Five Years Later

Five years later and I…

Have had 5 birthdays
Have a website I am extremely proud of
Met the man of my dreams
Graduated with my bachelor‘s degree
Have gotten much closer to Dad
Went to Washington DC, Virginia, San Diego, West Virginia, NYC & other new places
Graduated with my master’s degree
Rented 2 apartments and 1 townhouse
Bought my own car
… and many other things that I know you would be proud of.

Over the last year, I read a book called “Motherless Daughters: the legacy of loss” by Hope Edelman.  Honestly, this book changed my life for the better.  If you or anyone you know lost their mother, I would 100% recommend this book.  When I purchased this book last year, I was getting ready to graduate with my master’s degree and was feeling bouts of loneliness and grief.  I read through this book in spurts, highlighting along the way, until I finally finished it a few months ago.

Here are some of the highlights of the book for me that really hit home and made sense.

“When a mother dies, a daughter’s mourning never completely ends.  Mourning was (and sometimes still is) treated as something that had to be fixed or overcome, not as a lifelong process of accommodation and acceptance.”

“Someone did us all a grave injustice by first implying that mourning has a distinct beginning, middle and end.  A daughter who loses a mother does pass through stages of denial, anger, confusion, and reorientation, but these responses repeat and circle back on themselves as each new developmental task reawakens her need for the parent.”

“Women who lost mothers during adolescence frequently speak of their inability to cry at the time of loss, or even for months or years afterward… what would otherwise have been a temporary separation with the hope of later reconciliation then becomes an irrevocable physical fracture.  A daughter at the peak of rebellion may be left with tremendous guilt and regret if her mother dies at this time.”

“At each milestone a daughter comes up against new challenges that make her long for a mother’s support, but when she reaches out for her, the mother isn’t there.  The daughter’s old feelings of loss and abandonment return, and the cycle begins again.”

“A motherless woman is a walking paradox… Other women have mothers, she thinks, but I have only myself.  Never mind that she has a father or siblings or close friends or a spouse.  In a crowd of other women, as a female, she feels alone.”

“There are the subtle triggers, the ones that sidle up to you without warning, emerging from around a corner, tapping you on the shoulder when you thought you had other things on your mind.  These grief responses are often related to transitional times in a woman’s life – a wedding, childbirth, a new job.  When we reach these milestones, a mother’s absence is painfully obvious.  Either consciously or subconsciously, we once imagined these occasions and expected her to be there.”

“By now we each have our own version, our own mythology, our own fragile grasp of the truth.  My sister remembers a moment one way, I remember it another, and a friend of mine from high school reminds me of parts I could swear never happened at all.”

Mom, your memory is never forgotten.  9/2/1957 — 5/9/2007