A love like that...

Today marks 8 years since my daddy entered into eternal life.  It took me half a day to realize it.  As I reflect on it and realize that my heart doesn't ache for him, I have so many thoughts and feelings racing up inside me.

My memories of my childhood and the home that I grew up in seem perfectly normal to me.  But then I get the opportunity to see other's lives in reflection and realize that I missed out on something.  Our's was not a house of 'hugs and kisses' and lots of 'I love yous', but I don't remember feeling 'unloved' either.  We had our skeletons in our closets; some more gruesome than other's and none that we talked about.  The largest elephant in the room, the one that still lingers and holds tight to my heart, was my parent's alcoholism.

I would say that I first noticed it when I was about 16.  For several years I worked hard at trying to maintain some semblance of a relationship with my parents.  All too often, my mother would not remember conversations that we had.  I would make it a point to spend my lunch hours at their house; knowing that it was too early for them to be drunk.  My parent's alcoholism has bore many scars over the years.  My father died an alcoholic and my mother struggled with it up until about 3 years ago.  I am pleased that she finally beat this terrible disease.  But our relationship still suffers.

I see other people's posts on Facebook, "It's been two years since my father died.  I miss him terribly."  Just this past week I searched through Mother's Day cards for my own mother.  (Something I struggle with every year.)  Cards filled with words of immeasurable love...words that my heart cannot feel.  And I wish that it were not so.

My husband and his sisters loved their mother.  He speaks of her often.  She died before I had a chance to meet her.  He tells me how much I would have loved her and how the kids would have adored her.  I want to feel that.  I want a love like that...

On Mother's Day, one of my sister-in-laws went to visit her mother's graveside.  She took a picture and sent it to my other sister-in-law whom we were having lunch with.  It had been 21 years since their mother had died.  She left them on a Mother's Day.  My sister-in-law sat there and cried.  You could feel the love and the loneliness.  I want a love like that...

My mother is still living.  She lives about an hour's drive away.  We visit her as often as time allows.  My children love her.  Our relationship struggles.  I visit more out of obligation and the fact that I want my children to have a relationship with her.  I have tried to find more.  I have prayed for more.  I will admit that while looking through cards this year I thought, maybe it's not about me.  Maybe the words in the card are not about me so much as they are for her.  Maybe she needs a love like that...

I hope that one day, when I have gone from this world, my children will ache for me.  I hope they have a love like that...