A Missing Link

Many of you know that my mother died when I was eight. It was suicide, or accidental overdose depending on who you talk to. Either way, she was gone.

There are things that people don’t have the right mind to think about before they do something like that. Take pills to ease their pain until there is no conscious knowledge that one has found any relief.

I grew up without a mother, and I managed and did okay, but there are still effects of that dreadful event 45 years later and I’m going to mention one now. The motherless daughter as a parent.

My daughter was raised by a mother who had no mother. Her mother never had anyone to hold her or hug her when she was feeling despair, loneliness, fear, or pain. Her mother did not have anyone to call her to inquire about her day. Her mother wiped her own tears. No one ever helped her mother with her children or household. There was no one to answer those questions that only a mother can answer. God is good, but God is not your mother.

Sometimes parenting was confusing to her mother because she had no real role model. She had grandmothers who were loving and kind, but there was a missing link. Always. Grandmothers are not the same as mothers.

Her mother went to college to learn how to care for others. Seriously. And she went on to have an excellent career in nursing, but with all of those school hours and work hours, she wondered constantly if she was giving her own daughter what she needed from a role model.

I loved my daughter, hugged her, wiped her tears, offered her encouragement and hope and always wondered if I was doing the right things by her.  She had a few years of strife even I could not cope with well. There were times when there was only bitterness between us.

So when my daughter delivered her second child at home and needed help with the household, I called a housekeeper to come in and do the work of cleaning for a day. It wasn’t much, but it was all I knew to do. I don’t believe it was enough. What she needed most was for mom to be close.

Well, today, my daughter, upon hearing about my agony in back pain, came over to get my heating pad off the top shelf in the closet. She set me up in my bed for comfort and gave me fresh fruit with yogurt for breakfast. She gave me hugs, then cooked bacon for my lunch, cut up tomatoes and lettuce. She cleaned last night’s supper dishes and loaded the dishwasher. We chatted a while.  We hugged some more. It was a much warmer time, I’m sure, than if she had hired someone to come over and attend to me. She was here for me.

She’s grown up just fine.

I’m still learning to be a motherless parent.

You see, it takes generations to overcome what a suicide will do. I see my daughter nurturing my granddaughter and feel the warmth in her nurturing me and know everything is going to be okay.

I am truly blessed. Thank you, daughter. You are appreciated.