Without Next Of Kin, 6

My mother and I were always close and sometimes our relationship was a battlefield as I struggled for autonomy.  She gave me a lot of freedom and independence from a young age.  From the age of ten I often found myself at home alone.  This wasn't always the case.  She would farm me out to babysitters from time to time but I recall that from grade five on I was more often than not trusted to be home alone if for just an hour or two.

In the aftermath of my parents' divorce (I was in my early teens) I was increasingly on my own.  I got into trouble but also learned how to negotiate with the world.  She was in hospital a couple of times when I was sixteen and visiting her there gave me an early and deep understanding of her vulnerability, as this had also done for me concerning my father two years earlier. 

When I became independent at eighteen, as she recovered her own life when she left Fat Studly Romeo, she did try to supervise me but I generally ignored her and was in contact with her perhaps twice a month.  I was determined to carve my own identity.  My living arrangements were often fragile and precarious as is often the case for young people and I did stay at her place for a couple of weeks on at least five occasions before I turned twenty-three and suddenly I no longer needed her as a harbour and I remained functionally independent for the rest of my life.

Our relationship was often rather a tense dance between mother and son and two good friends.  Selectively she confided in me a lot.  As I got over the fear and distrust I had of her at first, resulting I think from the childhood abuse she subjected me to, I came to enjoy hanging out with her, visiting, going for dinner or coffee together.

It wasn't all roses and when I turned thirty we did rather badly for a while and went six months without communicating.  I rather harshly tried to confront her about the emotional and psychological impact her beatings had on me when I was a child.  She freaked out and shut me out of her life for a while.

She never did actually admit anything or apologize but we established a kind of a silent truce and concluded we were better together than apart.  That was just before her cancer was diagnosed.  This did a lot to change and transform our relationship and eventually I became her principal care-giver.