A Mother Like Ours; one daughter's story of lack and love.

Today my mother said, she wished she had a father like mine. If she did, she said she would have soared high. She would have had dreams and done life a lot differently. While some of the things she placed value on, I do not necessarily agree with, I understood how the lack of a strong male representation affected her life. 

She did not learn how to be a child, with an absent father and a mother, who abandoned her at 5, accusing her of bringing misfortune to her life. Mom did not know what it meant to have a provider, someone to carry the load with her. She was never taught to be vulnerable, yet safe and secure. For a long time, she carried on that load as a provider, a unifier, and a supporter, carrying everyone else's load but hers. She never learned to delegate or work as a team, there was no one to pick up after her. No one to tell her she was great, that she was beautiful. to advise her on life goals and prospects, to reassure her that even if she failed, she'd be loved unconditionally.

Mom never knew that she had a choice, that she could choose her happiness, that she did not have to swallow the pain and cry silently. She never knew that loving someone doesn't equal losing yourself, that giving up your happiness, might leave you unfulfilled.

In many ways she has missed this strong man in her life, that was supposed to hold her hand and lead her. The hand that was supposed to ward away the flies of opportunists and predators. Mom survived!

Mom had two beautiful daughters who have a father, present yet flawed. A father who laughs and dances. A father who cries and sings. A father who still tries to tell mom, that she did the best she could. Even though she has stabbed him with her trauma and projected her fears in the most unprecedented ways. A father who is everything she wanted and everything she didn't and everything she couldn't have.

Mom has given her daughters a father who has taught them everything that a man shouldn't be by virtue of what he has and hasn't done. Mom doesn't know that despite having a father like ours, we wished she had a mother like ours!