The word ‘mother' is more than just a noun. Look at the difference it makes to other words: nature is a scientific entity, Mother Nature is a nurturing, bottomless well of life and energy. Put it in front of Earth, ship, tongue, land, board and it gives them, too, a sense of emotion, an essential core, a solid foundation, a feeling of home. When a person becomes permanently detached from their mother, they may feel like a planet that has fallen out of orbit, or a ship that has lost its anchor. And the only people who can understand what they are going through are people who have been through it themselves.
Hope Edelman was 17 years old when her mother died of cancer. Edelman's experience motivated her to spend a large portion of her 20s researching the topic and interviewing hundreds of women whose mothers had also died, resulting in a book called Motherless Daughters (Lifelong Books, Dh40 from www.amazon.com). In her book, Edelman talks about how life-shattering and personality-changing losing a mother is for girls and women of all ages. She also says that, although every situation and experience is unique, a daughter's response to the death of her mother is partly determined by certain factors, such as whether she has siblings or not, whether these siblings are older or younger, whether a surrogate mother-figure steps in, and - most importantly, according to Edelman - how old she is when her mother dies.
All grown up
Most of us would understand without need for explanation that if a mother dies when a daughter is still young, the daughter's life will be turned upside down, inside out and destabilised, potentially for a very long time, if not forever. What is not so obvious, however, is how losing your mother when you are already a grown woman yourself, may have the exact same effect. Dr Saliha Afridi, clinical psychologist at the Human Relations Institute in Dubai says, "I have had women of all ages coming through my doors because they are struggling to come to terms with the loss of their mother - sometimes even decades later. They often come in saying, ‘It's the happiest time of my life. I am getting married, having babies... why do I feel so sad?' As soon as I tell them that this is normal and that there is a whole area of psychology devoted to mother loss, I see relief wash over their faces."
One of the major issues sabotaging these women's ability to cope is that they have been led to believe that grief is a linear structured process that you go through and then it will be over. This is simply not the case, says Dr Afridi. "Grief is cyclical. A daughter will grieve for her mother repeatedly with every developmental milestone she passes through - prom, graduation, marriage, children, grandchildren... and each time she will mourn again."
Rawan Husseini, 39, was 27 when her mother died of cancer. She says, "I was used to not being around my parents by the time she died, so I didn't really feel like she was gone. For a couple of years, if something significant happened I would actually forget and pick up the phone to call her. There are some things you only want to talk to your mother about. I don't think I actually grieved for her properly until several years later when I realised she would not be there to participate when either my brother or I had a family."
Losing a friend
During adolescence, most mother-daughter relationships suffer a temporary break down in communication as the daughter releases her firm grip on her mother's apron strings and ventures off to become independent. By her early 20s, most women have re-bonded with their mother on a new adult plane as friends. Edelman says, "The 20s are the years most women pinpoint as the time they first realised their mothers had qualities - empathy, wisdom, experience - they would value in a friend. To lose a mother at this time, just at the point when one seems to have found her again, feels like a cruel trick."
This rings true for Sara Sherlock-Thomas. Her mother died five years ago when she was 28. "She was a great friend of mine. I would speak to her every day, so when she died I really did feel like I had lost a friend - and I was sad that she wasn't going to be around for my wedding or her grandchildren."
This is even more cruel if a mother dies before she has had a chance to re-bond with her daughter. Aiza Castillo, 24, had just turned 19 when her mother passed away suddenly from a stroke. She says, "A week before my mother's death, I decided to make her a cake for the first time in my entire life. I never had the chance to make that cake and feel I never had the chance to be the daughter she always dreamed of. I can accept the reality of her death, but what I can't overcome is the guilt about the time that she was alive."
For women who are over 30 when their mother dies, even though she is older and likely to be more ‘settled' in her life, the loss is just as aching. According to Edelman, a 40-year-old or 50-year-old daughter will probably have more roles than she did at 20 - wife, mother, colleague, aunt, grandmother - so her identity is less based around her role as a daughter. However, her mother will also occupy more roles, - mother-in-law, grandmother, friend - so a daughter will grieve on multiple levels. And having more loving people in her life doesn't make losing her mother any easier.
