Grieving Her Twice

I think I have grieved my mother more than once…now this might be a little confusing but I know someone else might feel the same.

The first time, she was still alive.

I was young, and I didn't have the words for it then. I only knew that there were things I needed from my mom that I wasn't getting. A relationship I wanted. A version of being her daughter I longed for. The kind of mother-daughter bond I saw other girls have and quietly wondered what it would feel like to have it for myself. Why wasn’t I good enough to have that bond..

At the time, I didn't know that you could grieve someone who was still here.

I just knew I missed her.

Years later, I would grieve her again.

Only this time, she was gone.

And somehow, losing someone you have already spent years grieving is its own kind of heartbreak.

Because death doesn't just make you miss the person who was there. Sometimes, it makes you miss the person you always wished they could have been.

I am older now. I'm a mother myself. And having a daughter has changed the way I understand my own childhood in ways I never expected.

I look at her and wonder what my mom felt when she looked at me.

I wonder what she would think of the woman I've become.

I wonder what it would be like to call her when my daughter does something funny. To ask her what she did when I was her age. To hear her tell stories about me that I don't remember. To have someone who knew me before I knew myself.

There are moments when I don't necessarily miss my childhood with my mom. I miss the relationship I wish we could have had now.

And I think that is one of the hardest parts to explain. Because grief isn't always about missing what you had. Sometimes it's about missing what you never got to have.

I can love my mom and still acknowledge the ways I was hurt.

I can miss her and still have complicated feelings about our relationship.

I can wish things had been different without rewriting the life we actually lived.

And I can grieve her while also grieving the little girl I once was…the one who wanted her mom in ways she didn't know how to say.

Now I have a daughter of my own.

And sometimes that feels like the most beautiful gift and the deepest ache at the same time.

Because I get to experience a mother-daughter relationship from the other side.

I get to be the mom.

I get to create the little moments I once longed for. But sometimes, while I'm making those memories with her, I find myself wishing I could turn around and share them with my own mother. That's the strange thing about grief. It doesn't always make you want the past back. Sometimes it makes you wish the future you imagined had been possible.

So I'm learning to hold all of it.

The love.

The hurt.

The longing.

The anger.

The memories.

The unanswered questions.

The gratitude.

And the grief.

Maybe that's what this is about.

Not figuring out how to stop missing her.

But learning how to carry the mother I had, the mother I lost, and the mother I always wished I could have had..all while becoming the mother my daughter needs.

And maybe, somewhere in all of that, I'm learning how to mother the little girl in me, too.

Xoxo,

Your Friend in Real Estate-Elizabeth S.