or maybe she loved us, but imperfectly and painfully; or maybe that’s just our perspective on the situation and actually she loved us well. More than likely, it’s some sort of combination of all three.)

If I had been called upon to write a eulogy for my mother during our “dark years”—the time period when she was caught in a number of destructive addictions and behaviors and was thus interacting with me in particularly ugly, unloving, mean ways … I think I would have tried to craft a eulogy that kept the following things in mind:

• A memorial service is not a counseling session (the time to work through your own “stuff”—pain, hurts, anger, fear, etc.); nor is it a time to bash the deceased. Maybe there are some really awful things that you need to talk through with someone; memories you need to express so that you can turn away from the lasting poison of resentment and bitterness. But your mother’s funeral service is not the best place for that.
• Take a deep breath. Figure out your goal. Maybe it’s something like: “I want to share a few stories about my mother and reflect briefly/appropriately on the aspects of our relationship that are edifying for the situation so that I can leave this place with a clear conscience, knowing that I have finished well and honored my mother, even at the time of her passing.” Maybe it’s something very different. Whatever your goal is, keep it in mind and work towards the goal.
• Recognize that the death of a parent is stressful. This is true even for a parent with whom we have had no relationship or very little relationships or an extremely troubled, conflicted, terrible relationship. You’re probably not getting much sleep. Are you turning to calming substances that feel relatively better at first (because they keep you from feeling at all?), but then leave you feeling even worse (guilt after foolish sexual choices or illegal drug use; physical sickness after drunkenness; shame after hidden gluttony)? Try to not add to your stress by layering on these physical and spiritual burdens as well. What can you do that is redemptive and freeing to handle your stress–rather than compulsive and enslaving? (Take a walk in the fresh air; make one wise eating decision at the beginning of your day; give your prescription drugs to a trusted friend who can help you to use them only as prescribed and only in moderation; get help monitoring your alcohol intake; limit your escapism time online/on your iPhone/watching television.)
• Even if your mother really was a terrible mother, she was still your mother. Maybe your life will be better with her gone—she’ll stop asking you for money (or just stealing from you); you won’t have to put up with her embarrassing you at every major life event any more (late and drunk to your graduation—or just not showing up at all; drunk at your wedding; creepy and scary (and scared!) in her agoraphobic bondage at the birth of your first child) … OK. Great. That’s reality. She had some (fill in the blanks with whatever terms best fit): weaknesses, addictions, personality flaws, foolishness, sins, fallenness, darkness, bondages, enslavements, physical weaknesses, emotional weaknesses … she had some humanness that caused you pain and shame. Admit it. It’s true. But she was still your mother. So maybe she was graceless and critical of you—don’t be graceless and critical of her now. Maybe she treated you like crap—don’t treat her memory like crap now. Maybe she doesn’t deserve one teeny tiny iota of kindness or mercy from you. Well. Welcome to the club! You do not deserve any kindness or mercy from God or any person—mercy isn’t deserved! That would be justice! Yet you and I both know that we receive mercy every single day of our lives. So be merciful just as your Heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). You won’t regret it—but you may very well regret a hate-filled (even if it’s factually-based) diatribe at your mother’s funeral. Don’t go there. Don’t do it. You don’t have to be that person.
• So … with all of that in mind: What one or two things can you say about your mother that are true, but charitable? Can you dredge up even just ONE exchange, ONE memory that wasn’t pure hell for you? If not, that’s OK. (But in that situation, I really encourage you to think about whether you should even be speaking at her memorial service at all). For most of us, we can remember a few instances when things weren’t all bad … I remember my mother telling me in a genuinely kind voice how much she enjoyed listening to me play the piano. It had a huge impact on me and it is now something I try to remember to tell my daughter often. I want my daughter to hear my kind voice saying, “I love hearing you play the piano.” And every time I say those words, I remember one kind memory about my mother. I also remember my mother trying SO hard. She really did try hard! For example, one time she was working so hard to get me to my National Honor Society awards ceremony on time. I was wearing this light-weight dress with white nylons and white leather pumps and as we got into her (smoke-filled) little Ford Escort, she splashed her dark coffee all over me, ruining the nylons and staining the dress. She felt so bad! But I wasn’t even angry. I knew she didn’t mean to. I knew what she needed right then was my compassion, not my judgment. So I comforted her and told her it would be OK (and it was). But when I think about that memory, I think about her TRYING—sure, she “failed” in so many ways; just like so much of my childhood. What charitable memories might you be able to share?

Oh. So much more is flooding my heart on this topic—but I must scoot into my real job now. Small children are calling!

Will try to write more in the coming days and weeks—

And so very, very sorry for those of you who are reading this because you are facing the loss of your parent. It’s awful. It really is. You’re not imagining it. I pray for you—truly pray for you—hope and peace, even as you process memories and as you grieve.

In Christ our Hope,
Tara Barthel

PS
(I am re-posting this on July 6, 2018. On most days, the acute pain of missing my mom has abated. But I still reach for the telephone to call her pretty much every time something wonderful happens in the girls’ lives that I know would make her smile and laugh her wonderful, Chicago, lifetime smoker, croaky laugh. Sigh. I miss her!)