It’s been forty years since you left this earth. My mother, the cornerstone of my well-being. I experienced motherhood without you and continued to welcome another generation, our own grandchildren, to the family. You would think by now that the grief would soften yet it manages to surface when I least expect it.
Recently my husband’s family paid tribute to his mother and father who have both passed away. Their ashes scattered together in the waves beyond our favourite beach side Christmas gathering place. There is a history of years of connection with their children and grandchildren. Each one able to remember and to cherish particular memories of their Nan and Pop. To feel a sense of connection and love for each other. For my mother-in-law it has also been enough years to welcome great grandchildren into her family fold. To surround herself with her family, the proud matriarch. It was an emotional day for us all.
“As long as there is love there will be grief because grief is love’s natural continuation.”
Heidi Priebe
What the memorial triggered in me is a profound sense of lost opportunity for my own beautiful mum, Eileen. She never had the chance to meet her grandchildren and great grandchildren. To form a relationship or to even hold our children in her arms. There was no chance to create any memories between them. Now another generation of our family exist and they too have never met her.
I feel robbed and saddened by what has been lost from my original family. Little sense of intact relationships, times together and memories shared across multiple generations. It feels so painful I don’t think I will ever truly feel happiness and resolution about it in this lifetime. It just sucks right now.
I feel a keen sense to fill the matriarch void. To do the things my own mother was unable to achieve. Perhaps in a sense to make amends, to right the painful wrongs this circumstance has caused. It’s like a never ending hunger to heal the grief and loss of the previous generations.
I have a powerful longing to maintain relationships and memories with our children and grandchildren. To be honored, cherished and remembered as my mother in law has been. Creating a wealth of family history just like her, gathered over her eighty odd years. I hope I’m blessed to live that long.
It has seemed an impossible situation that we live away from our children and their families. A real second blow to add to my original grief. I have previously tried to sort it out by moving closer to our children and grandchildren. Yet to do that I had to leave my husband behind, a thousand kilometres away. It became messy and complicated. At times I felt like the meat in the middle of a sandwich where the bread stayed suspended in space. Both slices refusing to join me. It became an impossible choice between our marriage and staying closely connected to our family.
There continues to be no cohesion and resolution to my dilemma. I feel I live a nomadic life traversing between my two ‘worlds’. Perhaps forever to feel like the meat clinging to each slice of bread, one slice at a time, while gripping for dear life to stop sliding off. The grasp at times feels so tentative on both sides. I need my husband and children to inch their lives closer together.
I feel a real heaviness and sadness today that my mum, Eileen, never had the opportunity to meet her four grandchildren. To hold them in her arms as babies. To read to them, sing and play. To have heart to heart talks about life with them. That she couldn’t share in the joy and create memories as my sister and I became mothers. We both craved the advice and support only our own mum could give us. Eileen also didn’t get to meet her great grandchildren. What a gift it must be to live long enough to share this extra special joy.
I miss you mum. All the years we were robbed of. All the experiences we were unable to share together. Forever in my heart, even if memories of you become dimmer with the passing years.
If you need support in dealing with mother loss, check out the work of Hope Edelman and in Australia the Motherless Daughters Australia website and peer support group. Both provide invaluable resources and understanding about this journey.