I sometimes feel like a bad daughter.

This feeling must have started after my father’s funeral (almost) two years ago. I say, “Must have” because the feelings I experienced that last week with him anxiety, fear, physical pain, numbness, disbelief, sadness crippled me emotionally, I now realize.

Since then, my body has been subconsciously warding off the potential of ever feeling the full force of those emotions again. It is my guess that this is why I shy away from hugging people (sometimes including my mother) or talking seriously about depressing or affectionate subjects.

Because of this, what I like to think of as the “real” or “old me” remains in hibernation; I let my pessimistic feelings build inside until one random day I drain them in the privacy of my apartment.

“This shouldn’t be anyone else’s baggage,” I usually think to myself.

My mother’s response has been very different from mine when we get together she often vents about how she is feeling, which sometimes leads to tears. Of course, I want to be there for her and to stop her from feeling pain to be the great only daughter/child that she needs right now.

But her grieving process is a foreign language to me.

Since my own emotions were so damaged, my reaction towards her articulation of pain I also now realize can appear cold. Since few people in her life allow her to vent, she was forced to bottle up her emotions.

I had been waiting for the “other shoe to drop” for some time. The signs were all there: my mother’s distant tone on the phone, her constantly damp brown eyes and the way she clung to my cat Mooshu whenever she babysat him.

When she finally said a few months ago, “I can’t live like this anymore. All I feel is loneliness,” it was a wake-up call; I knew something had to be done. But, in the process of figuring out how to express my own crumbled emotions and going to grad school/working full time, I did not know what more I could do besides talk on the phone with her and meet for dinner once a week.

It was right around this time that my Aunt Sue’s cat Fatty had a litter of 12 kittens.

“You should think about getting one for your mom,” my aunt said jokingly over the phone. During the summer, my aunt had given her two kittens “Fatty” and “Samuel” from an earlier litter. Because of my mother’s hectic work schedule, however, she had no time to nurture or raise them. Ultimately, she had to return them to my aunt, which fostered more grief.

“I wish I could,” I replied. “She’s just so busy.”

At that, my aunt suggested that I rear a kitten for her (until it was a full grown cat that was capable of being left alone for long periods of time). And so, we immediately set up a date for us to look at the litter.

“Emma” was one of the first things my mother said while looking down at the scurrying orange-bodied kittens. “I like the name Emma.” She picked up one of the quiet runts and held the whining baby to her chest, lovingly stroking its head until it shut its eyes and slept.

“Oh, Sarah,” she laughed and smiled.

When I drove back to my apartment that evening the tiny orange kitten staring at me through the bars of her cat carrier I could not help but think back to when I was a little girl and my mother held me while lovingly running her fingers through my hair until I fell asleep. When I had, she would carry me up our wooden staircase to bed, cradled in arms that would never let me fall.

I also remembered that “Emma” was going to be my name (before my father took her to see the movie “The Terminator” when she was pregnant).

One day, my emotions will heal; I will learn to laugh and cry to grieve normally again. Looking back at the kitten, I considered that until then, Emma might be a piece of me that my mother can still hold on to.

I may never be a great daughter. But I do love my mother more than any words I do or do not say can explain. When Emma goes to live with her after I move to the city, I hope she understands my broken foreign language.

Originally Published Dec. 14, 2008