A Motherless Mother

Many years ago I read a book called Motherless Daughters.  Losing my mom at 12, this book made perfect sense to me.
I think I grasped this title, Motherless Daughter, and learned to live those years as such.
Even though my mother died when I was 12, she was ill off and on for 5 years.
So I learned to do laundry by 10.  I can't remember a time when I didn't do dishes.  I was mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, feeding myself, and making decisions that most 12 year olds never had to face.  I remember seeing my friends come to school in a braid that their mom braided, with lunches their mom packed, wearing clothes their mom washed and turning in homework their mom checked.  And I was jealous.  But I made it through these years.  Don't get me wrong, I had help.  There was always a woman from church, a beloved aunt, a teacher or a friends mom.  They all stepped up and filled in what holes they could.  And I think I came out just fine.  Even through all the years of my dad buying my pads and tampons.  Imagine my surprise when I went out and bought my own for the first time!  They did not have to be 2 foot long.  (that's another blog)

As I stepped into adulthood I didn't realize the effect it would have on me to not have a mother.  I pushed through the years of trying on my wedding gown, without her.  And having my first child, without her.  Filing for divorce, without her.  All those moments where you needed that one person to have your back whether they agreed with you or not....

And as I became a mother I realized I had been placed in a completely different category.  I became a motherless mother.  I attend these special days for my children, and I look around the room at all the grandmas and I wonder.  I wonder would my mom be here?  What kind  of grandmother would she have been?  I envision she would have been at those special events.  I would like to think she would have taught the teenager how to bake one of her famous apple pies.  Maybe she would have worked with the boy on his art and shared her talent with him.  Would she have made the last ones Halloween costume?  Would she still live in the same house?  Would my kids go over for sleepovers, or shopping trips, or zoo days, or afternoon teas.  Would she volunteer for their shows and help sew costumes, or attend a field trip, or pick them up from the bus stop.  All the things they don't have now.
It's easy to put someone on a pedestal who isn't here and think they would have been the greatest of these things.
But I also think of reality.   Would she still smoke?  Would I complain every time my kids came home from her house and they smelled of smoke?  Would she want to cut their hair?  How could I tell her that giving half priced perms in your kitchen in the 80's in not nearly as cool as the neighborhood salon where your stylist is pierced and tattooed.

What if....What if....What if.....


As a child and a young adult I never considered this to be a phase.  But it is.
Suddenly I am a mom who has no one to call when I am sick and the kids need to go to preschool, gymnastics, a birthday party, or wherever.  I have no mom.
And then my children start reaching the age that I was when my mother was unable to parent - and I realize something very scary.  I don't know how to mother these children.  I have no one else's mistakes to correct or no one else's greatness to replicate.

I thought being a motherless daughter was the hard phase.  However, I am struggling with being a motherless mother just as much.