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The Bond between Mothers and Daughters
by guest author Donna Gunter, Online
Business Manager and Coach
Donna Gunter is my dear friend, respected
colleague, and awesome online business manager. Donna and Eric were married on
Friday, August 8th in a beautiful sunrise ceremony on the Gulf of Mexico, made
bittersweet by the unexpected passing of Donna's mother, Jimmie Helen Gunter,
less than two weeks before.
I was sitting in the Fresno airport at 5:00 a.m. on my way home from Ian’s
memorial, when this email from Donna popped up on my Blackberry. In addition to
being an internet marketing guru, Donna is a gifted writer. Her words moved me
deeply, and helped give expression to feelings I had been unable to articulate
over the loss of my own mom.
Get out your hankies. With Donna’s generous
permission, I share this with you…
 My
dear friends,
Thank you all for the wonderful outpouring of your condolences for the loss of
my mother. This last week has been one of the most difficult of my life. In
fact, it's been one that I have been dreading most of my life, for as a child I
used to have vivid nightmares that my mom had died, and I'd wake up not knowing
if what I experienced was a dream or reality. Unfortunately, this week the dream
became real, although I can scarcely believe that it's been a week since my
mother has been gone. It still amazes me how a single instant can dramatically
change your life, and I marvel at the great vastness of the hole in my heart
that cannot be filled. The good news is that I survived this event, or perhaps I
should say I am surviving it.
I think that there must be a special bond between mothers and daughters. Perhaps
it exists in the same way between fathers and sons (but we'd never know about it
because so few men will talk about their feelings <g>). I've heard from so many
of you who have harbored the same fear and have told me that this death hit you
like few others. Many of you are 5, 10, 15 years or more from the date of your
mother's death, and the pain and loss feels almost as raw as the day it
happened. Why is that, I wonder? What makes this situation different? My cousin
Tisa, who lost her mom, my Aunt Tootsie, several years ago, recounted to me
similar stories to the ones I've heard about the pain around the loss of a
mother. "Donna," she said, "I wish that someone had told me that this was never
going away. I had never heard that before until my own mom died." My best
friend, Jacque, who lost her mom, Gloria, about 10 years ago, told me that it
took her a full year to come out of the fog of the pain of that loss. There,
indeed, is something special about the relationship between mothers and
daughters.
So, does that mean now that I belong to a special club that you join and can
share its secrets only when your mother dies? It would appear so. I told Eric
that I felt truly alone for the first time in my life. Of course, he assured me
that I wasn't alone, for he was there with me. "But," I said, "I've lost the
only person who was there for me my entire life through thick and thin, whether
I was good, bad, or ugly -- the person I could always count on no matter what.
She was always there to talk to, and while she didn't always agree with what I
said, she listened. And, eventually, regardless of how big of a jerk I might
have been, I would always be forgiven and welcomed back into the fold. How do
you ever replace that?"
My other life lesson, and perhaps a part of the club initiation, is that, for
the first time, I truly feel like an adult. Possibly if I had children, that
feeling would have come to me earlier in my life. But, now that I've buried both
parents, it really feels like I must finally, at last, grow up. When I discussed
this with Eric, he responded, "Donna, you've been an adult for awhile. You've
been on your own, paying your way as an adult and have been doing so for a long
time, so what do you mean?" I guess what it really means is that I've had to
become an emotional adult.
To some degree, I'd still hide behind my mom's coattails at the really difficult
points in life, usually around the death of an extended family member. My mom
was always right there, helping in some way with the arrangements. When my
siblings and I were at the funeral home last week making arrangements for Mom, I
thought, "Why am I here? Mom usually takes care of all of this." While I had
been there in body to help my mom make the arrangements when my father died over
20 years ago, emotionally I was still a scared 4 year-old counting on my mom to
make it all better. Perhaps that's the trait I'm really going to miss -- the
fact that despite my age, despite my accomplishments, she never stopped being a
mother. Only she had the power to "make it all better."
The scene that continues to haunt me from this past week is the one in which my
mom asked me to run into the grocery store to pick up a few items before we
returned to her house after her release from the ER. (She had been taken to the
ER in respiratory distress early in the morning she died but had been treated
and discharged). She wanted to get out and go in, as she was feeling fine at
that point, but I made her stay in the car with the AC cranked while I ran
inside. I returned to my car about 10 minutes later to discover her in what I
thought was respiratory distress again. She told me that she needed to return to
the ER, and then encouraged me a time or two to "hurry" between big gasps of air
that she was taking in.
I keep replaying that scene in my mind, over and over again, and while I know
intellectually that there was no way I could have known that what was actually
occurring was cardiac arrest and that I did my best, the emotional side of my
brain continues to wonder, "Could I have done more?" While I realize that it's
pointless to keep traveling down the guilt road, here I am, right smack dab in
the middle of the lane, all over again. At what point will this scene ever go
away?
After the ER doctor had pronounced her death, they permitted me back into the
room to see her. I just kept apologizing, telling her how sorry I was and that I
didn't know it was a heart attack, and I was so sorry that I had failed her. At
the most critical juncture of her life, when her life, was, literally hanging in
the balance, I couldn't help her. After all the sacrifices I know that she made
for me, after the hell and grief that I put her through when I was a teenager, I
couldn't help her. That, indeed, will be the greatest burden to bear. I know
that it would be easier if I could only hear her say, "Donna, it'll be ok,
things will get better." That would be music to my ears and balm for my soul.
So, what advice can I give you as this new initiate into the Club of Lost
Mothers? I'm going to break the club rules and tell you what to expect
(hopefully they'll let me retain my membership <g>). If you're a woman, few
things will be this hard in your life. The pain of the loss will never go away.
It may take a year, or more, before the sharp, raw ache is dulled a bit. You'll
never stop missing her. It may be awhile before you lose the urge to pick up the
phone and call and see what she's up to. But the bond you share will never be
broken.
You can reach Donna, Online Biz Resource Queen and Coach, at 409-767-8399 or
through her website.
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The
email popped up onto my computer screen from my best friend in junior high
school and high school, Mary Ann, and her husband, Greg. Subject: Tragic Event.
Lin Schreiber is a Retirement Revolutionary who loves helping self-reliant women reinvent themselves in the next stage of life, formerly known as "retirement." Like Lin, her clients have a positive vision for the future, and the idea of riding off into the sunset for the next 30-40 years isn't in the picture.
I'm
a Newsweek junkie. Good thing, too, because the darned things come every single
week. One of my favorite sections is "My Turn" and the wisdom in
