Thalidomide: Long Shadows

My mother had a stillbirth, two years before me, in 1961, it was her first pregnancy and she suffered horribly from morning sickness her GP gave her some meds for it... That's right, thalidomide, my elder sister died in utero and my mother had to bear her full term knowing she was dead. She was born deformed and the midwife informed my mother of her sex.

It's fair to say that my mother has always been defensive towards me, I used to interpret it as coldness. My father on the other hand cherished me. My two brothers were equally loved.  

I guess since they were born after me and male they didn't come with the baggage I did she could let down her guard a little and be the mother she really wanted to be and was.

Much later on when I had a serious illness my mother phoned from abroad "If you want, Tony (her partner) and I can come and stay with you".  Basically I told her not to bother. If my father had been alive, I knew, he wouldn't even have asked, just jumped on the first plane.

Once I was better I talked this thing over with a psych and basically gave her the reading I made of the situation above.  Psyche's response was "You should be doing this job..."

We get on all right nowadays.  We are mostly civil to each other, but our relationship will always be fraught. We live in different countries, Tony and my husband act as intermediaries and very good they are at it, too.

So yes, these things do overshadow the living to some extent, but hey, that's life.