I am dealing with feels like such failure as a mom to my oldest
daughter. Yes, she was an adult. Yes, she had issues, but still, societal norms’
always shame a mother when things go wrong.
I know this and I know that she had choices and she had rejected the family
members off and on, one by one, I can now say, for most of her life. I had not intruded on her life. I tried and for some ye
ars, in her adulthood,
she had come back and wanted her mother’s love and always she got it. A mother forgives easily, and I suspect, that
is why kids blame the mother first. We
are made to forgive and to love and comfort and understand. Some things we do understand the WHY of. Still, a persistent old patriarchal voice of
an older age still persists in me.
Perhaps it is not my way of thinking, but that I judge that others still
do believe that falsehood. Nonetheless,
my door was always open to her ‘next time’ she would come and beg
forgiveness. And, now, that can’t
happen. It all resides in me to
understand that concept and get past the nagging thought. But there is more residual left from her
dying young. I have this overriding fear
of losing another of my children, unexpectantly, before me.
Losing a child is a different kind of grief. Yes, there is the sadness, the anger, the guilt and the despair of losing a mother’s wishes, hopes and dreams for that child, no matter what age the pass at. We lose their future and our own future with them. And in all that is this deep fear from the moment of their conception, that we will lose them, or another one of them. I was terrified until I got them over the three-month period that their life was on the line and I was responsible for keeping them alive. I was even afraid to share them. I would lug them everywhere I went. I would get up and listen to them in the night to make sure they were breathing. I have six other adult children and I am still that kind of worrier, and even more so now I have actually lost one.
I blogged earlier about not know who I was any more. Do I say I am the mother of seven, or WAS the mother of seven? Suddenly the world is not so cut and dried. I did not control it and my life has been severely altered without my absolute control. I had no control over her life since she hit puberty. I had no control over her death. There is this feeling, if I had been the kind of mother she needed, this could have been avoided. Stress would not have killed her. She could have come to her mother and I could have comforted her, could have made sure she knew she was loved and safe. I am fully aware this makes no sense. But no sense telling my heart any differently until I get through this.
No matter the adult relationship, a mother is a mother. I spent a lot of time protecting, enjoying, worrying about her. I got her when she was elven days old. She was a very wanted baby. She was my first baby girl. I adored her. She adored me. We had such fun together. Even as adults we had such fun together. I have lost her. We all know what it feels like to lose a kid in a mall. Well, I have lost her. I will feel the thud every time I have to tell people how many children I have/had. It is a constant up and down of feelings. It can come on as quickly as a fleeting thought that does not fleet. The only relief is to acknowledge the feeling and let it feel comforted. Her life was way more than her death. I have to keep remembering that. It is all temporary. The greatest gift in the last month has been that I have come to see death not as an ending but as a transition. I knew this. But I did not know it right to my soul. “My daughter transitioned!” sounds way so much easier, more lovely, less fearful.
I have been making a point to make memories with my grandchildren, about their parents cute and sweet things. I am working hard to beat the anxiety and, yes, fear, that could overtake me when scary thoughts come. I expect sorrow and, of course, there will be times of sorrow. There will be sorrow for the rest of my life and need to remember that is an honor o them and not something negative. My children\s stories are a huge part of my story. The things I rem,ember, maybe no one else will. I need to share them. Transition does not mean we have to forget them, far from it. I am them and they are me. She was to me, who she was to me. No one else has my exact memories. I have a mother’s memory. I will even have memories of sharing my memories. Of course there are the negative ones. Find peace with those. I am seeking peace with those. I am coming to terms with those. Now, on to the sweet and dear ones. <au they reign supreme as I make new ones.
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