For much of my life, I existed under my mother’s wing. In her shadow. She was a force—complicated, commanding, and deeply shaped by the circumstances of her own upbringing.
Under My Mother’s Wing; In Her Shadow
How my mother’s early trauma shaped the power dynamic in our relationship
When my mother was around ten years old, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In the early 1960s, doctors didn’t know as much about the condition as they do now, of course. The hospital doctors scared my grandmother nearly to death when they told her the least little bit of stress could aggravate my mother’s blood sugars and possibly kill her.
My grandmother felt she had no choice but to grant my mother a life of unchecked control and domination. That training forged her into a woman who always got her way. A woman whose needs eclipsed those of everyone around her—including me.
The Wedding That Changed Everything
The day I chose autonomy—and the fallout that followed
One of the few times she didn’t get her way was my wedding day. My husband and I had chosen to celebrate our love on our terms, not hers. That defiance led her to refuse to come. She even influenced all our family members to boycott our wedding as well. Although she and my dad did stalk the wedding from a nearby parking lot, so they could see the whole thing.
And she made she sure told me all about it later in an email.
Their absence was painful. Their attempt to ruin our special day because of their own agenda was maddening. But, on my wedding day, I felt something rare. Autonomy. I escaped from under my mother’s wing for a moment.
That sense of power and control was intoxicating. I began to imagine what it would be like to cut her out of my life completely. Forever. But my husband – the one she was so against me marrying – convinced me otherwise, guided by the wisdom only true love can provide.
“You’ll regret it,” he said. And, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew he was right.
Choosing to Stay (with Boundaries)
Learning to love someone difficult without losing yourself
The years passed. My mother continued to refuse to be in the same room with my husband, and we allowed her that much. I even allowed her to have contact with her grandchildren. The ones my husband helped create. But there was one condition to the access.
If she said anything negative about my husband in the presence of his children, we were out of there. And we would stay away until she agreed to behave herself.
She told my husband once, in my presence, that she only loved me when I behaved in a certain way. When I did what she wanted me to do. Only then did she consider me to be her daughter.
By staying in her life, with boundaries, we gave her a glimpse of what unconditional love is. And how it is possible for humans to show it to each other.
The Power Shift
Illness, nursing home abuse, and the beginning of transformation
Almost two decades later, after multiple strokes and heart attacks, the tides shifted, and my mother’s seemingly superhuman strength faded.
After a long hospital stay, during which we fully expected her to die – just two days before Christmas 2024, we were told my mother needed to be put into a nursing home. We didn’t have a choice in the matter, and we weren’t given a choice as to the facility she would be sent to. It was the only one in the city with empty beds.
We soon discovered why.
After three days as a resident of Signature Summerfield, my mother had a black eye. No one could tell me how it happened. My mother said one of the men who worked the night shift threw her into the bed, and she probably hit her eye on the bedrail during one of those episodes.
The staff categorically denied it, although they did agree to bar that man from entering her room again.
My Husband’s Relentless Compassion
How love, even from an unlikely source, began to heal the rift
In those months she was at that miserable place, my husband and I relentlessly fought together for her care, demanding better treatment for her and pushing back against those who sought to silence our cries of outrage.
Since I had two teenagers at home, I only visited her during the daytime. The staff on that shift seemed good enough, even if they didn’t always treat her as a human with dignity. But we still had real concerns about the night shift. Since my husband worked nights, he agreed to go by and check on her after her got off work. He nearly got himself arrested in the process when the night shift called the cops to remove him from the premises, after lying and saying that my mother was no longer a resident there. His willingness to stand up in the face of this threat for the woman who had hated him with a passion for a good portion of our married life broke my mother.
Moments of Softening
When “I love you” started to sound like the truth
She changed. Softened. She learned to love my husband. She even cheered when he came to visit her—something I never thought I would witness. Sometimes, I think she was happier to see him than she was to see me.
She told us both she loved us. Often.
For the first time in my adult life, I actually believed her. And my own heart softened in response.
Fortunately, she did not spend her last days at that horrible nursing home. I was able to get her to a much better place, with people who actually cared about her, about a month before she passed. But the damage had already been done.
On her first day at the new place, she told the nurse, “I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
And I shuddered, hearing the words I’d thought on more than one occasion when facing her untamed wrath coming out of my mother’s mouth.
And I took no pleasure in hearing her say them. I knew the suffering that led to those words being uttered. My heart softened toward her even more.
Final Days, Final Gifts
A movie, a song, and a sense that goodbye was drawing near
Five days before she left this world, we sat together—her, my father, and me—watching Harry and the Hendersons. It was a rare moment of shared nostalgia, untainted by resentment. Tears filled my eyes as I remembered how we’d gone to see it together at the movie theater when I was a kid. I’d like to say I had no idea it would be the last movie my mother ever saw, but I don’t think that’s quite correct.
In my spirit, I think I knew. God was preparing me.
Two days later, on Sunday, I visited her at Wesley Manor. She told me she felt like a caged bird, longing for freedom. Then, softly, she sang “Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird.“
She had been watching Murder She Wrote,* so I assumed she had simply heard Angela Lansbury sing the song, and the melody lingered in her mind. But two days later, when my husband and I visited her again, she sang the song once more. Only, this time she changed the words.
“Goodbye, little yellow bird. I’d rather see you free.”
Sorrow jabbed a cold fist through my heart as I tried to think about what I could do to help my mother feel free. I asked my husband. I asked God.
The Yellow Bird and the Butterfly
God’s tender symbols of release and renewal
The morning after, at 8:26, Wesley Manor called. My mother had passed away just minutes before.
She had finally broken free of her cage.
The next Monday, before we headed to the funeral home for her visitation, I played Murder She Wrote all day. And I just so happened to see the episode where Angela Lansbury sang “Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird.” A tender echo of the song my mother had sung to me just days before. A reminder that she had gotten the freedom she so longed for.
After the funeral, I went to Cracker Barrel with my husband, our daughters, my dad, and his sister. We ate, talked, and tried to ignore the strange undercurrent of loss mixed with a measure of peace. In the gift shop, I found a little yellow Squishmallow bird. Another kiss from heaven.
God sent a few butterfly kisses my way too.
Butterflies suddenly began to appear where I least expected them. Soft reminders of a deeper transformation. There were butterflies in the video the funeral home created for us. There were butterflies decorating the flowers they gave me from her casket. And, weeks later, an old friend sent me a sympathy card—adorned in butterflies. Sacred moments. God drawing a gentle thread through my grief, reminding me that this wasn’t an ending. It was a renewal.
These beautiful insects have always spoken to me of transformation—the kind we go through as Christians.
Transformed Love, Transformed Legacy
How even the most broken relationships can reflect redemption
I began to realize, as I looked at these fluttery symbols, that my mother had completed her transformation. And, just as powerfully, so had our relationship. In the final season of her life, the love that had once been laced with pain and resentment had softened into something redemptive. Something God-honoring.
So, yes. Goodbye, little yellow bird. And hello, butterfly.
I see you both now. Signs that God is always nearby, weaving grace through even the hardest of goodbyes.
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