Mothers and Mothering

Admittedly, this is a rather "lame" blog post b/c it's just a comment that I wrote on someone else's blog, but if you read the post here, what comes below will make more sense.

Fourteen years ago this December my mother wept quietly in the back of the van as my family drove home to NC from KY after attending my mom's mother's funeral. My grandmother lived a long, rich life into her 80's, and I always suspected that the main reason my mom was crying on that long drive was because she (my mom) had recently been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and her own mother had died without knowing this or being able to help with this.

My mom lost her battle to cancer 5 1/2 years ago, the day before my 31st birthday, while I was 5 months pregnant with my second child. I think about and miss my mom every day, especially when I'm sad and sick (in other words, a lot lately), and my son always says, "Your mom is right here with you, Mommy. She's right here. You don't need to be sad." It's such a beautiful sentiment and I do believe it.

You're right about going through life with different mothers. I've been going to yoga classes regularly for about 2 years now, and it's there, in yoga class, with a male instructor, no less, when I feel the most "mothered" these days.

There's something about girls losing their mothers (at any age) that warms me, haunts me, confuses me, makes me feel guilty about all I said (and didn't say) to my own mother, and at the same time comforts me in a way that is hard to explain but feels something like being part of a special club to which members are either daughters or mothers to daughters, or both.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but what I gain through reading your posts, I feel that in a way, you're mothering me.