BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

"The loss of a mother, echoes throughout a woman’s life.
She feels it again with every year, every change at every stage of her life.
When she is establishing her adult identity and life path in her twenties, she has no secure base to return to for a mother’s support and comfort.

When she is marrying and starting a family in her thirties she has no guide. As she approaches mid-life, she has no “wise woman” to show her the path to fulfillment and wisdom. The mother-daughter relationship is like no other. With the death of her mother, she has lost her caregiver, her guide to all things female, and in some cases a loving companion.
"She is a motherless daughter."
- Motherless Daughters--a Legacy of Loss, author Hope Edelman

One of the tragedies in life is that we take for granted that those we love the most will always be there, only to wake up one day to realize we have lost something valuable that can never be replaced. Loosing my mother at nineteen, I lost my chance to get to really know her as a person other than in her role as my caregiver. I was not much more than a child at the time, consumed with my own teenage life and my need to break away from the apron strings and start making a life of my own, that I didn't always listen or pay that much attention to her life. I didn't ask when I had the chance and now it's too late. There are so many unanswered questions. So I was happy when my daughter approached me with a timely idea for a blog post. She will be hosting "Pulling on the Apron Strings: Interviews with Our Mothers" on her blog Graceful Simplicity so pop over and add your name to take part.

"If you are fortunate enough to still have your mother with you, take
the time to write down the questions you’ve always wanted to ask, and
just do it. If you want, you can share it on your blog (get your
mother’s permission, of course!). Add your blog in the list below or
leave a comment in this post. I plan to reveal my Pulling on the Apron
Strings interview on Mother’s Day May 9th."
-Grace

Even if your mother is no longer with you, you can post the questions you wish you would have asked while you had the chance.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

"It is not the answer that enlightens,
but the question."
- Decouvertes

It’s not May, so Mother’s Day is seven months away but “Mothers” seem to be a reoccurring theme this past week. Betty's interesting post"My Mother Part Two" and Diva Kreszlat’s post, "My Sweet Mother” has me reflecting a lot lately about my mother who died at the age of 47, not that I need to read other people's stories to make me think of my Mom. Thirty two years after her death, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her. I take solace in the fact that, in my family, I am the lucky one who looks the most like her... lucky in that I get to see glimpses of her sometimes when I look into the mirror. If the lighting is just so and my hair is just right, I can almost swear it is her looking back at me.

My Mother was quiet and reserved but kind and giving. She was a pillar of strength. She had to be to raise eight children basically on her own. My Dad worked for the Department of Mines as a diamond driller, which meant he was away for a week or two at a time. His weekends at home were more for spending time at the local bootleggers than time with his family or doing chores around the house. Raising the family and running the household fell to my mother. She was the glue that held the family together as was proven by how quickly it fractured after her death.

One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t listen more to what she was saying when I had the chance, and that I didn’t ask questions about her life or her feelings. I was 19 when she died…at the age when I thought I knew everything. Now, at 52, I realize that I don’t know squat about anything. I’m ready to ask and to listen now, but it is too late. You cannot turn back the clock. You can only imagine what those answers would be and it is with a heavy heart that I know it is not enough.

I am going to start a journal…even though I’ve never been a “journal” type of person. Until I started blogging, writing stuff down had always felt too much like homework…a required task. But this will not be a journal of events, thoughts or feelings, but a recording of questions…questions I would like to have asked my mother. Questions like the origin of my name (see… Honor Thy Name), where and how she met my Dad, and whether she aware of things that were going on inside the family are just a few of the many…many questions I have.

Although writing them down will not bring answers, perhaps the questions themselves and going back to them on written page can bring some comfort and lead me onto a path of self discovery and enlightenment.

Check out Fresh Mommy to see more quotes being posted by participants.