Elisa, Mother of My Mother

The relationship with the mother is continuo usly present, consciously or unconsciously in the life of many women, and I am aware that it is very present in that of my mother, and in mine. The shadow in the sense of the unresolved contradictions of the mother, her sufferings, that are, sometimes, inexplicable for the daughter, her wishes, often not explicit, is also present. I am not trying to totally understand the relationship of the mother with the grandmother, rather what I want to do is to give form, outloud, to some of the questions, that I have been asking as I become aware that there are things, as in all relationships, that did not go well, that is, that could form part of the maternal shadow of the grandmother, or that which stays unclear between the mother and daughter, that has involved my mother and also involves me. Because the relationship with the mother is the primary relationship, a relationship of disparity and authority. A
relationship that goes beyond the specific singular relationship –that of the mother with the grandmother- and that is situated in the dimension of the maternal continuum, but we have to keep in mind that as well as being a mother, the grandmother was a woman with her singularity. However, for my mother, the grandmother was, for sure, as for the other children, a figure laden with fantasy and absolute and complete meanings, both for the good and the bad. However, any woman becomes a mother in relationship: in a relationship that takes shape and is made one with the symbolic creative work of two.