I Need a Mom

Even a coach still needs her mom.

 

The problem is my mom is gone. She died years ago after years of mental decline in Alzheimer’s Disease.

 

Now when I need a mom, I write about it on Facebook and I am always surprised by the responses I get. Some are public, some people take it private.

 

Here it is almost Mother’s Day. Funny how some things that happen to us in live coincide with certain memories. I remember the handmade cards my brother and I created for our mom. I still have the handmade cards my own children made me. My oldest son sends me meaningful cards, and he always writes something deeply personal to him about me inside.

 

As we get older and our parents are gone, there will still be times when we need them. There will be problems in our lives that could be helped with a loving hug, and open ears to our needs.

 

When I write I need a mom, it isn’t about my mother; it is about needing comfort, solace, and mothering. My mother was emotionally detached from me. I don’t know why she was that way. When I brought her to my home in Virginia in 1993 to have Thanksgiving, I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I told her about my diagnosis and upcoming surgical treatment and she was sad about it, I could tell. Then I asked her if she could remember who might have been mean to me as a child and her answer surprised me. She simply said “I was.” I said “Yes, you were.” That is the closest thing to an apology I received. I took it.

 

That is when I forgave her.

 

I recently shared my feelings about my mother with someone who just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that I could say she let me down, but she did. I don’t respect how she treated me because if I do then I am saying it was all okay. It wasn’t.

 

If your mother is still here on earth, please let her know how much you appreciate her for housing you in her womb for 9 months and then evicting you in great pain because you were worth the pain.

 

I will always need a mom. Mine just comes in the shapes of many friends, even the male friends. I accept that.

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who read this .

 

Love,

Carole