Mother Daughter Talks

Naturally, being a girl, I dream a lot about my wedding day. What dress will I wear? Who will my bridesmaids be? The face my soon-to-be-husband will have when he sees me for the first time as I walk towards him. But unfortunately, there's one thing I used to dream about that will never come true.

I always wondered what my mother would say to me on my special day. What advice she'll have for me. Seeing her cry because her little girl is all grown up. And I can hear her now talking about how sexy my husband is and how she wish she could've snapped him up first and of course, meaning it in the most loving way.

It's hard to come to terms with the fact that I won't get to have any of that.

Losing my mom was really hard but what comes with losing her, is losing all of those things a mother and daughter are supposed to do together. Most mother and daughters fight like crazy during the teenage years. The daughter doesn't think the mom will ever understand and all the mom wants to do is stop her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. My mom and I definitely got that part of the mother daughter relationship.

The part we never got to experience, is when the daughter grows older and wiser and transitions into a woman. It is during this time, when they begin to repair their relationship. They can begin to talk woman to woman. They develop a completely new understanding of each other. Stay up late, drinking wine (in my case, it would be Moscato) talking about what it means to be a woman, the love they are falling in and out of, the past they've learned from and the future they hope for.

I was 16 when she died and while I learned a lot from her mistakes even though I was so young, I never had the opportunity to sit down and understand why she was telling me about the mistakes she made. She was only 38, with such a lifetime ahead of her, and I'll never know what she hoped to do with her future. Although, I imagine it would be to continue loving me and my brother and becoming a grandmother one day.

If I could have her back for a whole day, all I'd want to do is take time to appreciate the opportunity to have a mother daughter talk but I'd want her to do all the talking. I've talked enough over the last five and a half years.. I want nothing more than to hear what she'd say back to me.

The Outcast

I graduated from college a little over three weeks ago. I have a job working with children who have mental health and psychological problems. With having reached two major accomplishments recently I've been thinking a lot about where I come from, where I am and where I'm going.

Family is one of the most important things in my life and without them I have no idea where I'd be. But as I reminisced over the last few years of my life since my mom died, I've began to realize something.

I could not be more proud of myself but making my dreams come true has come at a price. And that price is my mom's side of the family.

I've completely shut out aunts, uncles and cousins because of their meth addiction and their involvement with drugs. It's not that I don't love them and aren't happy to see them the seldom times I do but they are not the kind of people I want to have consistently in my life because of the lifestyle that comes with their drug use. They're unpredictable and only care about one thing - getting high. When I do see them it often includes asking for rides, money or other resources they need to obtain drugs. It's constant fighting with each other. And nearly every time they are high. In no way is there the support or love a family is supposed to provide. No good time memories made. And I just do not have time for that.

My family is a drug family. Their bonds and relationships are through drugs. They've either done drugs together, sold drugs together or both. And this is a bond I will never share with them, a bond I will never understand. Whether they've done drugs together for 20 years or they only tried it once together and haven't tried drugs since, drugs are so embedded into my family and that's a part of my family I am not involved in.

In no way do I believe I am better than my family members who have a past or current involvement with drugs. In no way do I love them less because of it. It just breaks my heart that I feel so disconnected from them because I know where I want kind of life I want to have and my family members with severe drug use aren't in my life. It destroys me inside to know the one thing that connects nearly each of my family members together pushes me away from them.

If I could have just one wish come true it would be that I could have a family that could be involved in supporting me and helping me achieve my dreams. A family that I could trust to be right there by my side every step of the way. A family I felt like I belonged to.