Do It Anyway

About 10 years ago I was dating a guy whose mother was dying of cancer.  It was, understandably, incredibly hard on him.  He had a lot of difficult emotions to process, and he took a lot of them out on me.  At one point he told me that I couldn’t possibly imagine what he was going through, and that he wished my mother would die of cancer.  I don’t think about him or that relationship much anymore (I think the five-year mark of getting out was the real turning point for me [1]), but I did certainly think of that comment this year, now that I do know what he was going through.

“Friday’s child is loving and giving”

The members of our small family left behind to grieve have all independently said that my mother was, without a doubt, the best of us; that all of our goodness put together was easily outweighed by hers alone; that she was our “glue.”  And in the months since she left us, our grief has manifested in different ways, including denial, depression, and anger.  And now that I am a member of “the shittiest club in the world,” as a very dear friend described being motherless, I can honestly say that cruelty to others in the name of your own grief is explainable but not excusable.

When I wrote my piece on Grief and Grieving last year, [2] I had no idea that my mom wouldn’t see her next birthday.  In that post, I talked about David Richo’s book The Five Things We Cannot Change [3] and then – fittingly – saw her copy in my bedroom when I went home to say goodbye. Those five things are: everything changes and ends, things do not always go according to plan, life is not always fair, pain is a part of life, and people are not loving and loyal all the time.  I know these things, but I’ve been working on accepting them for years, and I’m still having a hard time navigating this situation.  Members of my family who are unfamiliar with these concepts or unprepared to hear them are having a harder time than I am.

Selflessness is often celebrated when we talk about others, but my mom was selfless to a fault, almost exclusively prioritizing others’ wellbeing at the expense of her own.  People who described her as perfect never realized that she struggled with anxiety and perfectionism her entire life.  She worked hard not to pass her codependent tendencies on to me, but those behaviors still left her family woefully unprepared for her absence.  And it makes sense that someone would feel anger over being left, especially when also feeling so helpless.  It also makes sense that someone would feel guilty about being angry at a woman so perfect and selfless, so that anger gets redirected toward others nearby. 

“Be the change you wish to see in the world”

Everyone grieves and processes their grief differently.  I will not say that my approach is the “correct” way, because I am clearly struggling right now.  But I have channeled much of my grief into my work as a way of honoring my mom and the values she taught me, and, in some ways, invoking her spirit as I try to make the world a better place helps me feel like she’s still with me.  It’s a sentiment that I shared with my Climate Lab cohort on our first day together during an intense and emotional week on Oahu in January, [5] and that concept has helped me push forward in the subsequent months when things have been difficult at work and at home.  

I’ve often told my dad that the best thing we can do in the midst of our grief is to take the advice she had given me multiple times when I was growing up: if I’m feeling depressed, I should get out of the house and go help someone else.  Going to a job every day that is as difficult as it is rewarding, researching and writing (what I hope is) a helpful and thought-provoking blog every week, continuously pulling invasive weeds and replacing them with native, pollinator-friendly plants in my garden… all of these things are, in some ways, outward expressions of the love I can no longer give directly to her.

I’ve been told that the grief of losing someone never really goes away, but that the first year is the hardest. My dad keeps telling me that he’s not feeling any better despite the fact that it’s been so long since she died, and I can’t bring myself to tell him that six months is virtually nothing in the context of a 50-year relationship. I’ve been told that it’s good to stay busy, but I wonder if the distractions of a packed schedule are actually keeping me from processing my emotions – they certainly rise to the surface whenever I pause to take a breath.  

“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it”

It’s clear that I’m dealing with some high-functioning depression that is becoming decreasingly high-functioning over time.  I feel like my resilience in the face of difficult situations is diminishing, despite more concerted efforts on my part for self care.  While I encourage myself to do what my mom would have done in a given situation (be charitable, be kind, be patient), I am finding it increasingly difficult to see the point as our world feels more and more irreparably divided.  Even a project I’m supposed to be working on for my Climate Lab (creating a framework for identifying common goals among diverse – even disagreeable – stakeholders and managing equitable implementation of meaningful solutions) seems increasingly futile in the face of growing rifts in my own personal sphere.

This week I felt particularly hopeless in light of my unsurprising but nonetheless disappointing discovery from my Plastic Free July research, [7] personal difficulties at work and at home, and – of course – this vitriol-fueled election season.  As I stood in the kitchen on Saturday morning, forcing myself to sort through our recyclables, I struggled to see the point of my own miniscule choices when pollution from the fossil fuel industry is offsetting individual actions by many orders of magnitude.  Other examples related to work, family, and politics piled on, and I asked myself what is the point of doing good in the world if someone can come along and undo it just as easily… or more easily?

Even having taken the time to do some writing on this subject, I’m not feeling particularly better or more hopeful (which was the whole point).  I did, however, during this process remember some words attributed to Mother Teresa that were displayed on the bulletin board outside the door of my mom’s hospice room:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa was speaking from a spiritual standpoint, but from a psychological standpoint, my therapist has reminded me that “feelings follow behavior.” In other words, if we wait to feel like doing something, it probably won’t get done, but if we do something whether or not we feel like it, we’ll feel the benefit after it’s done. [9]  Now, of course, that is in no way meant to imply that people don’t experience more serious issues that need professional help or that it’s possible to just power through depression by sheer will – it’s not.  But when it comes to feelings of hopelessness and futility in the context of making the world a better place, it’s a good reminder that lasting change doesn’t come quickly, easily, or without setbacks.  For that reason, we won’t always feel like getting back up to continue to fight for a better world, but neither will the world improve without that effort.

My mom was not perfect, but she sacrificed so much (arguably too much) for others in hopes of leaving the world better than she found it, even when it seemed pointless. But to the many, many people whose lives she touched over the years, her acts of kindness were anything but pointless.  I miss her very much, and I know how negative emotions can lead to negative actions, but at a time when humanity seems more divided and angrier than ever, I hope that I… and everyone in my family… and everyone who misses her… can summon the strength to be the Vivy we wish to see in the world.

Thank you for reading.

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[1] https://radicalmoderate.online/getting-out/

[2] https://radicalmoderate.online/grief-and-grieving/

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/555253.The_Five_Things_We_Cannot_Change

[4] https://www.connellfuneral.com/obituaries/vivien-leister-steele

[5] https://radicalmoderate.online/climate-lab-hawaii-in-the-classroom/

[6] https://www.genesisca.org/single-post/2019/06/17/be-the-change

[7] https://radicalmoderate.online/plastic-free-july-2024-final-destination/

[8] https://mindfulambition.net/feelings-follow-behavior/

[9] https://mindfulambition.net/feelings-follow-behavior/