I am a daddy’s girl; his little princess and mini-me. My mum knows this, and over the last 18 months she has watched as my world shattered around me; as I dedicated my every moment to care for him, and then my every tear as I grieved the loss of my first true love.
My parents seperated when I was eleven years old. I came to terms with it and I came to love my step-dad as the years went by. My parents were schoolyard sweethearts who married young, and before they had reached their mid-twenties they had two young children running around their ankles. They grew up together and their relationship became more like that of siblings and best friends.
It’s the mothers’ job to look after her grieving children right? Well, of course, her babies need her warm embrace to get through such an unthinkable loss. But then who helps the mother? Especially when she is no longer the wife; she isn’t the widow in this tragedy. Who helps her when she doesn’t believe it is her right to grieve? Her first love, the man she thought she would grow old with, and the father of her children; but her ex-husband, she gave her heart to another.
It is inevitable in life that a mother will have to accept the care of her children as she ages. But as a fully-able 48 year old woman it’s not that time yet. Especially when the children are still so much in need of her care still. So how do I help my mother? It pains me to see her struggle through it alone; to refuse to grieve and to bury it deep down. It is a process, a process that I am still working through; but it is not one that can be denied, it won’t go away until you face it head on.
I can’t force her to face it. It is a process that people work through in their own time. She isn’t the widow, she is remarried; she can’t let my step-father know how she feels, and she left my father so she has no right to feel this way. If she hadn’t left the marriage perhaps things would have turned out differently, she blames herself. But she wasn’t happy in the marriage, and without the seperation I never would have had my second little brother.
But no matter what my brother and I tell her, she takes the blame. So who helps the mother?
