Godlike Mother

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

–William Makepeace Thackeray

How do you cope with the loss of a God/Goddess?  How do you cope with the loss of perfection personified?  I don’t think you can.

A lot of people who lose parents at a young age put that parent on a pedestal that no one else can come close to.  You don’t remember them as being human, you remember them as a God.  This is how I feel about my mother.  This is how most children feel about their parents.

She was perfect.  She was the most amazing mother in the world.  Beautiful, genuine and loving. 

I have a memory of her putting me to bed one night.  I was really mad at her for something, but I can’t remember what.  I vividly remember telling her, “I hate you!” and she responded with, “Well, I love you.”  I can’t remember her ever getting angry with me.

I can’t remember any of her human fallacies.  It probably doesn’t help that my family has never told me anything but glowing memories of her.  I know that’s normal for someone who is dealing with a loved one’s death, but those memories put her on an even higher pedestal.

Someone once told me that you cannot hope to cope with someone’s loss if you don’t bring them down to earth.  Gods aren’t supposed to get sick and die.  Gods aren’t supposed to ever leave you alone.  The death of your God is something the mind can’t fathom, especially when you are a child.

I need to change my image of my mother.  I need her to become human to me.  I’ve been mourning her for 24 years.  I’ve been stuck in this loop for all this time.  I know I will always mourn her in some way, but I need it to become more balanced.  It’s one thing to think back fondly on her memory or miss her.  It’s quite another to base almost every human interaction in my life on her life and death and how it has affected me.

I need to accept that this is a part of life.  She lived, she got sick, and she died.  She was awesome, and I am so grateful that I had her for the short period of time that I did.  I wish she would have had a long life, but being human, that is never guaranteed for any of us. 

What she did for me in the small window of time that I knew her and was loved by her, I have carried throughout these years and will continue to forever.  She has made me a better mother and woman.  I have grown up physically without her, but she has never been far away.  I know that now.  She has had more influence on my life than anyone else ever has.

I know it pains her to look down from her perch in the sky to see me still suffering over her death after all these years.

I’m working on it mama.