Hidden from me

I wanted to find you, the real you that nobody else knew. I searched everywhere. I scanned files on your computer at work. I dug through your last house, your extra closet, cards you saved. I walked through the rooms you lived in. I gazed into the eyes of the people you loved. I saw you everywhere but I couldn’t find you. So I kept going. I wake up each day and continue my search. You haunt my dreams – never smiling – and I shake off sleep missing you more.

I could not cry at your funeral. I did not believe you were gone. If this was true, then I was burying part of myself.

You were the strongest part of me. You were the only part of me that would stand up to someone, anyone, and tell them “I am here.” You were my protector and my greatest advocate.

You cleared the way for me to exist. You sacrificed for my benefit. You gave me what you did not have. And when I pushed you away, thinking I could provide for myself, you did not let go.
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Relationships between mothers and daughters are complicated by our own competitiveness. When daughters no longer depend on their mothers’ support, when daughters pull away from the arms that cradled them, fed them, bathed them, sheltered them, when daughters appeal to their fathers for attention, the world shifts. Rocking between instinct and reason, mothers and daughters are thrown into a stormy sea of dynamic forces that neither person can control.

Women are taught that they are vulnerable. Women are taught that youth is desirable and beautiful. Women are judged by their appearance, their family, their possessions - their blessings and earnings.

No longer are women imprisoned in the nuclear family. However, freedom of choice doesn’t lessen or alleviate women’s responsibilities toward home and children. In fact, women are expected to balance the outer worlds of work and success with the inner world of family and relationships. The scale sways violently from one side to the other.
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What was my mother like before she became a mother? Was her identity forged or crushed by her role? Was the façade she wore meant to hide or to shield her real self from the rest of the world?

Once I became a mother, our tightly wrought relationship began to fray. I was unsure of every wail my baby made, every fever, every sleepless night. Where my mother sailed confidently ahead, I floundered behind. We both knew I was in over my head yet I had no choice but to continue on.

And then it was over. She’s gone from this world. I feel somehow responsible for her loss even though I know I did not cause it. I wonder what is the truth, what took her from us, why we are left with a gaping hole in our lives.

I wonder what is hidden in plain sight that I cannot see.