About Parents and Losing Them

I was reading Jane Fonda's book My Life So Far, when something she wrote made my eyes filled with tears as this thought came to my mind: I might lose my mother one of these days.

My mother isn't sick or weak in any way. But as I read about Fonda telling about her father's last days, it made me think that the odds are that mum will pass away before me. She's 62 soon, I'm 26. I've already lost one parent and the idea of losing another made burning tears roll down my cheeks. I know too well what it feels like to lose someone close.

It's been 9 years, but I can easily return to that day in April, when the phone rung in the middle of the night and the nurse told us the news we had been afraid to hear: dad had died. He fought six months against brain cancer and lost it 4 days after my 17th birthday.

I know I have been thinking about my relationship with my mother lately. Week from now is Mother's Day here in Finland. I have had so mixed feelings about celebrating this day. Yes, mum gave me life, but does she actually love me? That's a question I don't think that I will ever know the answer. Nor have the courage to ask as I'm afraid to hear what she has to say.

I suppose you could say that I'm a daddy's girl... I always wanted him to read the stories to me and take me to walks in the nature and fishing. I enjoyed being with him, because he enjoyed so clearly to be with me and I never had to wonder, if he loved me. I know that he did.

But my mother... now there's another story. They say that the relationships between mothers and daughters are often complicated. Well, mine and mum's sure is. You see, when I grew up, I tried to follow her advices - only to realise that they were wrong. The older I get, the more I understand that we live in different words.

All my life I wanted to know that she loves me, appreciates me and is proud of me. All I hear is her pointing out what wrong choices I've made in my life when I followed my heart. She wants me to live my own life, but on the same time she makes me feel like a failure when I do that. I feel so clueless here. I love her and respect her, but wish that she would, for once, support me.