The Mothers We Find

I’ve lived most of my life without my mother, who passed away in 1995 when I was just 6 years old. For the longest time, I believed that being so young spared me from the intense grief of parental loss. I even viewed it as a gift of sorts, telling myself, “I was so little, I didn’t know what was going on,” or “At least I was not a more formative age.” Of course, that isn’t true. 

When I started talk therapy in 2021, my primary goal was to unpack how my mother’s death and my childhood in general impacted the person I am today. I knew it had, but I didn’t have the language to articulate how. As it turns out, the loss of my mother has affected my life in subtle yet profound ways, weaving itself into every milestone, birthday, and holiday spent without her. My therapist explained this to me as “cumulative grief,” which is when a major loss is layered by other traumas or stressors before the initial loss is processed. I now understand why I get melancholy every year on my birthday, and I give myself permission to just feel it. My hyperindependence, stoicism, and avoidance are all byproducts of cumulative grief, but learning this has allowed me to confront how these traits don’t always serve me.

My grandmother helped raise me, and I do believe she did her best with the tools she had. But she wasn’t my mother, and frankly, her Mad Men-era ways of childrearing weren’t exactly the brand of nurturing I needed. All I’m saying is I did not need to be mixing her a nightly cocktail at age 8, and she didn’t need to comment on all the food I ate. We certainly didn’t talk about feelings. So, when I’m going through something difficult or exciting, I still mourn the mother who isn’t there to call, to hug, or to remind me that I am strong and capable. It had been so long since I’d been mothered that I forgot what it felt like—until my closest friends started having kids.

In the years leading up to my friends getting married and starting their families, a worry always lingered in the back of my mind: that I’d somehow get left behind. I’m grateful to report that hasn’t been the case at all, and, in retrospect, it feels like a ridiculous thought. That said, modern society doesn’t love a spinster, so I try to give that version of myself grace. If I only knew how watching my closest friends become mothers would fill me with immeasurable pride, I’d have gotten over myself much more quickly. Becoming an aunt to their babies feels, on a cosmic level, like what was always supposed to happen. Like an added branch to our chosen-family tree.

I watch these women nurture their babies with the deepest love, care, and patience. In return, I see these children look at their mothers and know she is their protector, their safe space, their entire world. There is something pure and sacred about that trust, which fills the room even during the hard moments. I don’t remember experiencing that kind of safety in my childhood and didn’t know what I was missing. When my friends face the more challenging aspects of parenthood, they do so with grace, confronting their own generational traumas and making sure their children always feel loved and protected. They celebrate milestones, share their fears and vulnerable truths, and don’t try to do it all alone. In spite of the enormous change that comes with bringing a child into the world, they’ve remained there for me in equal measure. 

They say it takes a village to raise a family, but we were villagers long before the children arrived by raising one another, filling in familial gaps, choosing each other. My friends are not directly mothering me, but living alongside their maternal energy is a constant reminder that I will always be cared for as long as we’re in each other’s lives. Because of them, I will always have a mother to call, to hug, and to remind me that I am strong and capable. There’s no way of knowing what my relationship with my mom would be like today had she lived, but I think she’d be proud of me, of the women I’ve chosen to surround myself with. She’d be grateful for the mothers that will always look after her daughter.

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