Underqualified

I didn't expect to write here again for weeks.  I expected to write next when I had something to say or felt that emptiness and loss again; but, since not having a mother is such a normal part of my existence, I did not think that it would be for quite awhile.  It has been more than 24 years since my mother died and even longer since she was gone as a result of disease forcing her into long hospital stays and having a deteriorating effect on her brain.  Really, my mother has been gone since the days when my personality and identity were still forming, so being a motherless child is and pretty much always has been a part of my identity.

In a lot of ways I am underqualified since the concept of that unconditional nonjudgmental mother's love is kind of foreign to me. I do not remember being 4 or 5 and experiencing that. I recognize that a father's love, even a super dedicated awesome one is different, but I couldn't explain to you how. I feel something missing, but I don't really understand it.  Since that is the case, I am trying to recruit friends who were older and more mature when they lost their mothers to also be authors on this blog.  I believe that having that love, getting used to it, getting to know your mother and then losing her creates and entirely different set of issues and feelings and circumstances that I am not qualified to talk about because I have not experienced it.  I also recognize that some of us have lost BOTH parents and that is another distinct group.  Plus, loss is not always caused by a death.  This blog is open to those who are estranged from, abandoned by, or have never met their mothers as well.  That loss is just as real as those of us who have experienced that loss because of death.