Loved.

I was talking to a friend today whose is not doing to good dealing with the anniversary of her mothers death, 5yrs ago...only because I was talking to her did I remember today is the 11th anni of my adoptive fathers passing....unyet I feel ok...I told her I dont think I would have remembered it was today if I hadn't been talking about grief with her today...and I told her I find it difficult to understand her pain and her love she had for and with her mother...then I thought about when I was on the plane a few weeks ago and felt on the way home that the plane was going to crash...I mean I really believed it and told myself the only thing I can do is find something good to die with and I tried to hold the memory of T in my mind...I realised that I couldnt do this using my adoptive mother...there was nothing there between us...oh I lived in fantasy growing up and replaced the "real" adoptive mother with a fantasy one..but underneath the fantasy one, was nothing...on the plane trying to think of T I said to myself...at least I can say Ive been loved by one person in this world...T...I've told T about this and she nodded...so back to todays chat with my friend...I told her that I can accept my adoptive fathers death because I spent time with him..grew up with him...knew him...and so the natural cycle of life is ok in this dept...but my real grief lies in not ever knowing my birth mother..how can I grief for her when I never knew her? when there are no memorys of having been loved?? I realised I am as far from acceptence on this matter as I've ever been..my rage and anger lie here...my inabilty to mourn her...perhaps the experience I am having with T and the feeling of being loved will one day help me let go of the grief I hold inside for my birth mother...perhaps T is the bridge from the dead to the living?...perhaps one day I will be able to accept the loss of the mother/child relationship that never was because T would have filled my needs to be loved...I hope so...

I know I was loved by my mother but don't remember/know her and the pain of that will probably never go away despite being loved by other women.

I think you are grieving for her/the relationship with your rage and anger, trying to stay away from the "loss" (as in how you feel in the transference when your T is away; you can't be feeling that depth of loss for the actual T since she always comes back and isn't gone very "long," etc.).

What do you imagine mourning is like? I think you and I are doing a heck of a job mourning our mother's that were/were not. Your adoptive father wasn't a primary care-giver, a mother. My father, who was my primary care-giver when I was 2-5, I was horribly affraid in my 20's about his dying and I'd be swept along with him because I would not have been able to lose him. I had a heck of a time growing up when he went away because of the loss of my mother but meeting my husband, I think my husband took his "place" so his loss in 1992 and my stepmother's in 2001 were losses of my "youth"/childhood, major people who knew me as a young child, etc. but not devastating. I'm "fine" with both their deaths because I have my husband who is a major source of that love "energy" for me. I'm already anxious about what will happen with me if/when my husband dies.

Yes I to wonder what would happen if my husband were to die as he is a major source of security and connection for me..its like wanting to visit a grave but having no grave to visit..which is strange because in my youth I would wander around graveyards just reading the tombstones...perhaps searching? perhaps acting out that part of me that shut down a long time ago..I do get confused about T coming back...a fear wells up inside of me that I will have to experience never seeing her again...of course this time though I do have memorys of her..

Did I tell you my mother graveyard thing? My mother is buried in Arlington National Cemetery because my father is a Navy officer. So, one day during therapy, the first 9 years :-) I was living in Washington, D.C. so drove over there, probably 1979ish and went in the office and they gave me a map and "address" where my mother was buried. I found the grave and there was a marker for the "site" for my father next to her, when he would die. Great. I "memorized" the site in my mind's eye, it was near a lovely holly tree on Pershing Drive :-) and she was buried under her maiden name! Weird. I had never though of her as having a life before I was born :-)

So time passes, my father dies in 1992 and has the whole military, horsedrawn, caisson and 18 gun salute, the works; uniformed Marines, military honor stuff. It all takes place up on "top" in a special area because the actual gravesite is down the side of a steep hill so we don't stay for the burial, no place to stand, it's November, horrible drizzly day (perfect for a funeral). We have the reception/wake afterwards in the club of the nearby Army fort.

Months pass, summer comes around and my stepmother asks me to take her to see the gravesite. Fine. I drive her over, get out and they've moved my mother. I can't find the gravesite. I'm 42 years old, roaming across a huge hillside reading graves, almost accidentally calling "Mommy, where are you?" :-) and almost in tears but almost laughing it's so very ridiculous to be 42 and lose your mother. . . again.

I did find them, finally; the cemetery had totally "redone" the hill, reburied everyone and shifted things around, etc. so there was more room since they're nearly out. My stepmother was worrying about what they would put on her tombstone so we were reading wives tombstones (my mother had been renamed by her married/my father's name and was listed as my father's last rank wife even though my father was two ranks lower when she died. My stepmother didn't want to be "beloved wife of. . ." or whatever but she and I never figured out what she did want and I think we just left it to the military; they have an automatic "sentiment" I think, probably "beloved wife of. . ."

What a story Perna. I could "see" you in my mind's eye calling "mommy". I relate to this, I think.

My father left when I was 11yrs. after a very stormy 11yrs. with him. He "disappeared" until we received a letter re: a social security issue last year. It seems he died and because he was a veteran, they buried him in the veteran's cemetery. The govt. never bothered to contact anyone even though they were able to find us easily when it came to $. So, my brother & I had a dead & buried father for 6mos. before the govt. decided to tell us.

I keep thinking about going to the cemetery. I picture myself wandering for hours looking for him. for some reason, I just haven't been able to do it yet. I don't have the slightest clue how I will feel. This is harder for me than the idea of going and knowing I will feel terrible/sad. I keep thinking I have to KNOW how I'll feel about him before I go to the grave. Makes no common sense to me.

tulips

(((Mouse)))

I was touched by this post, especialy around the holiday time when all of our emotions are raw.

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.how can I grief for her when I never knew her? when there are no memorys of having been loved??

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From the strong emotion in your statement, It sounds to me like you are grieving this loss right now. Maybe this feeling of emptiness and reaching for something that is not there is the grief?

You know, I had my mother growing up. But I have no memory of her ever holding me or hugging me. She was simply never around. I grieve the loss of what could have been and what should have been and what might have been had she had the wherewithal or the capacity to love.

Maybe because you feel loved by T you know what you lost. But you also are a mother who loves her children so you can use that relationship as a frame of reference for what you missed out on and what you can give yourself.

T says I must mother myself. Often I forget to do this. However, when I do remember, I reach within and allow myself comfort by doing things that help my inner child rest and feel peaceful and held. This could be as simple as lingering in bed reading a book. Maybe you can too.

Best wishes for a loving Christmas!

Peace

Sister,Thanks for replying...I think your right I am beginning to grief...I laid in bed last night and felt I was missing something. felt angry at T again for "going away"...I knew then that this must be more than just about T because T comes back...yet again my feelings were being hooked by someone...I then remembered that I did have feelings of wanting to be mothered as a child...I remember aged 10 having had warts cut of my thumb and cryingn all night because I couldnt suck my thumb but managed eventually to find a way to rub my nose instead..I told this to T once and she said you were crying not just for your thumb, but for your mother, I said which one? she said both mothers...birth and adoptive...I didnt remember needing my adoptive mother...I was a tough kid...but last night I remembered I was a humanbeing underneath and I did and still do have those needs...I then started calling T a %#@&#! ***** for not being there when I was kid...it was so painful to know that to know what T does for me now I missed as a child...but then I knew I can't really be angry at T for not being there when I was a child it must be at my mothers..finally I yawned and fell to sleep...I felt better today about the xmas T break...I felt I believed that T will come back...I feel at a strange place in my healing...its like I realise now what it is to get your needs met...but that almost makes knowing what you never got even more painful...or perhaps its that Im finally getting in touch with how painful it once was...I dunno.