DISQUS

saintixe56 · 1 year ago

How true. I realized the extent of loving my mother when on her final days; I was ready and I would have done it doing things I rationally dont believe in and praying that even if she was dozing in hospital, at least to be alive in hospital... 18ys later I miss her as miserably as the day she died. meanwhile I grew older, possibly a bit wiser anyhow more knowledgable, our son is a grown man. But planning to become a cheerful grandmother on the years to come does not make up for the loss and the longing. Mother day stopped being a holiday 18ys ago...

JoyP · 1 year ago

I am a motherless mother. My mother died when I was 24. I had two children of my own. My youngest sister who was 6 at the time came to live with us. She became my "daughter" and my children her siblings. To this day (they are 32 and 31 and my son is 29) they consider themselves brother and sister. She calls me mom and she is my child. My mother was my best friend and it left a huge void in my life. I remember telling my husband that I never wanted my children to love me that much and experience the pain that I was feeling. It happened anyway. My daughters and I are very close and talk daily. I wouldn't miss this experience for anything, just as I am sure my mother loved our closeness. I do the same things with my kids that she did with me - down to the corny crap and fixing their favorite dishes, sewing, dogsit, etc. Happy Mother's Day. You don't realize how important it is until you don't have one anymore.

Jillmz · 1 year ago

Joy, thank you so very much for sharing this today. When I wrote that column four years ago, there actually wasn't much out there about motherless mothers but I was in a place where I was trying desperately not to be rude to my mother for all the things she would do that I felt were undermining my independence and confidence. And in trying to understand what was going on, I remember it dawning on me that, like you, my mother was so young, and a young mother, when she lost her mother. How devastating.

It was really an epiphany and, as you say, I really didn't realize what I had as much as when I realized what she'd lost.

Have a wonderful Mother's Day and thanks for commenting.

Jillmz · 1 year ago

Saintixe56 I am really sorry for your pain and loss related to your mother and mother's day. I'd try to think of something pithy to say to persuade you to feel differently, but obviously there really isn't anything anyone can say or do - except maybe to listen, commiserate a little and have this space where you can read others experiences.

I'm sure you are right re: you will become a cheerful grandmother and enjoy it, but it won't make up for having lost your mother, or the longing. I think that's what I started to realize in my mother's life, was what was going on with me and my kids.

I handed my mother the column to read when she was in my home, just a couple of weeks before it was going to be published and she laughed and cried. She didn't say much afterwards, but we definitely shared an understanding that we'd never had before.

Do you mind me asking, how old were you when you lost your mom?

runasim · 1 year ago

Mothers and daughters, along with people of all kinds, not only have to cope with their personal challenges, but they are also constantly confronted with picture postcard ideals that no human being or relationship can ever match.
Suicide rates rise during the Xmas season!

I find it healthier to just step back and see the people we do have and have had in our lives as people, in their own right, not merely in their roles in the relationship. to us.
Then, pick the good parts we see to use in the present and step right past the bad parts without agonizing overly . Not everything has primarily to do with us.

It's a new day,!
Seize it!

PS I wrote the biographies (for my personal use only) of both my parents,, even though the maerials I had to rely on were sketchy.
The exercise was incredibly edfying and liberating.

I don't think I ever loved them more than when I dropped myself off into the wings long enough to find them as individuals.- like characters in a play.

Jillmz · 1 year ago

What a great perspective to share. I think there's truth to that. When we're children and we think they are so unique, or maybe even that everyone's parents must be like our parents, it can be a surprise to learn that other kids' parents - mothers - are different.

And then, when we learn our parents are, oh my goodness - HUMAN! Another layer of the onion comes off, or another curtain pulled back.

But then again, as their children, I imagine that as we learn about who our kids are, it's not all that different for the parents?

Thanks.