i wrote something really eloquent in response to Holly's comment and it disappeared...oh well, maybe thoughts/words are like that. They get blown away with the wind.

This might be the first time that I am writing something for this blog. I finished reading Eat Pray Love for the 2nd time. I just saw the movie and I KNEW that they changed things (they always do) but they changed such important parts and characters I just had to sink my teeth into the book once again. Plus, I was reading that book summer of 2007, and that was the summer of my breakup with "my" David. So I don't know how much I really retained about the details of the book except to say that I kept crying when reading Gilbert's passages about the heartache she endured with the breakup with her David.
I don't know why the break up of boys always brings up the loss of my mom, but it does. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist here..... but you would think that I'd be able to separate the two. And I find myself a little jealous of Gilbert who jet sets off to Bali and then falls in love with a Brazilian. I'm still waiting for the guy to show up and at the same time I've stopped waiting. The heart has been broken too many times for another man to waltz into my life and sweep me off my feet--only to drop me after he lifted me up.
Seems easier to just devote my life to God. And believe me I have. I have been living such an austere life that I don't even recognize myself sometimes. Easy to do though. I can disappear in a yoga class so easily and disappear from my life that most of my friends don't even seem to notice that I've been off the radar. How could they? They're busy tending to babies and husbands and PTA meetings etc etc.
I can't help but wonder what life will be like for these women when their mothers pass on. Will they begin to know the loneliness that I have felt for almost 23 years? Will they crave their mother's touch as much as I do? Will they miss her voice? Will they yearn for her advice? Will they cry for "no reason at all"? Or will they simply be too busy with children, grandchildren and the like? And will I be able to listen to them? Can I give empathy to women that have their mothers around for graduations, weddings, birthdays, babies, Christmases? Thanksgivings? etc. Seems selfish to say no and yet I'm afraid my smaller self won't want to hear it.
That's about as honest as I can get at 2am

My Mom's Birthday

Hey Ladies!

It's been awhile. Today I'm celebrating my mom's birthday. She would have been 58 today, & would still be young. She has been gone for 27 years. I type that because I can do the math, but to actually believe that is possible is a whole other thing. I really don't believe it, it just doesn't seem possible. I've been going through some hard times lately, and I wish she was here with me. I always wish she was here with me.

I got married last summer, and I really missed her then too. Her younger sister came from Louisiana for the wedding. She is a writer and I asked her if she would read something at the wedding. She didn't want to at first, because she gets nervous speaking. But she called me a week later & said that my mom inspired her to do it. And at our wedding, she read the words that she said came through her from my mom. It was beautiful (and I bawled!).

Anyway, today I am thinking about my mom & all the birthdays & celebrations & regular days we haven't got to spend together. I feel cheated. But I'm trying to celebrate her life & not think about her death.

Happy Birthday to You, Jane Ellen! You are missed every day.

More PAin

My son's dead was killed in a car accident last Tuesday. I am devestated for my son. I can barely watch him carry this loss, I know how difficult it can be to lose a parent. I truely believe that losing the same sex parent is the hardest. Please pray for my son.

Hurting

Wow, no one has been here in awhile, including myself. I have had a trying week to say the least. I am having some difficulties with my teenage son. I could really use my mom this week, I have done a lot of crying, mostly in solitude, a little to friends. My son is such a beautiful person, he is big hearted and so funny, growing up is hard to do and he has been hurting lately and it breaks my heart to see him in pain. I feel at times I have not been the best mother, in part because of the lack of a mother in my life. At one point his week I felt defeated, I lacked parental confidence. I did not know how I would push forward, A friend said, "You can do it, yes you can". To realize someone had confidence in me was all I needed to have the confidence in myself. I have went through a series of emotions this week, I was upset and sad, I started questioning my own self, doubting my abilities and then finally the anger came which gave me a boost to deal with the situation instead of cowering in the corner. I told my son yesterday that I loved him and there was nothing he could do that could make me love him less. For the first time I truly felt like a mother.

