It’s been 23 years, 3 months and 5 days since my mother died. And yet, here I am, on Christmas morning 2009, missing her as if I had just lost her. When she first passed away, I was numb. In fact, I spent the better part of two decades numb. Periodically it would hit me. I would sob late at night, longing to have her back. I would pray for her to come to me in dreams…for me to just feel her presence in my sleep. I would pour my heart out to my husband who would hold me as I cried myself to sleep.
Over the years, the frequency of such episodes has decreased. But having less moments of despair has yet to reduce the intensity. The truth is, I don’t believe we ever stop missing the ones we love. Whether separated by distance or death, the love and the longing don’t disappear, they just ebb and flow.
I’ve grown up in the adult world often feeling lost without a mother to guide me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to have a day with her. Just one day. So I could see her, get to know her, interact with
her and learn from her as a woman – woman to woman. I’ve been fortunate to have aunts and female friends to nurture me along as a motherless daughter. Without these women in my life, I don’t know what I would have done.
It’s interesting to me that all of my closest female friends have longings for their mothers too. Only most of them have mothers who are living. Mental, emotional and psychological factors come in between mother and daughter in these cases, and I’ve noticed that the void in my friends’ lives is much like the void in mine. I don’t think there’s a woman alive who doesn’t long to have a close, loving, connected relationship with her mother. It doesn’t seem to matter why such a relationship doesn’t exist. It just matters that the relationship doesn’t exist and the longing for such a relationship doesn’t go away. Ever.
One of my closest friends lost her mother last year. Her mother was very abusive to my friend her entire life. Her mother was also diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She wasn’t well. And while she was living, she put my dear friend through hell. When she died, my friend was numb at first. I knew there had to be an element of relief in the sense that he
r mother’s suffering as well as her own were finally over. And yet, I also knew that my friend would grieve the death of hope. When her mother died, it wasn’t her mother’s presence in her life that she would grieve as much as it is the hope that one day she might have a loving, nurturing mother.
It doesn’t matter if she’s left this earth or left a lucid state of mind, the result is the same – she’s not mothering a child who longs to be mothered.
So what does one do with this longing? After the tears have fallen and the moaning subsides, how do you cope? I’ve found that my coping has, for 22 years now, revolved around mothering. I give the unconditional love, nurturing, understanding, compassion, encouragement and support to my family and friends in the same way I long to receive it from my mother. Only this Christmas, I’m separated from 6 of my 7 children as well as my husband. So this Christmas, I am missing my mom, wishing I could have her back in my life. And after the tears have fallen and the moaning subsides, I think this time I’m going to focus on mothering myself. That’s probably the best Christmas present I could get – some mothering from myself. Ironically, it’s probably the best Christmas present we all could get. And it’s one only we can give ourselves.
Photo credits: GFX69, fd, Jody McNary
