Another Mother's Day and Father's Day Gone

I know, I know!  Why should I expect much.  After all, I discouraged giving gifts and celebrating holidays for so many years.  But, since I never see my kids any other time, I secretly hope.  Secretly I hope we can magically forget the past, forget the hurts, forget the dis-connects what ever they are, and have some sort of special time together.  And on these days, when everyone else is getting cards, letters, phone calls, visits, love... I just go on hoping in a secret place in my heart for the same thing.  A friend of mine wrote this in on her blog and it rather hit home cuz I did the same thing with my mother:  "She's been gone several years now, and I'm still realizing how foolishly hard I tried to win her love. And I think, in her own way, she felt the same way towards me.  We just never connected.  We never understood each other.

I'm glad the bonds with my children are made of something different, something very real and true.  When we're together, all is right with the world." (teri, XO)

I love to be with my kids, and their kids.  But, there is always an undercurrent of mis trust and dislike that I can't seem to remove.  It makes me very sad.  I feel very much like a failure as a Mom.  What happened, I wonder?  Trust is not there.  How Sad!

Mothers

I think about my Mother a lot.  I loved her.
 I found this quote today:  "This must be what it feels like to be a mother, to have someone love you unconditionally because they need you and respect you and hold you up as a role model."
I loved my Mother unconditionally, I trusted her, I respected her feelings even when I did not agree with them.  I needed and wanted her to love me.  She did.
I have to wonder how my own children love me.  Do they love me unconditionally?  I know they don't need me anymore, they are both lovely grown ups living their lives as they choose to live.  Do they respect me?  I am not sure.  Am I a role model for them.  No.
My relationship with my children are not exactly what I expected it to be at this phase of my life.  I wanted them to be strong, independent children, with lives of their own.  They are that.
But I did not want to feel like they give me their attention and time because they have to.   I want them to want to do that out of love for me.  It is not happening.  I sometimes have such grieving feelings of having lost something special, and a feeling of loneliness when I really just want to talk to them or visit with them, hug them, love them and can't.  I miss the times when they were small and I could scoop them up into my arms and just hug and kiss them and love them.  Now, I feel like if I try to love them, they reject it, like they are too independent and strong to let Mom do that.  Well, in many ways, I am a success as a Mother.  In many ways, I am a loser.

Adversity

Everyone faces adversity at sometime in their lives. I feel like I have had more than my share. I have faced two bad marriages, alcoholism, severe medical diagnosis, disillusionment with family members I held in high esteem and therefore the disillusionment caused me great sadness, medical problems for my husband, seeming loss of respect and love for me from my children, and now once again, problems. Whenever any of these adverse life situations have happened, I have had to go through a grieving process. So, it seems like I have been sad much of my adult life. As I face the newest of the adversities, I cry, and I am sad. I encourage this, so that I can speed through the grief and get on with my life. Soon, I will be through this and on to something new. Hopefully, it will not be another adversity!

Braveness

A journal prompt: The bravest person you know.
I have been a few weeks thinking about this. It suddenly occurred to me that my DD (and her husband) is the bravest person I know. I come to this conclusion as I was thinking about DJ, her son. He was born with cleft pallet. That condition frightened me to death. But not her. She brought him home, and so bravely took care of the extreme needs for him. I was always frightened he would choke, and he did, but she handled it while I would start hollering and running to her with him if I was holding him. She had to take him to the city for operations... what could be more scary than taking you child in for major surgeries? Not once but several times! As he grew and became a typical boy, he scared me with his climbing, and riding of things, and other typical boy behaviors. His mother took it in stride, with out seemingly to be affected by this. She never seem to let it get her down. He broke bones, she was fine with that. He was never supposed to be hit in the face with balls and such, but she allowed him to play sports when he wanted to and never over reacted to the chances he took. I was always worried and frightened for him, she bravely raised him to adulthood with ease. She is the most bravest person I know!