On Raising a Daughter without a Mother

It is not uncommon for seemingly random thoughts to strike me at equally random-seeming places. When it happens I am often inwardly taken aback, but outwardly unperturbed. This has happened quite often over the last two years, and I have become pretty well accustomed to handling the thoughts and whatever emotional fallout ensues. This one almost caused me to take a physical step backward.

I am raising a daughter without a mother.

Now, this would seem to be a rather strange realization, since I have been doing this for over two years. It wasn’t the fact itself that struck me. It was the idea that I often worry about making sure she is taken care of physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in every other way a girl of five could possibly need to be looked after, without thinking about it in terms of the fact that she has no physical, earthly mommy to do those things for her now. It was this perspective that struck me.

No matter how much I attend to every detail of her upbringing, no matter how many positive female role models I supply, no matter to what lengths I go to ensure that she has a happy childhood, there is one circumstance that I will never be able to reconcile for her.

I cannot ever bring her mommy back.

I am surprised I don’t dwell on this more often. I think if I did it would allow me to be truly, bitterly angry about the extreme unfairness of it all.

I should know. I’ve lived it from this perspective as well.

I have mentioned in previous posts that my dad died in a boating accident when I was nine years old. Though my mom remarried three years later, it was still never the same as having my dad around. The funny thing is, my dad was not really that involved in my life during the nine years that he was here. Don’t get me wrong, he did what he could, and I never doubted that he loved me. He just wasn’t a hands-on kind of dad. But after he died, I idealized what things would have been like had he lived, which I think is fairly normal for any child who has lost a parent.

In addition, I resented my stepdad for not being my father and for not knowing how to fulfill the image that my now larger-than-life father could not have filled either. My stepdad and I, unfortunately, have very similar personalities, which added to the turmoil of living with him that was fueled by these factors and a heavy dose of the normal angst every teen encounters as they mature. Once I moved out of the house during college, he and I were able to see eye-to-eye, and we now enjoy a rather nice relationship as adult parent/child friends.

Which brings me back to my daughter. I’m not so much worried about her idealizing her mommy to a level that is unattainable. Although that is possible, her mommy really was an amazing mother. Sure, there are areas we all can improve on, but she truly did not have many. (And I promise this is not just me idealizing her now either).

But what about all those other times when she needs a mom? Not the times when she needs help with the technical aspects of things like her first period or shaving her legs-I can talk her through those things. It’s the times when she needs help with the emotional aspects of situations that I worry about. It’s having someone there who knows what it’s like to experience those things for the first time.

And it’s knowing that I can never be that for her.

That’s the part that has me grieving most tonight. Not for all of the things I miss about my wife.

But for all of the things my daughter will miss about her.