Denice Marciner

Everyday we hear about daughters who have lost their mothers; for a plethora of heartbreaking reasons. The world is loud about these losses. There are support groups for these losses. Books for these losses.

And I won’t even start on absent fathers – we’ll be here all day.

What about those of us who don’t have a reason? Just loss.

I can’t speak for the experience of those that lost their mother to death – I imagine that’s a life time of unimaginable feelings. A hole that was once filled with intention and love. I don’t envy that loss.

But never having built a relationship. Never being shown or told about the love of your mother. Spending your life knowing this person is still alive and well and intentionally choosing to not be a part of your life.

No up for adoption – just absent.

What did you do?
What did those around you say?

Who forced this peron out of your life?

And sometimes the answer is – no one. They just didn’t want to be. So how do you navigate life like this? People will often try to fix it as if you can reach out and mend something that was never there. And when you finally gather the urge – or annoyance – to tell them they left you and this isn’t a no contact situation.

The pitying looks are almost debilitating.

Mother’s day is hard.

Relationships with women are hard.

A healthy relationship with yourself is hard.

You feel weird because truthfully you’ve never felt the love or had the relationship; so how could you truly know what you’re missing out on? You don’t know exactly what is missing but you know something is missing. You see your friends with their mothers and see that you’ve missed out.

How could someone leave the thing they spent 9-10 months building brick by brick. Housing, nourishing, and feeling the little (and big) flutters and baby kicks? For…. no reason.

Is there a recovery from this feeling? I’ll let you know when I find out. In the meantime – be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with your feelings that come, go, ebb, and flow. Hold onto those relationships that do feel good you just don’t have the words to describe them.