Mothers Day Is Dead

[Maylissa]

I needed to write today. I cried buckets yesterday, all day. I still feel pretty horrible today. I have no more kidlets left to be a mother to. That part of me is lost, gone, maybe forevermore, and it was the best part of who I was.

No one truly thought of me of their own accord yesterday, though I'd already mentioned last week what Day was coming up and implied it was going to be difficult. No one thought that maybe I'd be missing being a mother, this 'first' year in particular, and do something to help me feel like that hadn't died right alongside my girl. When I finally mentioned my disappointment by early afternoon (seeing as nothing was forthcoming), I eventually got asked what exactly it was I wanted? I said I didn't KNOW exactly, other than that I DIDN'T want to go to brunch and be around happy mothers who were there with their (human) kids....but that I shouldn't have to be the only one using some imagination and creativity for my own gift!

Two days ago I'd sent an e-card to my MIL that was linked to a site that provides a bowl of food for shelter animals with every click on their link. My personal message spoke of human mothers helping non-human mothers, and their kids, too. (my MIL's cats are also her 'kids', by her own definition) I got no acknowledgment, or anything else back.

......not until after I'd abruptly left the house to go for a walk alone, to cry, to get away from being uncared for. I tried to find a place in the woods close by to be alone. No luck.....a group of noisy girls interrupted my intended solitude, even in the depths of this forest. Traffic noise couldn't be muffled, even by the trees. No peace out there, either. It got cold and rained. I didn't care. I wished our river was deeper, more suitable for drowning. I couldn't feel my girl, even out there, in nature. There was no escape from this pain.

No one was worried at my absence, even after 2 hours. I came home to get told I'd now gotten 2 e-cards (one from my H, one from his mother).....both the same as the one I'd sent out myself (that had originally taken me over 1/2 hour to find/choose), with some nice words and one linked to a poem on pet loss. However, that didn't seem very personal to me, requiring no effort on their parts to find a different card, one more personal to me. Besides, I'd had to 'complain' first; not the same as forethought.

The day before, I'd also mentioned a particular dessert I'd wanted to try (an easy clue, I thought), but my H didn't stop for it before we came home. He went to the store after I'd come home after my walk. Brought home a dessert....one that suited his tastes, not mine, with a "Mom" pick stuck in my piece. I said the flavor wasn't what I'd been hankering for, took 2 bites and left the rest. He said nothing but "I thought it would taste better than that," missing, or avoiding, the point entirely. Sure, it was a thought, but not so much a thought of me, and what I like. And again, it's like getting flowers AFTER the fact. So yes, I'm complaining. Too bad, so sad, but I feel like I was wronged, and I'm angry about it. I believe I deserve better than this.

I'm tired of begging, complaining, reminding people that I have feelings, that I'm still grieving, that I need some extra love and concern for awhile, that certain days will be harder, that I can't keep giving out what I don't get back, that if ever there was a time they needed to educate themselves about grief, this is IT. I keep thinking, if not NOW....WHEN? It's looking like that time will never come. Exactly how much more do I have to lose before I'm worth a bit more thought, ahead of time? To me, I've already lost enough, but no one's really listening or taking me seriously. I hear lip service paid to the human-animal bond from these people. I hear scorn in their voices for those who are insensitive about 'pet' loss. But there's no self-awareness of what they're doing/not doing themselves, though this is as close to home as it gets.

I used to get Mothers Day cards from/on behalf of my girl, if from no one else. I've saved them all through the years, as mothers often do. How could none of them remember this and realize how much I'd be hurting this empty, lonely, despairing year???? These people know me better than anyone else, except for my girl, and know I took my role as a mother seriously, not being played out of 'cuteness' or frivolity, and yet, now that my last baby is gone.... In fact, believe it or not, almost every year on Mothers Day, Nissa would either bring me a 'present' (a mousie), or do something else special for me and her....I always swore she knew it was a special day between mommies and their kids.....she WAS that special, and cognizant. Is it not bad enough that I've lost all that, but that I'm now forgotten, too, driving home the emptiness and longing for all I've lost even further on these special days?

Naturally, everyone likes me better when I'm 'up', but I still don't receive much praise or incentive to stay more up than down. I'm expected to do this all on my own, w/o 'bothering' anyone else with most of the hard work. I've pushed myself beyond all previous limits, but no one's slapping me on the back, saying, "Good for YOU! You're really doing well for yourself, we're proud of your progress and we'll keep helping you!".....no, not unless I end up asking for it. I wouldn't have needed to ask my girl, who always 'rewarded' and inspired me, whether I was up OR down, but especially if I was down. So much love, and now too little. And this will now be a bitter memory, which can't be erased, of my first Mothers Day without my darling fur-daughter. No daughter, no love, no caring left....no warm fuzzies. Most of it went with her. Am I now angry and afraid of a less than loving future, more reluctant than ever to accept Nissa's 'goneness', on top of being so heartbroken that I don't know what to do with life? You bet I am. Mothers Day was already tough for me, with no Mother of my own still here, but now it's much worse, as if I'd never even been one myself.

