Acceptance

I attended a wedding, this past Saturday, in which the bride had lost her mother.  After the wedding, as the photos were being taken, she posed with her father and held a picture of her mother.  I had only met the groom twice prior to this and had never met the bride but understood her pain as she was crying, yet trying to smile for the pictures...

 

I always wondered how I would fair, should I ever marry or have children, without my mother.  I realize women do it every day, but it seems impossible to me. Nearly twenty years of being motherless and I still struggle more than anyone in my life realizes.

 

I guess maybe it was the prospect of my own marriage that made me reach out to my father.  We haven't spoken since April 22, 2010 and I truly believed this was the wisest choice for my happiness, sanity and well-being.  Yet the nagging voice fought me (not to mention the voice of my youngest brother whom kept insisting that if I explained things from my prospective, things may be different--that "Dad has mellowed out--he is different--retirement has changed him--he wants a relationship with you...").  So I reached out.

 

I knew that as things stood, he and his wife would be the only people in my family that I would exclude from the wedding.  I guess I wasn't capable of doing that without at least trying to make amends.  There was the part of me that didn't want to hurt him by excluding him--to intentionally hurt another is difficult for me--no matter what they have done to me.

How foolish I am at times.

 

And as things have progressed, I regret the attempts that I made. I did myself more damage for trying and have not only reopened my past wounds but allowed him access to create new ones.  The past months since that first attempt at communication (5/29/12) have been more painful than I would have ever expected.  I thought maybe there was a chance, maybe there was hope.  I am no different than I was in youth, hoping he would notice me and extend love.  Confusion, disappointment, tears--nothing has changed.

 

I realize, now, that at my wedding I will be parentless.  The reality of it is... that it hurts.  My father has never been a good person in my life, but there was a brief period, prior to the PFA/302 incident, where we had some semblance of a relationship--for a few years, we had a civil, "friendly" relationship, in which we had a facade that I was able to almost accept as "normal." I was never "Daddy's Little Princess."  I don't ever remember him "cherishing" me or even liking me. But for a little while in my life, I pretended that it was alright--I had a father.

The past months have been so painful.  The messages he has sent have made me realize that nothing has changed, no matter what he presents to the rest of the world, he is still the same man that I have always known.  There will never be that fairy-tale ending where he realizes that I am an okay person and that he loves me. He will never be proud of me.  He will never see me for me.  I will always be the child that amounted to nothing--a mistake.

So at this wedding, as I watched the bride lean into her father, grasping her mother's photograph and hurting--missing her mother and wanting her there--I felt her pain and struggled with the concept of my own "special day."  I finally realized why I reached out to my father not even a week after the proposal...
 

Oddly enough, the day after the wedding, I received this message from a close friend that had also been a friend of my mother's:

 

"I just wanted to let you know that if you want me to, I would be honored to stand in your mom's place at your wedding.   I would also respond to the minister or official "Who gives this woman to be married?" with "Her mother and I do."  She is so happy for you that you found ______ and I know she would be there if she could.   Just let me know.  Love you very much!"

 

Things may not always turn out the way that we hope or want them to, but somehow, the universe still sees our needs, feels the aching in our hearts and provides an answer.  I have struggled with an answer here for many years--it didn't take this proposal to bring about the questions and struggles I am going through.  But yet, an answer arrived...