Missing the Mom You Never Had
Mourning the might-have-beens
I was really sick, lying in bed and struggling to breathe. I’d caught coronavirus as the pandemic started. I was scared, wondering what would happen to me. More importantly to my kids. I’m a single mom without family to claim. What would happen to them if I died?
Thinking it over one thought kept echoing in my mind: I miss the family I never had. A mom, like the mom I try to be. One who would call and fuss and worry. A grandmother I could count on to take care of my kids. Someone to love them and remind them of me.
The mom I had in real life spent all of her time worrying about her missing pieces. Her life took chunks out of her. Her father was an alcoholic and they were incredibly poor. There were days without enough to eat and days without power. She had her children as a teenager and then had to provide. My mother felt those injustices keenly. She was always convinced she deserved more. She deserved better. She deserved to have things. She felt that her second child was the reason she was denied the life she should be living. Her first child was a gift, her second a burden. I was to blame for the pain and suffering, she’d tell me over and over again.
My mother looked for the missing pieces of herself in men. The men in her life flowed in and out. I remember waking…
