I Strive Not to Do to My Children What My Mum Did to Me

My long-life dream revealed.

I still remember vividly: one day, I was mad at my mum. She didn’t let me go to a birthday party, the first in Year Eight.

My world collapsed.

The next day, my mum went to the hospital.

Four days later, she was gone forever.

And I, age 14, was left to learn what does it mean when your entire world irreversibly collapse.

Today, I’m 45.

I have three children.

I miss her every day.

A half of my heart is still empty, although it’s full of love.

I feel loved, respected, nurtured and cherished by my kids and my husband. I felt love from my father and brother, growing up. From friends and family.

Still, nothing could replace her.

Children shouldn’t grow up without their parents.

I felt and I still feel like one big part of my body and enormous part of my soul is missing.

Still, it is full of love for her.

Still, I cry often. Imagine how my life would look different. How my kids would have a grandmother.

They never had any. My husband’s mum also died very young.

Who knows, maybe God connected my husband and me, too early matured souls to nurture and cherish each other.

I was so mad.

Mad at her.

At God.

At destiny.

I spent countless hours trying to find some answers. Why did she leave me? How it’s that possible? How can I, a teen, be a mum to my younger brother, who was eight at the time…

Later, I had been trying to stitch some patch on my broken heart.

Nothing worked.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

I know.

My painful teen years and upbringing without mum’s love, in a civil war torn country, under bombs and sanctions have some advantages, after all.

I grew up to become a strong, independent, strong-willed and incredibly persistent woman.

But it’s fucking difficult.

It’s exhausting not having your tree to hide under.

Your roots to hold on.

I have them: my husband, my three beautiful children. They’re my strength, my love, my dopamine.

But they’re not my mum.

It didn’t hit me so hard until I turned 40. My mum died at age 41.

So, suddenly, I became painfully aware of my mortality.

My brain played games with me. My fears rocketed.

“I have an unfinished job.”

I’d say to God.

My kids are 13, 10 and seven.

They need me. I don’t want to die young.

So, the decision has been made.

I wasn’t aware of that fully before one conversation with my new personal trainer happened a few years ago.

• I had been exercising for years.
• Eating fairly well and healthy.
• Having normal weight.
• Going regularly to health checks.

“ Why do you exercise?”

She asked me.

• Not to be the hottest 40-year-old.
• Or to be skinny.

It’s to be healthy for my kids.

That’s my primary motivation.

I would do anything in my power to stay healthy and sane and live long enough to see them as happy, fulfilled adults, without childhood emotional wounds.

Yes, I have a big dream: to grow old to see them grow up.

I’m a girl of many dreams:

• I dreamt of being an educated, independent journalist.
• I dreamt of finding true love.
• I dreamt of living from words.
• I dreamt of expanding my horizons.
• I dreamt of immigrating and starting a new life.
• I dreamt of starting my own business.

But there is one dream that gives me a completely different purpose:

I want to grow old with my children.

To be there for them as long as they need me.

To die wrinkled, full of experience, taking with me all the precious memories we made together.

They’d be sad even then.

But they wouldn’t be devastated. They world won’t collapse.

And that’s the dream worth chasing.

p.s. This article is not my usual writing here on Medium; it is my response to this month’s prompt by the Modern Woman publication.

I found it refreshing to write about more personal things.

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