I just miss her

I just miss her. Everything. One of my nightly rituals, while Gareth is still young, is nursing him and rocking him before his bedtime. It also serves as a time that I can think about Mom without distraction and just be with my emotions.

Often I will go back to how I felt when I was young and in her arms - how she would hold me with my head snugly against her chest so that I could hear her voice as she talked. The sound of her voice echoing through her chest would lull me to sleep on many occasions. She was the absolute most comfortable and safest place to be as a child. I was a very shy child, and sensitive, so it was more than just a comfortable lap - it served as my safe place which eventually gave me the security and confidence to be more independent as I grew older. I never felt abandoned - she was fully invested in my emotional and intellectual well-being. I think about that as I rock Gareth and as Yuri comes to me for more hugs these days.

One of the greatest losses for Yuri will be his grandmother's intuitive and tender way of dealing with him. Although his personality is polar opposite of what mine was at that age, Mom was a safe place for him. She understood him in a way that I sometimes struggled to as he worked through the developmental struggles that come with being a pre-schooler. Without her, he clings to me much more. Maybe it is a phase he would have gone through anyway, but he has some fear that I might abandon him, as it must have felt when his grandma was suddenly not around for him when he needed her. Tonight when I left the house for a meeting at his bedtime he made me promise several times that I would come back. He followed me down the hall, and with a scold-like tone that any parent might have with their teenage daughter about to leave the house, said "You be sure to come back, Mommy. You come RIGHT BACK after your meeting." It took several rounds of me promising and reassuring as I made my way to the front door.

And the greatest loss to me is that I no longer have the person who understood me the best to guide me as a parent - something I desperately needed from her. The past three years she continued to provide me  with that safe place where I could turn during my times of feeling unsure about how I was doing as a parent, in a way that only she could because she knew me so well.