For the longest time, I was convinced I was just going in circles, always coming back around to where I began; never making progress, and not quite getting over that missing piece in my heart where a mother's love should vacant. In Anna Quindlen's "Mothers"," the narrator is desperately yearning for a relationship with her mother, who passed away when she was just nineteen years old. Similar to myself, she aches for what she deems, "a relationship that will never exist " (31), as I sadly know all too well to be true with my own mother. Perhaps the only thing harder than losing someone we love, is loving someone who we never got to have in the first place. Growing up with an abusive and manipulative mother throughout my childhood, I identify with the author's utter despair over the fact that she will never have that mother-daughter bond ever again, just as I will never have the chance of having one.
To enumerate, the speaker implies that, "For a long time, it was all you needed to know about me, a kind of vest pocket description of my emotional complexion: Meet you in the lobby in ten minutes - I have long-brown hair, am on the short side, have on a red coat, and my mother died when I was nineteen"" (31). For much of my youth, it seemed the fact that I never really got to have a mother defined me. Suffering from abuse can leaves us shattered, to the point that not only do we grow up believing that we deserve it, but it becomes a part of us that follows us everywhere, like an ominous entity constantly lurking in the shadows of our mind, just waiting to pounce and interfere with daily life. Whether it was a casual meeting with friends, going to school, or even working with colleagues, I felt as if I was inadequate; missing something. Therefore, connecting with others became a daunting task, one that I am still working on today.
Any time I would meet someone new, I often felt I could never possibly relate to them, as I often idolized their relationships with their parents, particularly their mothers.