My mum was truly hideous . . . so why do I miss her?

Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. FROM ANTHEM BY LEONARD COHEN, CANADIAN SINGER-SONGERWITER, 1934-2016

DEAR BEL

MY MUM died in January. She was truly hideous, but I am finding I still have to mourn her. The problem is — I don’t know how. My father was an amazing, generous, hard-working wonderful man who died 17 years ago. I mourned him and still miss him now.

My mum was a psychopath. She was self-absorbed and would do anything to make herself the centre of attention.

I could tell you a million horrible stories, but I’m not sure I wish to be as self-indulgent as my bitch of a mother. She wanted me to be her subservient lackey — to drop out of school, and live with her for ever.

She told me I was mentally retarded from the age of four — so I worked really hard, got my PhD, career, house and family. All the way she tried to stop me, never once praising me.

We fought since I was 13. I should have walked away at 19 but was a glutton for punishment. We’d fight, not talk for a while, then stupidly I’d talk to her again, thinking it would be better this time. It never was.

When she died, she left my half of the money to only one of my two children — to spite me. At the funeral I found out she had told everyone horrific lies about me. Things like I had beaten her up, had tens of thousands of euro of gambling debt, abused my son. Unbelievable.

In reality, I am a very middleclass lecturer, with two children, a wonderful husband and a house in a good neighbourhood. She turned me into this monster, so she could get attention.

My brother has never had a proper girlfriend, never had a proper job, never paid for anything, but he was Mum’s favourite — bailed out a million times. He was horrible to me and my kids.

My nasty stepdad took thousands out of my Mum’s account as she lay dying. I really don’t need to talk to them again.

In short, I am better off without her. No more phone calls and letters about how evil I am. No more travelling 250km to visit her and have a bloody miserable time. Yet I miss her — because she was my mum. I just don’t know how to mourn her and the rest of my old family.

My present family wishes her name never to be uttered again. Any ideas how I move on? JANETTE

YOUR longer email confesses this puzzle is giving you ‘nightmares and panic attacks’ — which must be a post-traumatic response, not so much to your mother’s recent death, as to her life.

While she was still alive you were permanently caught on the interface between disliking her and yearning for everything to have been different. Now she is dead there is no oxygen to fuel the flame of hate, therefore you are left with loss and longing as deep and sorrowful as any unrequited love.

I find it touching that throughout your email you call her ‘Mum’. For most people that word is so full of meaning: affectionate, intimate and full of symbolism.

A ‘mum’ is the first face you ever saw, someone you can lean on when the going gets tough, someone who loves unconditionally . . . Yet nowhere does your letter describe a ‘mum’ any of us would recognise. The woman was your biological mother, that’s all.

Therefore it’s not in the least surprising you can’t mourn. You loved your father, but I’m wondering why he stood by and allowed her to behave as you describe, and whether her death released such questions. Was he, in fact, weak and cowed by her?

I think it would help you to have some counselling in order to look back on your relationship with both parents and explore some truths.

But the main question here is profound: can we mourn those we dislike — who have treated us badly? Surely not in any conventional way. When you say you want to mourn her — and the rest of your birth family — we should be clear what you are saying.

Your true loss is that of an ideal of family life which you know about, but never experienced growing up. You have never known a mother’s love (this applies to many sad people) and yet enshrined within your very DNA is a vision of what it should be like.

Maybe you had friends with lovely mothers; maybe your husband did, too...and I have no doubt as to the kind of mother you yourself aim to be. But it was never her — and I think you have to come to terms with that somehow. You really do.

Some years ago, I had a similar letter and my reply suggested a little sacred ritual. Since that woman wrote and told me it had worked, I shall share it again.

You take a large piece of paper and carefully write your mother a long, frank letter. Not only do you describe the hurt, but also the dreams — letting her know all you longed for and lacked. At the end of the letter, you tell her that you forgive her, simply because she is dead and there is nothing else to do. Tell her that your sadness and disappointment will not weigh you down any more.

Seal the letter in an envelope, carry it to a beautiful spot, take some deep breaths — and put a match to it. Watch until the ashes are white. Then bid her goodbye, wish her the peace she never had in life — and go home to where your loved ones are waiting.