Oh my, my . . .

I still haven't heard from my lawyer . . . one week and counting . . .

I can't help but think, will this ever end? Then I wonder, maybe it is best to do nothing and see what happens, even if that means it goes on and on, at least she's still with me and maybe I can just keep it this way?

Much of me is saying, fight, fight, fight . . . and I suppose I can, but I hate having to.

Right now, I guess all I can do is wait. Meanwhile, A is reacting to being away from me, telling me how much she misses me when she's with her dad. I say, "I miss you, too. I want you to be happy. I'm always here for you. I'll love you forever."

I just picked up the book Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become by Hope Edelman. She writes that there are eight themes that recur for women who do not have mothers to guide them in their role as mothers:

1. A strong desire to reactivate the mother-child relationship from the mother angle.
2. Concern about how to "be a mother."
3. An intense preoccupation with the possiblit that they, the child, or the spouse might suffer an untimely death.
4. A parenting style that involves trying to sheild the child from harm.
5. A commitment to being a good mother by being both emotionally and physical available to the child.
6. Difficulty tolerating a child's feelings of sadness, anger, grief, or loneliness.
7. A sensitivity toward age-correspondence events in relation to their own mother' sdeath.
8. The belief that having and raising a child has been an unparalleled healing experience with regard to the ongoing mourning process.

Edelmen's summary most aptly applies to women who lost their mothers early, but I certainly can relate to some of those themes, especially the commitment to being a good mother and viewing mothering itself as a healing process. I do miss my mother's support still, especially during this ongoing battle. I know my mother would have been here to help care for my daughter in ways that my father and brother haven't a clue how to do. The good thing I've taken from her, however, is a fair sense of how to be a mother. I don't doubt my abilities in that regard. I do everything my mom did and more. Part of the healing process is, I think, giving what we didn't get as children. After all, people like my ex, hell-bent on conflict, come from a certain context. Were he given more, had he tried to heal, we wouldn't be here now.