jacq, I identified so much with what you wrote about you and your mother's relationship and me and my stepmother's. They did do the best they could but I think neither they nor we were able to figure out what the other "wanted"/needed or were able to express it so the other would know.

One little thing you might try with your mother is just talking about her childhood? I felt much closer to my stepmother when she would share difficulties she had growing up? It was easier to see her as a regular person, like me, instead of as my "mother" who should have or who I wish had done such-and-such. My stepmother was the oldest of 4 siblings and had 3 younger brothers and I was the youngest of 4 siblings and had 3 older brothers but many things about our personal struggles were similar or easy for me to identify with. We have a beautiful Parkway where we grew up that is down by a river and has roads crossing over high above. They were built during my mother's childhood and she was afraid they'd "fall" while her father was driving under them and her brothers picked up on that and use to tease her, "I think I see a crack! Yup, it looks like it's kind of shaky" and like that. Just the whole teasing and jostling with growing up. Her mother was one of 16 children and often an unmarried aunt would stay with them, especially during the Depression, and the aunt wasn't much older than my stepmother and the same "size" and could wear my stepmother's clothes (when she was in high school). But the aunt smoked and my stepmother was still angry about a top her aunt had borrowed for a date and burnt a hole in accidentally with her cigarettes. My mother said the borrowed clothes would come back smelling of cigarette smoke, etc. Ugh! :-) But just sharing all the "unfair" things and disappointments (her brothers were sent to college but she was not allowed to go because she was a girl and didn't "need" it) brought us closer and helped me understand a whole lot as to why she raised me the way she did. That softened some of the harsher things my stepmother did and better made me understand that some things were "not about me."

I'm sorry you're missing your housemaster. I had several mentors I loved too who have died. I feel there are always people to help us each step of the way.