Two Dimensional

Do you ever have moments where you are so stressed or worried about something, that you lose perspective and focus? You forget how strong you are and how strong you have been, and where you came from?
For me, this happens sometimes. I get so focused on the "now" that I forget who I am and how capable I am of being or doing anything I want to. Before my mother died, I would always call her in those moments, and she would remind me how special I am, how loved I am, and put it all neatly into perspective for me so I could carry on.
I have said so many times that losing my mother was like losing a piece of myself. There is a hole inside me that is always there and can never be filled, no matter how many truly wonderful people I come in contact with. No one will ever love me or know me the way she did. I have learned to live with the emptiness as the years have passed, but in the process I have become so lonely and so isolated on a certain level. I don't always notice, but living with that missing piece sometimes makes me feel two-dimensional. I give into my insecurities and that is all I can see.
I had an opportunity recently to look through old family photos and I was reminded that I was once part of a whole family, I was once a loved and cherished daughter. I used to feel strong as long as my mother was around because I always knew I had a soft place to land even if I failed. Now if I fail, I have no one to remind me that failure does not define me. I try to carry myself through the insecurities and the failures but sometimes I cannot bolster myself with confidence. And I know now it's because I let a part of myself go when my mother died just to try and survive. As I looked at the photos, I felt whole again. I remembered who I was and I saw myself through my mother's eyes...a much loved daughter who is special even when she doesn't realize it.
My mother is gone but her love is always here when I need it, and I just need to remember that.

Trying to change my perspective

I had a bit of a revelation today that I wanted to share. I have shared at the meetings that one of the enormous issues I am currently dealing is my mother's age when she passed. She was 31 and I am 30. Her age slowly became a fixation for me. And I have realized that it was there, under the surface, before I ever consciously realized it. I am trying to work on the fear that surrounds this and all the ways which it affects me.

So, here is the revelation. Instead of living in fear of dying at this age like my mom did, I am going to choose to change my perspective. I going to work toward appreciating each day that I am here, instead of fearing when my time here will come to an end. I want to learn from what happened to her that you never know when you will leave this world, but instead of worrying about it, accept it. And do all the things that I desire to accomplish now, instead of putting it off with the assumption that there is plenty of time. In doing so, I will shift from fearing death to appreciating life and therefore will enjoy my life more. Then whenever my time comes, I will be able to smile and say that I made the best of my time here.

Mirror Image

People who knew my mother have always told me how much I look like her, of course I could never see it. I have worn braces for the last 3 years, I had them removed yesterday. Today as I was looking in the mirror I saw my mother looking back at me and it made me smile bigger!

Dealing With a Death of a Parent

I had minimal feelings of regrets. Of course I wish I had another chance to tell my mom I loved her, but her death affected me in different ways. I was young when she died and her death was sudden. She was only 33 and healthy. When she died I lost my sense of self-worth, self pride and self respect. I became afraid of losing people, instead of pulling them closer like Julie discussed, I would push everyone away. I did not want to be loved or love anyone for fear of losing them. I did this for years and now I am starting to realize behaving in this way will not soften the blow when death does come. This is not living. I am slowly rebuilding some important relationships. I still struggle with saying I love you. However actions speak louder than words and I show my love more than I ever did.

Regrets...

I have had several conversations over the past few weeks with people who have lost parents - and all of them had one regret or another. I myself have my own regrets, things I couldn't even think about for years after my mother's death, because I was so ashamed and angry with myself. I felt I had let my mother down. I guess it never occurred to me how widespread this is. We sometimes think this only happens in instances where someone dies suddenly and without warning. But really, it seems to happen to everyone.

What's more - I realized that there is no way to help a person in the throes of regret in these instances. Somehow, some way, they just have to forgive themselves. Sometimes that takes days, or months or even years. Sometimes people never forgive themselves. They wander through life carrying around this unfinished business in their hearts, all the while it's tainting everything they do and everyone they come in contact with. Think about it - do you feel a desperate need every day to say I love you to someone you love just in case, God forbid, they are taken from you suddenly? Have you ever fought with your spouse, or your child, or your parent and then prayed that you got to say you were sorry before they were taken from you? I know I do. After losing my Mom, I will never, ever take any moment for granted because I never, ever want to feel that sickening feeling of regret when I lose someone I love again.

