It was not until I became Brielle’s mama that I realized the incredible bond between mother and daughter. Don’t get me wrong, I love my son just as much. But the relationship is different.
Perhaps because of Brielle’s special needs, she and I are closer than I ever thought possible. I feel like I need to be. I need to anticipate her wants and needs. I need to intuitively understand what is making her sad or frustrated. I need to recognize her noises, to interpret her movements.
In a strange way, the more I love my daughter, the more I ache for a mom to love me as much as I love Brielle. Not always, not even often. But sometimes the ache hits me all at once, taking my breath away.
Just last week, my husband and I were watching The Bear. (Spoiler Alert: I am going to describe a scene from Season 3 of The Bear. If you haven’t watched it yet and plan to, stop reading this post.)
Episode 8, known as `Ice Chips,’ explores the relationship between character Natalie and her mother Donna. Donna, played by the incredible Jamie Lee Curtis, is erratic and unreliable and unhinged to say the least. She has not been there for Natalie or her brothers very much. Natalie is strong and doesn’t lean on her mom or depend on her at all.
But in this scene, a very pregnant Natalie goes into labor. She can’t reach her husband or other relatives or friends to help her. Desperate, she finally calls her mother. Donna steps up and is there for her daughter the way she needs to be. She calms her and distracts her from the pain. She helps her breathe and listens instead of talking over Natalie.
In that scene, Natalie got the mom she longed for, the mom she needed when it came to crunch time. Donna comforted her daughter, held back her hair, calmed her, helped her through the pain. It was a scene of beauty that filled me with emotion.
As my husband and I watched this episode, something hit me and I started bawling. Not tearing up, but bawling. I have teared up plenty in the past during shows and commercials. I have never started crying so hard I had to catch my breath. It was an intense reaction that left me stunned and sad and a bit numb for a day or so.
If you have read my book or my blog, you know I lost my mother when I was a teenager. I still mourn the loss to this day and always will. More than 35 years after her death, I think I have a pretty good handle on my emotions. That didn’t stop the pain or the tears when I watched this mother-daughter scene. I completely broke down, to the shock of my husband, who paused the show and came over to put his arm around me and comfort me. I didn’t say much, he knew it had something to do with the mother-daughter dynamic. I don’t know what exactly triggered me. Which is why I’m sitting here writing about it, analyzing it as I type.
I remember giving birth to my firstborn, my son. Despite being surrounded by family in my hospital room, I felt the absence of my mother. I spiraled into a bout of postpartum depression after I returned home with my son and my husband. Every sleepless night, I cried. Every triumph and tragedy, I ached for her.
Hope Edelman, author of the incredible book “Motherless Daughters” that helped me understand my loss and myself, wrote this: “Whether she actually would have flown in to act as baby nurse or mailed me cotton balls and calamine lotion if she were alive isn’t really the issue. It’s the fact that I can’t ask her for these things that makes me miss her all over again.”
It always breaks my heart when I hear of women who don’t have a close relationship with their living moms. Not having that is a gaping hole in my heart that can’t be healed. I think when I was watching this scene, I saw the need Natalie had to have a relationship with her mother. Despite all of the heartache her mom had caused her over the years, Natalie still wanted that bond. And it reinforced the feeling I’ve always had that I’m missing out on not having her in my life. Good or bad, close or distant, the mother-daughter bond is unlike any other. I don’t have that. I have plenty of great relationships with role-model women that I am grateful for. But nothing is the same as a mother-daughter bond.
For a good chunk of my life, I was the daughter missing the mother. And then when I had Brielle, I became the other side of the equation. I played out a role with my daughter that my mom didn’t get to play out with me. I understand the importance of this relationship, and I cherish it. And I feel a great responsibility to make sure my daughter has what I didn’t.
One more Edelman quote: “No one in your life will ever love you as your mother does. There is no love as pure, unconditional and strong as a mother’s love.”
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