Oh dear...I haven't really thought about this in so long. My mum died of secondary cancer after breast cancer 14 years ago when I was 22. I met my DH six months later so he never knew her. A PP said something about their mother not being a figment of their imagination because their DH had met them etc and that rang so true for me! Thanks for putting it into words! Also I have often said I feel like my DH never got her 'stamp of approval' and as much as I love him etc there is always that lingering feeling wondering what she would have thought of him. A lack of her 'blessing' I guess.
Someone asked about the feelings dulling or some sort of thing. I remember the first year just feeling like my heart had been ripped out. I remember waking up crying hysterically. I also remember a feeling that if I reached out my arms far enough I might one day be able to reach her (I think about that now and wonder if that is the feeling babies have when they cry and reach their little arms out to be picked up by their mummies when they wake up alone or get frightened and can't see mummy) I also remember seeing the whole of my life stretching out before me and wondering if I could go on and aching with the pain of the loneliness I could see ahead. Those were the early days.
As time went on I went through various emotions till I got to today. Some of these were jealousy of other women whinging about their pain in the neck mums. Anger at my dad for remarrying, spending all of mum's money and disrespecting her wishes. It soon became everyday life that I didn't have a mother. I forgot the sound of her voice. I felt no emotion at all apart from a sort of wistful regret on Mother's Day, her birthday etc. I would still cry about memories and I would try and keep her memory alive through talking about her. I thought I would need Mum (gosh it even feels funny typing Mum! It sort of makes her everyday, like I just got off the phone with her!) when I had my baby. I thought it would all bubble up again but unfortunately I just felt anger at her and my dad. Anger at her for Control Crying me, anger at her for not wanting to breastfeed me. I had this tiny baby and I looked at him and I couldn't understand my mum's decisions as a mother about me. Perhaps I was just angry at her for not being here anymore.
One of my biggest hurdles I have had to overcome as a motherless mother is not the practical things like not having mum here to help and guide me (although there are many times I would just love her to come round and help with the laundry or bathe the baby or whatever it is that all my friends seem to have their mums doing. Although I think that is because after spending practically all my adult life without her that I am used to coping without her by now) but it is the feeling that I had to replace her in my old nuclear family. I have spent so many years trying to establish myself as the 'matriarch' of my 'old' family. I have clashed with my dad and his new wife over this. I have upset my brother and his wife as well with my need to re-establish the old family with me as its matriarch calling the shots. I have moved countries twice in a bid to do this or escape this and now I think I am finally realising that I am a matriarch but to a new family. My little family of three. I don't know if new mums with mothers have an easier time of 'moving on' to their new family or perhaps it is harder for them because they may cling to the 'little girl' role with their mum around??
Anyway it is my mum's birthday tomorrow. So I am going to make an effort to do something for her.
Thanks for starting this thread. It has been therapeutic.