But for all the trying and desperate I love you's and I'm sorry's before the "deadline", I don't know that there is ever a way to avoid feeling regret. Our relationships are so complicated, so entrenched, so emotionally overloaded, that I don't think it is possible to ever say and do everything you would ever need to before you lose someone. And really, no matter how prematurely, or late in life, someone you love is taken away, it is always too soon. And that alone is reason for regret..

Step 1 - stop kidding yourself into believing that there was more you could have said, or more you could have done to make things better or worse than they were. You don't have that much control in this world.

So here's what I think. It's not what we say, or how many times we say it, or what we do or how many times we do it. I am reminded of a song called "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas. One of the lines in the song says "...in the end, we will only just remember how it feels." And I think this is important for all of us to remember...that at the end of our lives we are only left with the love in our hearts. When our mothers died, they carried with them the unconditional love and joy that they felt the day they became our parents. Nothing that you did or didn't do could ever take that joy from them.

It's not easy, but in time let's all try to forgive ourselves and let ourselves off the hook. I somehow think that if we had the chance to say I'm sorry right this moment, our mothers would say "It's ok."

WWYD if you had one more day?

Holly posted a comment to my 'every family has a ghost' post. I referenced the book "One More Day" in that post which is about a guy who gets one more day with his dead mother. Holly talked about what she would do if she had one more day with her mom...I thought this would be an interesting question to ask everyone. I myself have to ponder this for a while, but I wanted to put this out there for you all to think about as well. What would you do if you had one more day with your mother? Hmm, if only..

the holidays

I know the holidays are hard for all of us. Why not post your thoughts on the subject to help other members out? How do you handle the holidays? Have you found other things to make them more bearable? Please click 'Comments' below to post.

I'm not sure I have found a surefire way of making the holidays less painful. But I think that I have just found other things to focus on to make the holidays enjoyable. I have created my own traditions to replace the recurring ones that no longer exist since losing my mom. It gives me a sense of continuity that seems to be missing. My favorite thing every year is to put the last Christmas card my mother gave me in my tree. It says "Julie, Merry Xmas, Love Mom". Makes me feel like I get a Christmas card from my mom each year. Makes me smile.

book

Julie, Do you recommend the book? What did you think of it?

every family has a ghost..

When you lose someone close to you, you look around at those who have not yet been faced with that pain and you both envy and pity them. You envy them because they have not yet suffered the unspeakable but inevitable loss, and you pity them because you know what they are in for. I was watching a friend of mine with his parents the other night and it occurred to me how big of a hole losing a parent puts in your life. People lose their parents every day so there's this impression that it is not that bad, that it is survivable. But for those of us who have suffered the loss, we know there is piece of yourself that is lost forever. You go through the rest of your days trying to move forward but always knowing that you have left a piece of yourself behind. It is like a bomb hits your home but you carry on as normal. And I recently read a book by Mitch Albom called "One More Day". It's about a man who gets to spend one last day with his dead mother. In the book he says, "every family has a ghost." As I was watching my friend with his parents, I realized that his family does not yet have a ghost. And I started thinking about families I knew that had lost someone close to them, and how different they were before and after. Before it happens, you enjoy the luxury of taking someone for granted. You make plans as if they will always be around, even though we all know at some point we will lose them. Those are the times you can be in denial and not have to think or deal with the pain. I envied my friend as I watched him. I wanted to be where he was. And then I pictured what he and his family will be like when one or both of his parents pass on. They will carry on and move forward as a family, because you just have to. But you carry on always with this heavy pain in your heart that things are not the same without them. That's the "ghost" in every family. That person or persons that were your whole life, and the empty space left behind by their absence. The empty space is the ghost. You can see it in the faces of people who have lost someone. Like they have endured a war and something in their eyes tells you something inside of them has died, too. They put on a brave face, but you can feel the void. Every family has a ghost...

Welcome..

Welcome to the new Motherless Daughters blog..

I have created this for our members, especially those who have not yet had the opportunity to attend a meeting, but would still like to participate and share ideas and thoughts with our members. It's my way of making sure everyone gets an opportunity to benefit from input and discussions amongst our group members.

I hope that you will be encouraged, and find hope and peace in the knowledge that you are not alone.