I didn’t want to demonise my alcoholic mother in her eulogy – but I wasn’t going to lie either

Ugly drunks like my mum become vicious when they drink. Mum grew a tough skin and would allow the destruction of another friendship to wash over her, quickly absolving herself of any wrongdoing.

Alcohol made Mum disengage as a parent. There was no participation, guidance, or even expectations around my schooling, sports, further study or career. I was left to make big decisions that most kids would first discuss with their parents, then pursue with their emotional and financial support.

Desperate to hide my truth, I was a conscientious little girl who showed up for a weekend working bee at my primary school with a rake I found in our yard, the only child there without a parent. I was the little girl who lied about her mum making her school lunches when it was the lady at the local milk bar who wrapped my salad roll. I’d complain to my classmates, “Oh no, Mum’s made me another salad roll.” The little girl who could have bought a pie and lollies every day chose a salad roll so she could look like all the other kids with their boring, home-made lunches.

I gave alcohol a good hard go in my adolescence and fortunately that’s where I left that short trail of destruction. When I married and had kids, I became resentful towards Mum as I saw her through a new filter; I was now, after all, a mother myself. I could not understand how time and again she could have chosen alcohol over me. Forgiveness would have come quickly if she could have changed. I naively thought this adorable little next generation might have some sway.

It was 24 hours before Mum died of a cardiac arrest that she was on the phone to me, finally conceding her need to change. It wasn’t the first time she had said this, but it was the first time I said nothing in reply.

As for Mum’s eulogy, I used humour to soften many of the references to our family dysfunction, allowing others to draw from it what they would. I wrote, “I have a strong recollection of the three of us having family conversations about teen behaviours and making the right choices. By and large Mum and [stepdad] took my lectures very well, and when the time came for me to leave home, I felt satisfied that I had raised them well.”

For the small gathering this was a moment of comic relief, but I did wonder if they were nodding and smiling about a colourful woman or hiding their discomfort at this insight into the life of a functioning alcoholic through the eyes of her child.

What do you want as your epitaph? “Mum was a colourful character who worked hard and played harder?” “Mum loved a drink, and always spoke her mind?” Or, “Mum was a great parent?”

I didn’t want to demonise Mum in her eulogy – our life was way too complicated to be so absolute. I wasn’t going to lie either.

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