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I can relate completely, even now pushing 50, I still go through stages where I cry in the shower wanting my mother to hug me and lie that everything will be okay.
Yep, when a mother dies, I believe omething dies right along with the child (no matter how old that child is when she dies). I can only speak from my experience. My mom died when I was 36. Now eight years later, I STILL yearn for her and miss her terribly.
It definitely messes you up. Not in any short term way people imagine, but for the long haul. For me, at this point in my life I've lived as long without a mother as I lived when she was alive. I'm 18 now. I always feel like I'm looking from the outside-in when it comes to relationships, whether with friends or affectionates. But this has never made me feel depressed or sad, my inability to relate to others, its just a part of who I am and my personality. At other times I prefer being isolated and I can be at my most comfortable when I'm alone. Also I do not always "miss her" as much as people believe I would. There's times where I'll go weeks without thinking about her, but then there's other times like tonight, where I search the internet for hours and hours reading and dwelling on what could have been and how it all affects me. Thats the trouble with moving on, because once you've accepted it, there is a sense of closure. But then somewhere along the road someone will mention a story about a person in similar situation and all those emotions and thoughts will come rushing back like old friends. Although, it always helps to know there are discussions groups like this one where we can express ourselves in a positive and caring environment.
I started this post in response to one I saw on this web site that didn't get much response but which I could really relate to. I quote it in full below from BrandonIN
[URL="http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=698920"]Grieving my mother's absence - HealthBoards Message Boards[/URL]
Grieving my mother's absence
Hello everyone, this is my first post.
I've decided to go try the internet message board route to try to deal with my grief I've been dealing with. I've found that the internet can be a great way to deal with problems in your life and relate to others dealing with the same thing, so why not give this a try too. The source of my grief is the loss of my mother when I was 5 years old. I'm 27 now, and I still routinely grieve about her absence in my life. Here's my story.
My mother was born and raised in Davison, Michigan (little town outside of Flint). My father was born and raised in Terre Haute, IN. When my father and mother got married, my mother moved down here to Indiana, which is where I was born, raised, and still live today. My mother died when I was 5 years old. My maternal grandfather, and one aunt and her children (my cousins) still live in Michigan. My grandpa still lives in Davison, and my aunt lives in northern Michigan. My father remarried when I was about 8 years old, and is still married to her today.
We just visited my grandpa and my aunt & kids this last weekend, and as usual these visits are always very hard on me. When we go up to see them, everything about my mother comes back to life for me. My grandpa has pictures all over his house of my mother when she was alive, and I get to be in the house where she used to live and grew up in. Every time I'm in that house, all sorts of memories of my childhood come back alive and as soon as I step foot in the house, usually a wave of emotions come over me.
As I said, she died when I was 5. The only memories I have of her are just brief photographic memories, but nothing of any real substance. I can't remember a single time of really connecting to her. I can't even remember her voice. I see plenty of pictures of us together, but it kills me to not be able to really remember connecting with her. Because of this I feel this huge sense of emptiness and lack of closure. I'd to anything to just be able to see her again for 5 minutes, just to tell her how much I love her and miss her. All I want to do is run to her and have her hold me in her arms. Everyone tells me that I took after her in so many ways, from looks, to personality, and everything in between. We could have been so close. She is the biggest missing piece of my soul. A huge part of me that has been missing ever since she past away.
Right now as I sit here and think of her, the pain I feel is so intense. I sit here and am yearning for her to just walk in the door, and sit down with me, but I know that will never happen when I'm on this earth. It just doesn't seem right for a little boy's mommy to be ripped away from him when he was only 5 years old. It would be different if I NEVER knew her, but I did. Right as I was reaching the point of my life whre I'd be able to really relate to her, she was taken away. Now all I'm left with are just photographic memories with very little substance. I feel so sorry for myself.
