When You Need Your Mother

 

There are those times in life, even if you’re in your 30s or your 60s and beyond that you need your mother. Even when you’re a mother yourself, you need your mother. There are those inevitable questions you have when you get engaged, married, and have your own children and your children have children. Questions that only your mother can answer. Feelings that only your mother would understand.

You need your mother when you are struggling in a marriage, and you need that ever-present life-altering advice that will help you see the bigger picture. You need your mother when your son or daughter rebels or threatens to run away, and you don’t know what to do or how to help. You need your mother when your child gets sick, and you don’t know if it’s nothing to be overly concerned about or if you should head to the hospital. You need to feel her arms wrapped around you when your son joins the military, and you worry about his safety.

You need your mother there to share in your joy when your daughter gets married and has children of her own. You want her there to experience your happiness and celebrate those moments in life that make you smile. You want her to see herself in your children and grandchildren.

As you get older, you need your mother to comfort you when you are diagnosed with breast cancer and the future looks uncertain.  You need her when you lose a good friend to cancer or a relative to a devastating illness. You need her when your daughter is diagnosed with cancer and you feel so absolutely helpless yourself. You need your mother when your spouse is in the hospital fighting for his life and there’s nobody there who understands what you are feeling or knows how to make you feel better. 

I have needed my mother for over 30 years. I lost her when I was 32. She missed seeing my children grow up. She missed their birthdays, graduations, marriages and the birth of her great grandchildren. She missed everything in my children’s lives and in my life for the last 30 years. But more importantly, I missed her.

You need her when the whole world comes crashing in on you and you feel so overwhelmed you might explode. You need her arms to hold you and hug you and make you feel safe and comforted. Too many of us have suffered loss without those loving arms and gentle words of hope to make us feel better.

And it’s not just those life altering moments that you need your mother. You need her to call and tell her you ran into someone that knew her and loved her. You wish you could pick up the phone to just hear her voice. My mother died before smartphones and facetime and recordings were common. I don’t have a recording of her voice. I can’t remember what she sounded like. I barely remember her laugh which was infectious.

Lately, her absence haunts my dreams. I find myself looking for her as I sleep, hoping to see her or feel her again. It’s the only comfort I can hope for. Some look for signs—a butterfly, a bird, a ladybug to confirm their mother’s presence. I’ve never had that. Although I do believe God opens a door in heaven to allow them to see us and perhaps send someone to comfort us in either the form of another person or the Holy Spirit.

For now, I have to settle for my heavenly Father to comfort me when it hurts so much I can’t stop crying. Recently I was in the car driving home from a long day at the hospital feeling completely alone. I was crying out to God to give me rest and peace. He met me in that car and wrapped his arms around me and gave me the comfort I needed that night. It comforts me to know my mother was right beside Him hugging me and letting me know I was not alone.