“My grandmother was getting ready to tell fortunes from tea
leaves; she always did
this before her daughters washed her hair. She was vain about
her psychic abilities, but
she was even more vain about her hair, and she had reason to be.
It was long and thick
and silvery white, and she had it washed weekly in her kitchen sink
and then combed and
combed and combed by her team of daughters. When it
was dry it would be twisted into
the complicated arrangement she wore-part braid, part bun, part
French twist. It would
last a week, and then the daughters would all come to wash it again-
and to see each
other and gab, too, of course.~ The Pull Of The Moon
She was on her way to pick up my brother at my grandmother’s
house.
“God, I just wish he would behave himself,” she may have thought.
The day
was my fifth birthday, and she still had so much to do to get ready
for the
party. Now, my brother was throwing a fit and she had to go pick
him up.
After we all got back in the car he began his usual whining about
this and
that. My half brother had lost his father a few years earlier,
and it seemed, no
matter how hard my mother tried to make it up to him she just couldn’t
make
him happy. “I want to drive mom” he said “I want to drive, let
me drive,” he
whined relentlessly. “Randy, you can’t drive, honey.” “Pleeease,
I want to
drive, come on mom, just for a minute” he pleaded again.
“Okay, okay, you
can sit on my lap and help me steer.” As he climbed onto her
lap she slowed
the car to a much slower pace allowing him to help her steer
as she watched
carefully for other cars. A few passed, and up ahead was a stop
light. “Okay
we have to slow down and stop for a minute.” She slowed the car
with my
brother helping steer, but at the last second something happened, and
she
accelerated sending the car out into the intersection. At that
moment a large
dump truck came sailing through the green light heading straight for
us. Just
before the truck hit she pushed my brother off of her lap. The
truck hit the
front right side of the car killing her instantly. He went through
the
windshield, but survived, and I, having been in the back seat all this
time, was
knocked unconscious.
I remember waking up in the hospital, and asking for my mother.
My
father had been stationed overseas and had come home as soon as he
heard,
but I didn’t know him. I wanted my mother. I still, to
this day, remember
feeling suddenly cold, and very alone when they told me she had died.
Because we never spoke of her again, that feeling is still with me.
The
ambiguity of death is too hard for a child to comprehend, but when
it’s your
mother, though you are still unable to comprehend death, you feel the
loss as
if a part of your own soul has been cut away. The pain is so
great, for many
women, it can never be fully expressed, or healed. Our mother,
the one who
brought us to life, held us for hundreds of hours, nursed us, and loved
us is
the one human being, in whom, we place our complete trust. We
have her
scent, the feel of her skin, and the look in her eyes etched in our
minds, and
our hearts, for our entire lives. Our souls merge somehow during the
bonding
process of infancy, and to have that one person taken, forever, away
leaves an
empty place that cannot be filled by any other human being.
Hope Edelmen, in her book Motherless Daughters states that; Adults
usually start their griefwork immediately after a loss, but children
tend to
mourn in bits and pieces, with bouts of anger and sadness punctuated
by long
periods of apparent disregard. Children can’t withstand severe
emotional
pain for extended periods of time, especially without support from
an adult
they trust. Instead of grieving openly, they often speak through
play, or bury
it only to have it emerge again, and again, and again throughout their
lives.*
The girl who has no mother at the mother daughter tea feels a deep
sense of
aloneness. She feels it every time she is invited to a social
occasion that
requires a mother. Though she will quickly learn the art of caring
for herself
she will never stop feeling alone. She feels it when she starts
her first period,
and there is no one to talk to about it. As a teen she needs
that one women,
who’s love and support are always there, to confide in. ‘Should
I try out for
the play? Should I go out with Max? I can’t do this
math mom, it’s too
hard. Can I have a new dress for the party? I lettered
in band Mom! I got an
A! He asked me to the prom, I can’t believe it!’ These are the
moments in
life when that feeling comes and grips you and won’t let you go and
there is
nothing, at all, you can do about it.
Although we learn many things from our fathers it is our mothers that
really
teach us about life. It is she that shapes us, and molds us,
and shows us how
to be a woman. It is by watching her and the way she deals with
life and all
of its intimate intricacies that we learn how to become the woman we
will be.
“I am becoming my mother”, a cliché that, though often used
by millions of
women, is lost on the motherless daughter. We often wonder who
we are,
there is no one to ‘become’, no one to, at least, model our lives
after.
‘Should I get married? Who will help me plan this wedding.
I’m going to
have a baby. I’m scared. Will I be a good mom? Will
I do it right? I wish I
would stop throwing up. Do you think the baby is okay?’
He is born, and he
is perfect. My husband’s family is there. I have no one.
They think he looks
just like them. Does he look at all like me? Will
my daughter? Will my
second daughter? These are her grandchildren. Suddenly
my own history is
so important, and I try to remember every little thing about her, grasping
at
even the tiniest memory or vision, but they fade a little more each
year. *A
mother’s stories ground her daughter in a gender, a family, and a feminine
history. They transform the experiences of her female ancestors
into maps
she can refer to for warning and encouragement. When a mother
dies, she
takes her stories with her, leaving a daughter to reconstruct them
whatever
way she can.
My mother died when she was 33, I have outlived her by three years.
I
have raised my children passed the age that she was able to raise my
brother,
and I. Given the experiences in my life, reason dictates, that
I would be more
experienced, and perhaps, a bit wiser than her. I no longer think
of her as
mommy, or even mother, I see her, now, in a new light. I see
her as a
woman. Younger, less experienced, and possibly a bit more fragile
than I. I
mourn for her differently now too. The adult in me looks at a
33 year old
woman and sees what my mother might have been like, and wants to nurture
her, to care for her, comfort her, and let her know that she is okay.
I am the
mother now. But, the desire to let her memory live on is ever
present in my
own parenting skills, as I pass on the few things that I do remember,
and
teach a few things that I’m sure she would have taught me. The
child in me
may always long for her mother, but the adult woman that I have become,
heals each time I hear my own daughter’s say “Mommy I love you”, and
understands fully, that the greatest gift I can give my children is
me.
The loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter,
is the
essential female tragedy.
~Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born
Ruthie Shirlene Goldman
September 17, 1935
August 23, 1968
1-Motherless Daughters-The Legacy of Loss. Hope Edelman; pg.7
2-Motherless Daughters-The Legacy of Loss. Hope Edelman; pg 201
revised