Edited May 14, 2007 by Maylissa

[AnnetteAZ]

Oh Maylissa I feel your pain.

I'm also childfree. Every year after my mother in law died, my man would buy me the most extravagant Mother's Day gifts. I'm so sorry now that I never properly acknowledged the pain he must have felt every year when he only had me to celebrate that precious holiday with and not his own mother. Now he's gone too.

So for the last two Mother's Days I felt pretty much abandoned and ignored too. And I'm really angry and hurt and I'm mad for you too. I didn't get the adorable little doggy card that he sometimes drew a little pawprint on (or let the dog slobber all over). I didn't get any extravagant surprises. I thoughtlessly went to my favorite Chinese restaurant Sunday afternoon and found it so crowded that there was no way I could stay (far too much joy that I couldn't share). And what's worse is that I'm not really a mom and our little dogson is gone and my man is gone and everything in my life that I loved so much is gone...and no one really cares. So I want you to know that I really understand and I care because your pain is mine. I'm going to sit in my room and cry for all our pain and loneliness and the unfairness of our plight and our reaction to it. And I'm going to say bad things about all the people that I feel so let down by (and all the people who have let you down will get some really bad words). Happy Mother's Day, your girl still loves you. (And I'm sure your man does too, he just doesn't get it - they can be so amazingly clueless it's fortunate they have other fine qualities).

Edited May 14, 2007 by AnnetteAZ

[Maylissa]

Thank you, Annette, for such a heartfelt and understanding reply. I know that we're encouraged, for our own sakes, to find some understanding of the whys and wherefores for others' insensitivities, but it's so hard when we're in the midst of our very real pain and in dire need of receiving understanding, rather than lending it! So it's always so calming and helpful when someone really HEARS what you're trying to say....thank you for hearing me.

I really AM grateful that I at least still have my husband here, (in fact, I live in fear many times that he'll be 'next', and I'll also be in your position!), but you're right - although I do know he loves me, and shows it in other ways, being "clueless" about many emotional things is just a difficult hurdle to have to jump when one is in the throes of naturally emotional grief. Just as he can't really understand how I can hurt so hugely, I can't really understand how he CAN'T, at least to some poignant degree. I can intellectualize about it all I want, but when I'm at my lowest points, all that head-based stuff goes right out the window and it just plain HURTS.

We ARE both moms, though, even though we're furkidless now. It would just be nice if we'd be given that recognition and due consideration from others, so that we wouldn't have to feel quite so role-less and empty about it.

I also appreciate the sentiment of any 'ranting' you may do on our behalf, if it helps you to do so. I know it helps me, to be included, even if just in thought! I'm just too drained and tired at the moment to even expend that much effort for myself!

It must be so, so hard for you, having lost two such beloved ones who were so central to your life, as well as for the added anguish caused by those who ought to care more, but don't, or don't know how to. Far too many of us have had to endure such callousness and it just stinks, frankly. I, for one, would be glad to invite you (and many others) over during these tough occasions, or just any ol' time, to just BE, and not have to 'make merry'. As I'd hinted at before, being mateless as well as furkidless.....I can only shudder to imagine....so you have all my sympathy and then some! I would never shun someone in your position, even if I couldn't fully understand just how horrible it must be. Instead, I'd probably be crying right alongside you, feeling honoured to be entrusted to bear witness to your pain, and allowed to express mine as well.

I do know my girl still loves me, and immensely, as I do her. I just had a communication/connection session this afternoon, and got the most amazing, loving and beautiful images and messages from her....apparently very unlike and surpassing most of the ones done by this animal communicator/healer....not that this greatly surprised me (but did totally delight me anyway!), since our connection with each other is as "otherworldly" as this ACer (animal communicator, or connector) put it. But once again, both sadly and wonderfully, it was my girl who soothed my pain, and not another human close to me. She said our connection with each other felt to her as if my and Nissa's auras had actually enmeshed INTO each other's, like a holographic vesica pisces symbol (or Jesus' Fish), and have remained so, even AFTER Nissa's transition....something she's never encountered before in all her years of doing this work! It's a stunning testament to our love for each other, but on the downside, that's also one of the reasons I'm in such deep pain and feel so utterly lost and devoid of....well, half of my essence!, which is entwined with my girl. It's still there, where it's always been, but I can't yet FEEL it the way I used to when she was on this plane. But therein also lies a powerful avenue to my eventual healing, though I have no idea how that will flesh out. But my darling girl IS always and still with me just as she'd promised she'd be, because she can't NOT be, seeing as we're so entwined together this way. Somehow, I just have to work on really being able to FEEL this reality again. Then, perhaps I won't need as much support from other people because I'll always feel my girl's, from within. I hope that day is not too long in coming because the lack of that feeling is unbearable for me.