Be There

​     "I see them over there. A daughter and a mother. They are talking and involved with each other. I see them laughing and my heart is aching. 
     I know I'm far away, but even when we were close things were the same. I feel I did something wrong. In fact I have done many things wrong. But it doesn't change this hurt I feel. You are not there. 
     They get up to leave, continuing to talk. They are so close and the support for each other is radiating outward. Tears fill my eyes as I try yet again to accept that this will never be for me. I beg God to fill the gap, but on this physical plane it seems He cannot. 
     The times we can be together as so few and far between. It is never a good time to call it seems. I remember watching you and your mom commune as I wish we could. Tea and lunches were the norm. But you are not there for me in that way. I do not blame you. You have gently told me that we are different. That it can't be that way between us; that you love me and are proud of me. 
     So once again I swallow back the hurt and dry my tears. Forever praying you would be more a part of my life. Because I know someday the Lord will take you home and we will permanently be apart on this earth. I will call you up to find you are still not there. 

           I cry about every time I read this excerpt that I wrote almost two years ago. In fact I am crying right now. It is easy to know from reading it that it is about my relationship with my mom. Now do not get me wrong! My mom was an awesome mom when I was little, she was not perfect, but she was a really good mom.
            I remember when we were smaller she would throw us really cool birthday parties. Every year would be a different theme and she would go all out with homemade games, decorations and GORGEOUS cakes! She would come into my room to tuck me in and sometimes she would sit in there with me telling me stories of her childhood. Oh how I miss those stories! She would car pool all of us wherever we needed to go and always be there waiting when we were done. She decorated our rooms like she decorated birthday parties. I still remember every theme I had, unicorns in a purple pink stencil around the top of my room. Then it was horse stencils in the middle of the wall with chair rail on top and bottom. The last one was an ocean theme with 3 dimensional pieces of coral. I also remember every single theme my siblings had from a golden tree to the millennium falcon. In fact my sister’s golden castle bed is now my daughter’s Elsa bed that my mom redid. I love receiving items that have my mother's fingerprint on them (yes, my dad and her built the bed)
            But I remember the hurt as I began to get older of being pushed aside in videos so the new baby could be filmed. I remember the sound in my mom’s voice when she told me to move, the sound of annoyance. My mom loved her babies and her infants and her toddlers. Little children were harder and by the tween ages the relationship was distant.
            I remember playing in the family room in Colorado and my nana coming over what seemed like every day to chat and talk. And if it wasn’t there that they were talking it was at my nana’s house. We would all be outside playing while they rocked in the metal chairs with cushions on the porch. Wind chimes and birds singing were comforting. I had such high hopes that my mom and I would share such times. But it never happened. Even when we lived 20 minutes away it never happened. Maybe we burnt her out, maybe she really didn’t want to be around us. I know she loves me to this day, but I feel most of the time she doesn’t like me very much.
            I cannot change my mom and my relationship as hard as I might try (that is God's domain not mine). I can pray for it and if God so chooses he can change her heart to see that time is slipping by. And what really stinks is on the rare occasion it is just her and me we have a REALLY great time together. But it always hurts because it never lasts. But there is hope. Not for my mom and me as much as for my daughter and me and even my daughter-in-laws and me. I pray that my daughter wants what I want but rarely get from my mom. To go shopping together, to have lunch together, to be friends once she doesn’t need my parenting as much, to have such a strong relationship that she never fears coming to me or seeking my advice.
            I do not know why there was this hiccup in our chain of motherhood. And I love my mom and will miss the hope that is still there of her changing once she is in heaven. But now my strongest hope lies in the relationship I might have with Briseis. I already am trying to nurture it and she loves it. Mommy daughter days, pedicures, shopping trips, lunches just the two of us, reading to her at night in her bed. Nurturing always nurturing the possibility that when she is grown I will be there and so will she.
     But while I wait for my daughter to get to that age, and believe me there is no rush, I continue to hope for that relationship with my mom. In fact for the first time ever, she took me out for my birthday! Just her and me! That has NEVER happened before. We had an amazing time, massages and lunch, just the TWO of us! It gave me reason to hope more than I ever had before that my prayers for us weren't bouncing off the ceiling. And now we are getting ready to go on a cruise at the end of the month! Well, it wont be the two of us, lol, my dad and Lance will also be coming. But there will be no children and no grandchildren to try and share her time with. I am so excited! So we will see if at long last something has changed between us.
     Mommies let me be clear as well. This is not just my mom, it is like this for almost every single one of my friends with the exception of two! I do not know what happened or how the devil wore our generation of moms down so bad. But the reality is they are not there and they are missing us, they are missing their grandchildren grow, some of them are even missing their very lives. We need to pray for our mothers, if you have a bad relationship with yours I can assure you, you are not alone. Pray for God to take action against your mother's heart. I have, and for the first time ever not only do I have a stronger hope, but I have done things together with my mom that have never happened before. It is possible, but not without prayer.
     It is also so important that we pray for our own hearts not to become weary with this world so that we run out of fuel for our children when they are grown, and our grandchildren look to us to be spoiled rotten. We need to pray that our children still want us around when they are grown and on their own. Our children were meant to leave the nest, that is how God designed it. But leaving the nest never meant our job was done and now it was time for us. There will be more opportunities for us time fore sure, but once you are a mother you are always a mother. Sure we don't parent as much but we need to always be there ready to welcome our children with a loving hug if they need advice, have a funny story about their children to tell, or just need a shoulder to cry on because married life is hard. We can not abandon our nature, not ever, we are mothers for life; and our Father made us strong enough to mother until we are called home.

​Titus 2:4
And so train the young women to love their husbands and children ~

​Proverbs 31:8
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her ~

​Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it ~

My mom and dad at my middle sister's college graduation