My mother died seven years ago but I have always missed her.
I think about my mother a lot during the holidays. She adored Christmas with a childlike glee, made the best chocolate chip and sugar cookies and could wrap a present like nobody’s business.
I wanted another mother.
I discovered at the tender age of 14 while getting ready for my first boy/girl party that the mother I had was never going to be the mother I needed. After helping me put together an outfit and apply the slightest bit of makeup, she said flatly I “looked fine” and shooed me out of her bedroom.
I was confused and hurt.
My mother was aloof and far way, indifferent and quiet. I tried like hell to get inside her head but she had no interest in self revelation or sharing herself with me. Or anyone, but perhaps my father and sister.
We struggled.
We struggled to communicate with one another, we struggled to relate to one another, we struggled to look each other in the eye. There was always a gaping distance between us. It wasn’t tension as the result of a big blow out, we simply had nothing to talk about. I remember a four-hour car ride we took together in which maybe ten words were shared.
Even after years of knowing what I would encounter each and every time, I still kept hoping that she would change. That she would let me in.
I needed a mother who was present and engaging, hands on and expressive. I wanted the kind of mother my friends had. One who was interested and interesting. I knew so little about the woman who raised me.
For years I thought if I could just find the right way to talk to her, she’d open up. Every question I asked lead to a dead end so eventually I gave up.
Things weren’t as quiet when my father was around and especially if my sister was present. Both served as buffers and provided topics of conversation.
As an adult, before both of my weddings and once on a very long family road trip I wanted to confront her but I chickened out because I was afraid of her response. My ego couldn’t handle more mommy disappointment. What could she say to me? “I’m sorry, I did the best I could.”? I didn’t want to hear that. Of course, I don’t know what I wanted to hear.
While I once thought my mother and I were as different as night and day, now I’m not so sure. Now that I’m a mother myself I feel like I know her in a whole new way. Is that crazy?
This was a stream of consciousness post written in 15 minutes with very little editing. My relationship with my mother is a topic that I could go on and on about as I try to dissect it, what I wish it was and how I find peace with it now that she is gone.
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This is so raw and real, Tonya. I love it, but I’m so sorry that there are so many unanswered questions for you about your mom. As parents, we spend so much time pouring ourselves into our children’s needs that they don’t reach the realization that they want to know us until later in life. Which makes me wonder: Can we ever really separate ourselves enough to know our parents?
That is a great question and I don’t know the answer. I feel like I knew my dad pretty well. I gravitated toward him at an early age as I felt so distance from my mother, but I really know.
Whenever you write about either of your parents it’s always so raw and beautiful. They are some of my favorite posts of yours <3
Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you reading and your kind comment. It’s a difficult topic to write about (and share) but I have to. I know you get it! xoxo
I think after we lose a parent these unanswered questions are the ones the haunt us most. The why of it all. I think we have to accept that they loved us the best way they knew how, even if that doesn’t help all that much.
Haunting. That is the very best way to describe it, Jennifer. That’s what it is. It never goes away and if I didn’t write about it, it would eat me alive.
I feel like in some ways, your mother was like my mother too. My mother is still here though, and we are tentatively exploring our relationship in ways we couldn’t when I was younger, and for that I am grateful. Although I can’t say I have forgiven her for the way she made me feel – your post definitely hit a nerve, in that I STILL have my mother, and I shouldn’t wait until it’s too late to try and recover something from our relationship.
Thank you for sharing your heart, Tonya.
I strongly encourage you to try to talk to your mother about your relationship or lack there of while she is still here, Alison. Not openly discussing my disappointment in my relationship with my mother while I had the opportunity is one of my deepest regrets. And I don’t want that for you.
I can relate to this a bit. My Mom and I have a decent relationship but we are not super close. There’s no animosity or anything like that and I love her very much, but I would think as her only daughter, we might be closer.
Honestly, now that I am older and a mother myself, and now that I have observed somethings from that perspective instead of just the view of being her child, I can understand more, but it is still hard.
I’m sorry you have all these feelings that are left hanging. I hope you can find peace with it some day(?), some way…
xo