Ex's Mom's Heartbreaking Message Years After Breakup

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13 hours ago

It was when I found myself debating whether to attend the wedding of my new boyfriend's sister or the art opening of my ex-boyfriend's mother that I realized I had a problem.
My boyfriend shook his head, puzzled. 'Is this really a question for you?' he asked.
I'd been hiding my relationship with Tamar, my ex's mother, knowing it was not likely to go over well with my new beau. Even my ex himself had been jealous.
Neither man could understand my connection to this brilliant, elegant, creative woman.
My boyfriend watched me, waiting for an answer. I couldn't blame him for his impatience: Who in their right mind ends a relationship with the son, but keeps the parent?
'She's not just my ex's mom,' I stammered. 'She's important to me.'
'Loving her is one thing — prioritizing her over me is another,' he said. I loved this man, so reluctantly, I bought a new dress for the wedding.
The next day I went to see Tamar. She lived in a stone house perched on a hillside outside Haifa. Like her, it seemed both elderly and youthful, rough-hewn and graceful.
'It's ok, sweetheart,' she said when I broke the news, but I could tell she was disappointed. Later, as I was putting on my coat to leave, she pulled me to her and gave me a long hug.
'You know I'll always love you,' she said. I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned to leave.
The first time I met Tamar, her son and I had been dating for only a couple weeks. It was her unflinching gaze I noticed first, as if she was performing a CAT scan on my soul.
'You'll stay for lunch,' she said and patted my shoulder conclusively. 'Tell me everything.'
Her son and I had plans, but there was no longer any question of leaving.
'My mother is a force,' he explained sheepishly after we left. 'I know she's a lot — she just can't help herself — but it's only because she's genuinely interested.'
I managed a shrug, still a bit dizzy from her barrage of questions. Tossed into the storm, I was hooked.
Tamar was a sculptor whose large female forms dipped in bronze managed to be both terrifying and entrancing. Watching her work was like observing a butterfly flitting from place to place. Her black hair, pulled into a tight bun, contrasted with piercing blue eyes, and her clothes beneath her white smock were vibrantly colored.
When she wasn't working, Tamar drank mint tea out of small Moroccan tea glasses, the gold gilt on their rims long rubbed away. She talked about art, eyes flashing, as if every creation was not only a joyful adventure, but a puzzle to be figured out. She liked to host elaborate themed parties, which sometimes involved costumes.
I was at a transitional point in my life, choosing between careers and countries. Though I had learned how to appear OK, I was deeply sad, plagued by my own uncertainty. It was only in the privacy of the shower that I let myself go — releasing great torrents of tears that I didn't understand.
The freedom with which Tamar loved and lived both mystified and entranced me. My own mother is perceptive, thoughtful and smart, but also timid. My whole childhood, it was as if she was waiting for permission to be a mother — permission that never came. As a child, I hungered for direction, but my mother didn't feel it was 'her place' to advise me. 'Whatever you think is best,' she would say. I felt like an unclaimed suitcase winding its way around a baggage claim carousel. What I didn't know then was that she had suffered years of abuse at the hands of my father; I only learned that years later. What I did know was that his casual cruelty and contempt filled our house with a seething, brittle tension.
Tamar was the opposite of my mother. When she first laid eyes on the small apartment I shared with her son, she noted his guitars, books and posters scattered everywhere. Looking at me, she said, 'You know you can take up more space, my dear.' She had strong opinions and an even louder voice. At dinner parties, she dominated the men but was always careful to seek my opinion.
For the seven years that I was with her son and five years after, she loved me fiercely and unconditionally. I hadn't realized how hungry I was for it. When a surprise miscarriage landed me in the emergency room, she was there until three in the morning waiting for me to be released. For the next week, she made my favorite soup and propped up the pillows on her couch so I could lie weeping in comfort. On the day of my first half marathon, she cheered so loudly that my boyfriend had to shush her. She just shrugged and kept cheering.
'We're all going to die, right?' she would say when I hesitated over a purchase. 'Life's too short not to do what your heart desires.'
When her son and I broke up, I cried so hard I couldn't breathe.
'I'm not sure this is just about us,' he said, perceptively.
I couldn't bring myself to look at him, or even to respond. For years, every time he'd brought up marriage, I'd changed the subject. Instead, we'd spent an increasingly large amount of time in his mother's living room.
I worried about how our breakup would impact my relationship with Tamar, but she went out of her way to reassure me. Surprisingly, so did my ex.
'I don't have to call her, because you do,' he joked during one of our occasional coffee dates.
Tamar didn't give birth to me, but she did choose me, and that helped me believe in myself. In hurricanes, birds survive by flying into the vortex, sometimes swept along with it for hundreds of miles. I wonder if they feel disoriented and off-kilter when the storm deposits them somewhere new and unfamiliar. I wonder if they long to remain in the eye, where it is calm. I have felt that longing. But during those 12 years, when Tamar held me aloft with her love, I had become a stronger and more confident person. In fact, it was only because of that strength that I was ready to let her go.
After the wedding of my boyfriend's sister, I gradually withdrew from Tamar. Ours wasn't a relationship I could just dabble in. Over time, we confined ourselves to yearly birthday and New Year's cards. I wasn't surprised, though, that my ex got in touch when she was dying of cancer.
'She wants to say goodbye,' he said.
By then, more than a decade had passed, and I had moved to a different country. But I didn't hesitate.
When I climbed the hill to the little stone house, I found her much changed. She was no longer the hummingbird flitting from place to place. Her motions had become lethargic, her coal-black hair, which she'd always been so proud of, had turned grey. She labored to breathe. But the bright purple scarf remained, as did the steady gaze when she pulled me into a hug.
'Tell me everything,' she said.
Smiling, she fixed us tea, plucking mint leaves from the pot on the windowsill. As we chatted, 'All My Loving' began to play on the old radio in the kitchen. She loved the Beatles and swayed falteringly in time to the music. Watching her, I teared up. She put the back of her hand to my cheek and pulled me up to dance with her, the skin on her hands now crepey.
'Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, tomorrow I'll miss you, remember I'll always be true...'
I closed my eyes and swayed.