Lately, I’ve been thinking about how we are all someone’s daughters, and some members of this community have likely lost their mothers. Are you one of them? Do you still feel the gap in your heart from missing this special person? Do you face special occasions where her presence is sorely missing? No matter how many years may have passed, one’s mother is always a part of who we are now.
The gaps in our hearts are there because a mother died when we were young, and we never knew her. Or, we have a storage full of memories of a long life together and ache to continue to share life with her. Maybe the memories are crammed inside, and it isn’t easy to clear and make sense of them.
We are all of different ages and from many parts of the world in this community. No matter what our age is or where we live, we still share deep feelings about the loss of a mother. Maybe we are mothers ourselves and mother our children differently because we no longer have mothers. What matters here is what our lives are like now that our mothers are no longer part of it.
Does it matter at what age we lost our mothers? Probably. If you lost your mother as a young child, child, adolescent, young adult, or adult, there would be a difference. Maybe your mother is alive somewhere but abandoned you or is just not available to do any mothering. The impact of the loss affects everyone at every age differently.
We are not experts on the impact of losing mothers at different developmental ages. We are two people who have experienced losing mothers and seek ways in our lives to fill the gaps that mothers leave behind. Both of us lost our mothers – Pat at an early age and Karen as an adult with adult children.
It takes time to grieve and sometimes a lifetime. For some, it is recent, and daily memories are right under the tears in our eyes. For others, it’s the emptiness of not having that sits quietly in our hearts.
Nurturing Ourselves
We still need to find compassion, love, laughter, and mothering in our lives whenever the lost. How do we learn to mother ourselves after losing our mothers? By giving ourselves permission to nurture and allow others to be there for us.
What nurtures each of us may be different, though the need to feel good about ourselves and experience love is present at all times. Sometimes it’s helpful to remember our mothers and allow them in spirit to be with us and guide us to finding ways to nurture ourselves.
We may be ‘motherless daughters’, yet we can create ways to be there for ourselves or let others provide us with love. Good friends are not mothers, but they provide nurturing in times of need. No one can take the place of a missing mother, but others can certainly fill in at times of stress or sadness and share in the joys that inevitably come along and would have been shared with a mother. It’s not the same, but continuing to share those special times with friends who are still in your life takes away the sting.
“Motherless Daughters” by Hope Edelman is written to women who have dealt with the loss of mothers. The author writes from experience and research about the impact of losing one’s mother at different ages. She allows us to visit with our loss, understand its effects and find ways to move on with our lives without a mother. This was a powerful book for me!
Take time today to find ways to nurture yourself.
Your Thoughts
Have you found a caring place to house the memories of your mother and nurture yourself?
Women’s Group Topics
Though the topic is about Motherless Daughters, you can include ways we can mother ourselves.
Be well,
Pat
“To fully enjoy the ‘richness’ of our lives, we need to stop long enough to visit with ourselves.”
(Pat Brill)
Other Topics You May Be Interested In
Make Meal Time Special
Do You Take the Time to Listen to Yourself?
How to Handle the Many Small Annoyances in Your Life
Do you want to download a PDF copy of both of these books, then go to:
