Today is my birthday. I have waay more candles than shown on the cake here, but I didn't want to start a virtual fire! I'm - well, old enough to have a daughter who will be 22 in a few months.
It's now been 2 years since I've had any contact with my mother. Last year it didn't bother me so much - this year it really does. I've always had a difficult relationship with my mother - the ugly incident over A's adoption 2 years ago (yes, a FULL year after she had been home) is one of the worst, but by no means the only one.
As a mother, how do you simply "forget" about one of your children? Her last words to me were "well then I guess I only have three daughters now". I have 3 sisters. Does she acknowledge that today she gave birth to me? Wonder about her grandchildren? Or is it just another day in her life? There are some mothers who would do anything to be with or talk to their children, especially birth mothers of children who have been adopted. And then there are mothers who can simply throw their relationship with their children away, as if it were trivial and insignificant.
How will I explain it to A someday, who already has deep fears about loosing another mother? That I have a mother, who is living and well, who simply refuses to acknowledge or speak to her daughter? Will my assurances and actions that I will always love her, always be her mother, even when she is grown and on her own sound like empty promises?
I can empathize, at least at some level, about birthday reactions of adoptive children. Today seems like a day of huge loss, not of joy and celebration. I have so much, my beautiful family, loving husband, a mother-in-law who treats me like a daughter, a wonderful life. But what does it say about you when your own mother rejects you? No matter how much you have in life, how many people love and care for you, so much comes back to your relationship with your birth mother. It's not about how much I have, how grateful I am, how wonderful my currrent family is. It's a pain deep in the heart and soul. The gift here is that it gives me so much insight and greater clarity about how my daughter feels or may feel about this situation in her own life.
2 comments:
Happy Birthday! Sorry that things remain so bad with your mother. I spent a little over five years estranged from my mother, not easy for sure.
Happy Birthday! I'll keep you and your mother in my thoughts and prayers.
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