I Can't Think of Ayything...I am a Bad Daughter

 I joined a grief share in January to help work through some of my grief about losing mom. My friends mom sent me a pamphlet about it a few months ago and it looked rewarding. I mean, it can't hurt anything. ....Until this week.

Sitting around a table we are asked to share what we miss most about our loved one who has passed away. My brain freezes. This should be easy, no problem. I am trying to come up with what I miss in my head. Nothing. Nothing that involves me. I am anxious as it gets closer to my turn. Everyone has such lovely things to say. Missing someone's touch, laying in bed with them, sense of humor, their inside jokes...

My turn. My mind is racing. What am I supposed to say. I just work vomit that our relationship was complex. I can not think of a missed action. I can mention missed memories. I state that I miss how she was so involved with her grandkids and how she tolerated things with my dad. I start to cry. What is wrong with me. How can I be so torn up and emotional missing my mom, but cannot come up with one things to say. 

I feel like shit. I feel the worst. If my mom heard this she would be so hurt. I start to think more. Over the past couple of days I have processed these thoughts with Lani and my therapist. It is starting to make sense. I don't like it, but it is making sense. 

Bonding: I was adopted as a baby. My mom did not carry me for 9 months. She didn't breast feed me. Another woman did. Oh I know how much my mom loved me and cared for me. But in the sense of where a relationship starts, ours already had some damage. Then from the ages of about 5- most of high school my mom was bedridden or hardly mobile inside our home. She had gotten sick in Peru and now we had to transition and move back to the United States for treatment for her. My sister and I had caretakers. My dad worked a lot and mom needed to rest. So there was a detachment from what a mother daughter relationship would normally be. Then when she started to feel better and begin to walk- she wanted to be more involved. I was a teenage brat who didn't want to spend time with my mom. I had already formed "mother" relationships with my best friends mom. I was also at the age where you rebel and really don't want your parents sticking their noses into you business. I was angry. I held so much resentment towards my mom for not being there. I know she had no control over her illness, and if the choice was hers- she would have spent all her time with me. Then off to college. I was away. Then I moved to California. Soon after that I my parents moved to Costa Rica. We just were never living in close proximity again.