Today's Post is Brought to You by My Lilacs

Yesterday when I was online I read a piece by L.A. Times columnist Sandy Banks about the long term affect of losing your mother at an early age. She talks about her own experience of losing her mother to cancer when she was 17 and her mother was 52.

She references a book called "Motherless Daughters" by Hope Edelman that I had never heard of, but know I need to read. I broke down crying at one point when I could see myself in several of the things she described. It hit me like a ton of bricks, because I all of a sudden didn't feel so crazy.

Edelman noted several character traits that were common including a sense of isolation, and a deep sense of our own mortality.  A tendency to be very independent, yet expecting rejection, and unlikely to ask for help. She quotes a therapist named Irene Rubaum-Keller who lost her mother at the age of 7; "Lonely, sort of needy, but not wanting to need anyone because that's too scary."

Mom & me 1962

Banks also talks about reading a piece from columnist Anna Quindlen who lost her mother at 19, and how it defined her for a long time; I could see myself in that too. I was 2 months shy of my 23rd birthday when my mother died at the age of 51 from a heart attack. It pulled the rug out from under me. Reading the article made me realize it had affected me in ways I never understood.

When I was reading "The Magic Room" I thought about the fact that without my mother around, I never really had any guidance when it came to dating and men. I didn't date much before she died to be able to learn from her, and I have probably confused every man I've ever met with my honesty, but it's the only way I know how to be. I have difficulty expressing my feelings, but when I do, I'm direct about them. The saying about still waters running deep fits me to a T.

Summer 1980

I also unfortunately developed quite a fatalistic attitude after mom's death that in some ways has made me very apathetic about my own life. I feel like I've spent the last 29 years on the outside looking in, and it's tiring.