{ Motherless Daughters } uniting those experiencing motherloss

Our Stories

Victoria's Story

Four days before my high school graduation my family and I went to Disney World to take my niece for the first time. It was an incredibly hot day in May and my mom looked tired even before we got into the park. As soon as we passed the entrance she needed to sit down. I was irritated, but I was also 17 and that pretty much went with the territory in those days. My mother and father and niece sat on one bench and my sister and I moved further and sat down on another bench. All of a sudden my father started yelling for my sister. I turned around and my mother was collapsing to the ground, visibly unable to breath. She was falling. My sister and I ran over and she was collapsed on the ground. I looked at her eyes and they were blank. She'd lost control of her bladder and I felt embarrassed for her and me and I told myself she was ok, even though I knew deep down she wasn't. The people from Disney brought us juice and it seemed like forever before the paramedics came. They did the paddles and her breasts were exposed right there in front of everyone. I'm sure she didn't care by that point, she was already gone, but I cared for her. I held my niece and rocked back and forth and I could feel she wasn't in that weak body anymore. They finally put her in an ambulance and we all followed behind. I told my dad she'd be ok and he shook his head. I couldn't cry. She'd had a stroke a couple years earlier in a different theme park and I figured she'd be ok again. As soon as we got to the hospital they directed us to a room and told us she'd died. She had a heart attack and I later came to find out she had severe heart disease. I talked to the police as my father and sister wept. I thought for sure I'd die as well. I had feared that day for years prior because we were so close and she didn't take the best care of herself physically and mentally; however, I always convinced myself that I was just paranoid.

I couldn't feel. I went numb... and I stayed that way for about seven years. Then came my man-friend and the death of his mother. Finally the floodgates for my own emotions and grief, I had yet to experience, opened. But here I am. I survived and I'm still surviving, growing stronger with each memory. My man-friend's father died in December of 2001 and now I know how fleeting this life is. I often wish I could realize the depth of beauty within me...you know, before I'm on my death bed. So, that's what I'm striving for. Wisdom you could call it.

June 2nd, 2003 marked ten years since my mother left this realm. I never got to say goodbye. In fact, the last things I said to her were snotty, as I was in a bad mood on that day in May. I know she knew how much I loved her though and that brings me comfort. I keep a photo of her on the wall by the computer here. It's one of the few that's she's actually smiling in. I look at it a lot and like to think she is proud of me. I have another photo up too that is much older. My dad is in it also and I can tell they were in love at that time. It was a long time ago.

Whenever I feel ok about it all I know it's just because it's too overwhelming and I'm being protected. When people say "don't get sad" or "don't be down" I just ignore them. Anything like that just isn't relevant to a girl who lost her mother at age 17. I was robbed of being able to relate to her on any sort of adult level. She won't be there for my wedding or if I happen to ever have children. She's not around when I have a question about her recipes or trouble with relationships. I can't go see her and spend the day talking about the past. I don't get to hear any more stories. You can't just say, "remember the good times". Of course I remember the good times, but there's a void in my existence without her and there always will be. I'm certainly not a wreck because of it, but that's simply because my body and mind won't allow me to be and with time comes healing and realization.

When you lose your mother, your entire life changes. When you're 17 and lose your mother that world crashes in and knocks you off your feet. From that day forward all relationships seemed doomed to end. "Adapting to the loss of a parent requires elements most young children don't have: a full understanding of death; the language and encouragement to talk about their feelings; the realization that intense pain won't last forever; and the ability to shift their emotional dependence from the lost parent to the self before attaching to someone else". Ah, attaching to someone else...that's exactly what I did over and over...in the form of guys. My dad was supportive at first, but that quickly ended when he found his wife. It was like he thought he had to sever all ties with my mother. He sold everything that was hers or theirs except a couple of things. He even sold the house as his new wife didn't like living where the old wife had been. I understood that, but before they moved she gutted it out and redid it all, making my dad do tasks like replace tile which is hard work for a man who's over 60 and has diabetes. But, she is another story...

So, it's even harder when the surviving parent doesn't want you to talk about the one who's died. I understandably got depressed (well, I understand now) and it was so taboo to him. I was actually put down for being depressed. His wife convinced him I was making it up and that I just wanted attention. I believed them and beat myself up in my head for years about it. How could she think that? A grown woman who actually had worked in the mental health field telling me I'm not depressed after I lost my mother at 17! Back then I couldn't process it all. Even to this day I still feel like I'm 17 and I tend to trust what people say and figure I don't know any better because I'm a kid. Finally now I'm starting to see that I was not making it up and I had every right to be sad and all of my acting out...staying out late and meeting guys....was an attempt to attach myself onto someone who at least seemed to care since my dad didn't. He left me, just like my mother did and that made the entire initial healing process ten times harder. The worst part is I'll never be able to talk to him about it. I have tried many times in the past and asked him to not say anything to his wife, that it was between us as father and daughter. He always told her and she would call me and literally yell at me for upsetting him. And he would say, "I don't know what you mean by 'I want my father back' ". So, really the father I once knew is dead too.

This all hit me like a ton of bricks as I was reading the book Motherless Daughters. I just picked it up a few weeks ago. I'd had it years ago and somehow lost it and I know it's because I wasn't ready for it...Right now I'm working through some pretty intense anger at my dad's wife, but mostly at him. I know he doesn't realize the full impact that all of that had on me and how almost every day I can hear his wife calling me a spoiled brat, accusing me of stealing her things, and kicking me out of the very house I grew up in...all while he stood and watched, not saying a word.

Losing someone is never easy...and it's never just about that loss. So, telling someone to "get over it", like I've been told, is like stabbing them in the heart repeatedly. How the hell do I get over that? I don't. I learn from it, I heal on my own time and in my own way, but I ALWAYS remember.

"When you lose a mother, the intervals between grief responses lengthen over time, but the longing never disappears. It always hovers at the edge of your awareness, prepared to surface at any time, in any place, in the least expected ways. Despite popular belief to the contrary, this isn't pathological. It's normal. And it's why you find yourself at 24, 35 or 43, unwrapping a present or walking down an aisle or crossing a busy street, doubled over and missing your mother because she died when you were 17".

I'll never stop remembering my mother and I'll never again allow someone to convince me I'm wrong to love, miss and long for her. But that's because I'm an adult now and I know better. That poor girl who wasn't allowed to feel...I grieve not only for my mother and the father I once knew, but for her too. I pray that my father and his wife didn't have to go through that when they were young and that's why I was treated that way. And if they did, I'm sorry they never grew up and healed enough to know it was wrong.

But most of all I love you mom...And that's the most important thing.

In loving Memory of Victoria A. Mroczkowski March 18, 1939 - June 2, 1993

(all quoted items are from the book Motherless Daughters. Author lost her mother at 17 as well)

Š Victoria E. Mroczkowski

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