How am I supposed to deal with these feelings? She died so long ago, but I have never felt like I've gotten the closure from her death that I need. I don't know if I ever will. I have other family members that have died, but I had relationships with them as I got older. I have never felt the closure I need from my mother's death. I think it's because of the fact that I have no memories of her. I didn't attend her funeral, because I think I told my dad I didn't want to go. I remember my dad coming home and telling me that she died, and just feeling like a little boy who didn't know what hit him. That's it.
Other than that I have nothing. I'd do anything to be able to tell her I love her and how much I miss her. I just want to hear her voice, and hear her say she loves me. Don't really know what kind of responses I'm looking for. I guess to hear that someone may understand and feel the same way, it could help. Thank you for listening.
Brandon
I can relate to every emotion you just described and I cried reading this. I am 50 years old now and lost my mom 43 years ago today April 21 2012. Whe you described the emotions you had not gouing to your mom's funeral that described me to a tee...although, I did attend her funeral, I was numb and never cried. I just felt an emptiness, that has only partially been filled. You never really lose the memories, you never really lose the emotion. It comes and goes. But I am glad that the memory of her is still with me.
I have been in therapy and am reading books like 'Never too young to know' and 'No voice is ever wholly lost'. Worrying that you won't live past the year your parent died seems to be a common theme in other people's stories but I didn't have that one since when I passed the age my mother died I was still fairly numbed out and avoidant about the whole thing. Recently I have been thinking about my single years and how I would swing back and forth between falling 'in love' with people I didn't know or becoming withdrawn emotionally. I have this feeling all the time the my wife is going to die. I also have this weird feeling that I have to stay 'connected' by obsessively checking my blackberry all the time. My wife and I run ragged picking up after our kids who live like the prince and princess in their palace. I think this is because I don't know how a 'normal' parent would act so we try to do everything for them. They seem pretty happy and well adjusted though, unlike me.
Maybe all of these things are just a part of your personality and your wife's as well. As a parent, I always kind of obsessed over "What if I died. What would happen to my kids!?" When I hear about someone's husband dying, I get a horrible sinking feeling...'What if!? Oh God, please don't let that happen to us!"
Yes, I suppose it would be hard, losing a parent at a young age and that the questioning, the unknown scenarios, would haunt you. The thing of it is, (and I promise you, I'm not trying to be hard on you), you don't know what kind of a mother she would have been. She might have been the kind of mother who didn't give you hugs. She might have been the kind of mother who didn't understand you. You two might have had personalities which clashed like crazy! When you look through these forums, you see an enormous number of people who didn't get along with their mothers at all.
Heck, you can find people on here who WISH their mother had died, because their lives would have been far better without them. Just because your parents live...it doesn't mean that they're good to you or good for you. I'm not passing any kind of judgement on your mom, obviously, just putting out another perspective. Treasure the relationships you DO have. Don't waste another minute of your time, wondering what if, why, etc.
Also, be the kind of parent whose kids leave the nest and say, "My parents taught me so much. It's because they made me do for myself, that I CAN do for myself." Stop making your children so dependent on you. What if you die!? Your kids would be these helpless, spoiled children who can't do anything for themselves. Who is going to do for them?
I am adopted so I can relate in a way... because I was adopted as an infant most people don't understand why I would wonder about my biological family, what they would think about certain mile-stones or why that is such a loss for me. I also struggled growing up feeling that no one would understand my loss. I am a daughter, however, so I can't exactly relate to being a motherless son per say.
What I can say is that it is perfectly natural to miss your mother, even though she was not there to raise you for most your life or you do not have many (if any) memories of her. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. This is a complicated grieving process that cannot truly take place until adulthood, when you are fully capable of understanding everything.
Wish I could suggest something to help, hope for the best in healing. Much love.
I have worked with dying young women who lost their fight with cancer.
There are two kinds of younger women that die from cancer. One are mothers of young kids and the very hardest thing for them is the fact that they are losing their children and their children are losing them, they cry that their children will forget them.
