orphan – FilipinaYEG

By: Giselle General

In an attempt to fill the gaps in support and knowledge from my ongoing therapy, I was seeking out additional resources to help with dealing with the pain and loss of being an orphan. While my therapist wasn’t able to point me to an local support group, I found an adequate starting point.

I just finished reading the book Motherless Daughters, The Legacy Of Loss: by Hope Edelman. This is a Thank You Letter and a book review for the person who recommended this book, a remarkable woman in Edmonton named Mimi.

November 29 2021,

Dear Mimi,

Thank you for your lovely invitation to go out for lunch a few weeks after the outcome of the Edmonton Municipal Election last October 18. It was wonderful to chat with someone who experienced many of the things I have as a first-time elections candidate, as someone who is a person of color, and a woman. You shared many stories and insights that will help me as I go through my emotional recovery after not winning this election.

On top of the political commentary and stories, you kindly asked important questions about one challenging reality I have, as someone who doesn’t have a mother figure in my current life, and as someone who hasn’t had such a person for a very long time.

If my memory served me right, you actually haven’t read the book yourself, but you shared to me that Motherless Daughters was a book recommended to you a while back. I believe you said that you’re not the self-help-book-type. I was overjoyed though, since self-help is a book category I read on regular basis. Thank goodness an E-book version was available through the Edmonton Public Library, and I started reading in on nights and weekends when I have spare time.

The book was written and researched by a woman whose mother died when she was young, a teenager, and it involved numerous interviews and questionnaires from other “motherless daughters“. I liked how the book chapters outlined concepts bases on topic, such as navigating womanhood, romance, family, motivation and self-worth as a motherless daughter.

My favourite was how the book outlined key differences in terms of impact, depending on the child’s age when the mother passed away. I was eight when my mother died, together with my father and sister. Old enough to remember who they are and to know that life will never be the same after the deaths. Too young to do basic household management functions on my own. Too ill-equipped to grieve but not immune to the need of it.

It was a tough read, where every paragraph hitting me hard, shedding a light in very dark corners of my scarred soul, revealing wounds that never really completely healed. Especially in the first five chapters, it felt like every third paragraph made me cry, the vision of a child in her brokenness that was never acknowledged, and was just hidden away for so long. The stories of the other women and the commentary from doctors and the referenced resources, are both haunting and illuminating.

While distressing and unfortunate, I learned that it is actually normal for people to freak out when they reach the age of death of their same-gender parent. I thought that being fatalistic, catastrophising is a unique issue I am having due to election stress. Seriously, for the last six months before the election day my mind was telling me relentlessly “If I lose in this election, I have three years left to prove my worth. If I am not able to accomplish something profound and remarkable, my mother’s sacrifice was worthless. I don’t deserve to outlive her, and ending my life then is the right course of action.” I cannot rationalize it then, but yes, I was measuring my life and worth based on a very specific number, 33 years of age.

Now, there is huge comfort from realizing that this is a common occurrence. That subconsciously, people can be neglectful about their lives, or in the case of those whose mothers died of suicide or addictions, the adult “motherless daughter” ends up replicating those behaviours. It comes from wanting to grasp any way to find a connection with the mother that died too soon. So this is something I have to seriously watch for between now and 2024, that I don’t harm or kill myself, either by suicide or self-sabotaging my wellbeing.

Chapters of the book outlined how motherless daughters like me are stunted in our development, pushed to maturity and independence too early in some ways. But we are also stuck in childlike tendencies and yearnings in other ways. Instead of feeling inferior, I felt liberated by this. This paved another path of acceptance, and also pride, that my childlike mindset has not affected my adult life in debilitating ways.

For me, knowledge is power. I imagine it comes from my need for control from needing to look after myself (and my brother) at such a young age. I cannot describe how relived I am in realizing a few things:

That I will likely grieve again, in cycles and waves, for the rest of my life. When I reach womanly milestones, I would then yearn for a mother’s presence and guidance. Like during my first period, potential pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, even being a widow, financial and career changes, and many more.
A few time and age-related stages will be particularly difficult, such as reaching the age my mother died (which for me is in three years), giving birth, and when my child/ren reaches my age when my mother died, which is eight years old.

This is a huge blessing that came at a perfect time. Did you know that just a few weeks ago, during my therapy session right after the election, that I told the doctor that I need a very specific support group for people like me? He was sympathetic and understanding but the referrals provided were too broad for what I am seeking. This is the next closest thing to a support group and it worked really well as a starting point. I’m super grateful for the recommendation, as this has officially marked another journey of my healing from trauma, unpacking the fallout of being an orphan.

By: Giselle General

I was arranging a brunch meeting with someone and hoping to meet them this weekend, and he said that this weekend is hectic because of Mother’s Day. That is indeed coming up again. And I keep on forgetting it. It kind of makes sense since my mother passed away decades ago, my grandmother whom I lived with after my parents’ passing wasn’t the type who remembers holidays like that, especially in the Philippines, and the aunts who were kind of involved in some aspects of parenting were a bit all over the place. They certainly fulfilled some of the parenting duties, but my younger self’s fractured sense of attachment, made it impossible for me to describe any of them as ‘mama’.

To any of you who had a challenging upbringing, when a mother figure was inconsistent and when you had to fulfill these responsibilities for yourself and any other siblings, this is for you.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Kudos to you for doing everything you can to nurture a sense of love, belonging, care, for yourself and for any little brothers and sisters who needed it just as much as you did. You likely had to give those hugs and kisses, the words of advice about the world that you yourself are still trying to figure out, and in silence, have to heal your own hurts.

Great job for trying to hustle maintaining your home, earning income, doing chores, and budgeting even when your heart screams for the satisfaction of a capable adult doing this for you instead.

I would not be surprised if there were some people who came to your life that made you think, ‘Is this gonna be her? Is she gonna be the new mother that I can finally have?’ and finding out that you are wrong. And then you continued to get by, day by day, until you reach that very desirable legal age in your area, which opens up a new set of possibilities. Kudos for making it this far.

For those of you that are like me, who lost their mother through a heroic moment of self-sacrifice, may you be nurture this precious gift and opportunity to continue being in this world, while not being crippled with too much guilt or misguided sense of obligation that it holds you back.

For those of you who lost their mother through the flaws that humans tend to have, like neglect, abuse, indifference, or hostility, may you have the healing and the freedom that you deserve. May you feel empowered to define for yourself the best way to move forward, whether that means removing yourself from the woman who claimed the title ‘mother’ but didn’t quite embody what it means.

And now, when the passage of time has forged you to be perceived by the world as an adult, I hope that you are able to find ways to crate opportunities, permission and space for you to be cared for, fussed over, thought about. Since that need being unmet can be an entrapment of the mind, reaching out to the lonely, hungry child inside of us is crucial to feeling free to live life.

Being a mother is a mindset, a set of actions, the goal to care for a younger person and raising them into an adequate stage of adulthood. Again, to those of you who was pushed to the role too soon, who carry the scars and victories for making it through, Happy Mother’s Day to you.

Tag: orphan

Happy Mother’s Day To Those who Self-Parented