In Pursuit of a Daughter

As I dip one tentative toe into the scary waters of the dating pool, I’ve found that there is one thing that I want most but is also the most difficult for me to allow.  I want to be pursued.  Chased.  And that is difficult.  I’m not terribly patient.  But more than that, I’m a social and outgoing gal, so I find it difficult to hold back and allow someone the opportunity to pursue me.

I’ve actually given this quite a bit of thought lately as I’ve talked to some interesting men and listened to the advice of friends.  It has caused me to think back on my life and history in dating and friendships.  The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that there is really only one person who has consistently pursued a relationship with me in my life.  I have had some incredible friends over the years and some long relationships.  But generally speaking, I am the initiator of contact in those relationships.  I do not mean this as an insult to my friends, because when I need them, my girls are always there.  And I think it is probably our different personalities that cause me to be the initiator.  It may even be best for it to be this way.  I don’t know.

But there is one person who has NEVER quit pursuing me.  My mom.  We are close.  Losing my dad so young, and it being just she, John, and I when I was in high school and college forged a close bond between us. 

Now don’t get me wrong, Mom and I have traveled a rough road.  There was a time when I was too much the “partner” and not enough the daughter.  But we worked through that and were healthier as a result.  And she never quit trying.

For many years during my marriage, I pushed her away.  I shut her out of anything painful because I needed her to continue to like my husband.  Our relationship suffered.  But she didn’t quit pursuing me.  She held back when she wanted to poke at things, but she was still there.  She knew I was hurting and didn’t know all of the reasons why, but she kept following.  She stayed several paces back behind the wall I created, but she was there.

On the Sunday morning I called in tears to tell her I was leaving a 13 year marriage, she kept right on pursuing.  She didn’t know all the reasons why, but she knew me.  Even from the distance I’d created between us, she knew me well enough to know that if I was leaving, there was reason.  She got in the car the very next morning and pursued me eleven hours across Texas.   And when she got there, she hugged me, loved me, rolled up her sleeves and helped me without asking anything or demanding to know why. 

In the two years since then, my life has completely changed.  Not only did I move closer, but I also let her back in my life.  We are probably closer now than we ever have been.  There have been bumps for sure.  We’ve had to work through the process of some appropriate boundaries and the change of being in close proximity again.  But she still pursues me.  Because she’s my mom.  And that’s what mom’s do.

My mom is an amazing woman.  She survived the loss of the love of her life.  She raised four great kids.  She stood by two of us through terrible and unexpected divorces and one through a terrible, heart breaking loss.  She listens to her kids when we let her in and doesn’t push when we don’t.  She is the best organizer and filer on the planet and will gladly come over and conquer your stacks of paper for a diet coke.  She hauls the grandkids and takes them forgotten homework.  She surprises her daughter in law with loads of washed, dried, and folded laundry and her daughter with a cleaned apartment.  She would do the same for her long distance daughter in law if she were near.  She isn’t a dog person at all but asks me about Lola regularly.  She pets and loves her “grand-dog” because she is her daughter’s “baby”.  And through all of this, she continues the raising of a 25 year old mentally retarded adult.  I could sing her praises for that alone for another twenty pages.

I am phenomenally blessed to have a mom who has never quit pursuing me. 

Love you mom.  Happy Mother’s Day.