The saddest thing for these mothers is the fact that their children mean everything to them and it's terrible for them to think the child will forget them and their love and of course they very much worry what will become of their children, they want so much that their children can find happiness and success and learn to go on without them -- but still never forget them.
The other are the young women who face death who never had children. They cry because they feel they never got to leave a part of themselves, there are no children who will miss them, they never got to experience childbirth and the joy of holding their infants in their arms, the creation of a new life.
There's actually a movie based on the theme of unresolved grieve from a motherless son called The Mortican Moderator Cut
The movie is awful but seems to be the only film that deal's with the theme.
I was 6 when my mom died and I never allowed myself to cry at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing by been strong and not showing any signs of weakness especially at the funeral, my life was going great till I was about 15, everyone that knew me seemed to love me and I had built up relationships with other family's in the area to compensate for never having a home life of my own, then I just stopped been happy, went into withdrawal, stopped getting back to people, didn't know what was wrong just seemed to have lost my spark, ended up completely alone and gradually slipped into a morbid depression that as lasted 15 years.
The past 5 month's I successfully treated the symptoms of depression and found myself grieving very intensely at times, feel like Iv gotten a lot out of my system and the anger that I had is gone, I can feel thing's emotionally again and I'm now capable of feeling love for others.
Those 15 years were hell though, emotionally dead and wasn't even aware of it, couldn't communicate with anyone on any level, couldn't comprehend how others were able to interact so freely with one another and couldn't understand such a thing as two people sharing a bond between one another, always completely alone looking in from the outside, this killed me because growing up I had excelled socially on a level far above anyone around me, always highly charismatic with rock solid self confidence based on intelligence that couldn't be touched and then I had to spend 15 year's as a crippled former shadow of what I used to be.
Concept's such as love and attachment are starting to come back to me, to grow from a child into a man and transfer the love and attachment from a parent to a woman, my only problem is that everyone else as spent the past 15 years making this transition and progressing into adulthood (financial stability, been able to support a family) and I haven't, in the past few month's I have come into contact with women I'm actually attracted to and have feelings for and one that was my ideal perfect woman, we passed each other briefly and she gave me the look and the smile but she was with a boyfriend so I don't know.
I can strongly relate to the character in the Mortician and have pretty much shared the exact same experience so check it out it might help.
Last edited by Jaded; 05-28-2013 at 01:16 PM..
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Let me start by saying that I am trulely sorry for anyone who has lost a parent (mother or father) while they were still a child.
Back on Jan. 22, 1995 my mother died from autoimmune disease, which is bad enough, except that my birthday is Jan. 23rd (i was born in 91). Then for about 7 years of my life I had blamed myself for her death (nobody talked about it, it wasnt a taboo or bad subject in our house), asking god what the hell did I do to make this happen? Rage settled in, got bullied at school, suicidal thoghts ran rampet in my mind, depression of course, I'm very glad that my dad didn't have a weapon in the house or else im certain that i sould have put my small town school on the map. My father never really had a mother figure as well, though she is still alive, she gave away my dad and uncle to the state, thus beginning the vicious cycle. He has always sort of resented women for this, but I can't help but worry and dred the future I will have with a women. I know that nothing is ever predetermined, but I can't help to shake this feeling no matter what I do I'm going to royaly mess it up, I already did with my highschool sweetheart. But I do know that my mother would have been proud of all 4 of her children, she would be a grandma now thanks to my sister and her husband with my nephew who is a month old! But now that its nearing the 20th year since she has died, I don't know its just really hitting me hard. Please don't get me wrong, I've come to understand a few things about life, every single life is precious, death comes to everybody, and that I love you, you are my brother, sister, uncle, aunt,and cousins of this world. And though it may be hard at times we all need to keep on going, I just don't know where though...
Lost my mother and sister at 2 yo as result of a nasty divorce.
Father forced mother to give up custody, took me to another state 1500 miles away and refused to permit visitation. I was told mother took my sister, ran off with another guy and left me behind.
One only realizes how much you lost much later.
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almost 20 years