One of the women interviewed for Edelman's book spoke about how she felt when her mother died when she was already grown up and married with children herself. She says, "When my mother died, a lot of people tried to comfort me by saying, ‘Well, you still have a father. You still have a brother and sister. You have a wonderful husband and beautiful children.' And you know what? That's all true. That's all completely true. But I still don't have my mother."
Grief tasks
Dr Afridi says that grief has to be dealt with head on, and even then it may lie dormant and pop up again further down the road. She says, "There is no avoiding the pain of overcoming grief. You can't go around it, or bury it. You have to go straight through it."
According to Dr Afridi, some of the women who come to see her admit that they actually don't want to get through the grief completely, as they feel it still ties them to their mother in some way. "Some women get scared or upset about letting go of the grief because they feel it is the only connection they have left with their mother. But it is unhealthy. They need to try to find a way of keeping their mother's memory alive that is not infected by pain."
When treating a daughter struggling to come to terms with the loss of her mother, Dr Afridi refers them to the four tasks of grief, as defined by American psychologist William J. Worden, which require the person to take an active part in their grief journey.
The four tasks are: to accept the reality of the loss - having a true understanding of the fact that the person is never coming back; to experience the pain of grief - avoiding or hiding from any of the grief experience will mean that you haven't processed it fully; to adjust to the new environment without the deceased person on a practical level - this may involve delegating household chores or roles that the mother played; and finally, to emotionally relocate the loved one and move on.
Of this final task, Worden says, "The fourth task facing the bereaved is not to give up the relationship with the deceased, but to find a new and appropriate place for the dead in their emotional lives." It doesn't mean that you forget about the person, or that you will never miss them again, but that they are not at the forefront of your mind all of the time causing you pain, and you can invest your energy into other relationships or projects.
it's Never easy
Of course, these tasks vary from case to case; Worden himself points out that they don't necessarily have to go in that order. Dr Afridi says that, in her experience, how a daughter accepts and processes the loss of a mother is largely dependant on how her mother died. She says, "If someone has a terminal illness, you are already processing grief before the event, and preparing for it. When it is sudden, you have to grieve and organise yourself, and still carry on with everything else. This can prolong the grief process."
According to Dr Afridi, however, whichever way you experience loss - sudden and unexpected, or drawn out by terminal illness - you will feel that it would have been easier the other way.
Women who have watched their mothers disappear beneath the weight of a disease say they wish they hadn't had to see that happen to their lively, happy mother. Women who lost their mother suddenly without warning are plagued by not having a chance to say goodbye as they would have liked. "There is no easy way," says Dr Afridi. "Death is death. Loss is loss. Either way, it is really going to suck."
Despite having dealt with some of the hardest psychological cases and conditions around in her past 11 years as a psychologist, Dr Afridi admits that grief was an issue she used to actively avoid, preferring to pass a grief-stricken client on to a colleague. She says that having no experience of grief herself, she didn't feel equipped to help others deal with it.
However, Dr Afridi soon realised that it wasn't first-hand experience that she needed, but just the ability to listen. "When someone's mother dies, it doesn't help to say, ‘Your mother is in a better place now.' Or, ‘You have your family.' Or, ‘You'll be OK in time.' Instead you should ask, ‘How are you today?' Or, "How is it for you?' The best thing you can do is just sit there with them. Don't try and think of nice things to say. Don't try and comfort her and fix it, because you can't fix it. Nobody can."
Irrespective of how strong their relationship was, when a child loses her mother, she loses her connection to the source of her own life. And that loss is profound. It is like a second cutting of the umbilical cord, but this time it isn't only food and oxygen that a daughter loses access to, but her history, her spiritual and emotional heritage and her sense of self. This appears to be true at any age. Edelman says, "I naively assumed a woman past the age of 25 or 30 would accept the death of a mother in her 60s or 70s as part of the natural course of events. She wouldn't feel as if something vital had been ripped from her prematurely. I couldn't have been more wrong."
So, it is official: experiencing debilitating, unabating grief when your mother dies is normal. No matter what age you are, it is OK to feel like a helium balloon whose string has slipped free from a tight grasp, floating up towards unknown territory with no ceiling to hold you in. If this sounds familiar, don't ignore your distress or bottle it up - talking about it to a professional, or to other women who have been through it, can help bring you back to Earth. A
Do you know someone who might be interested in joining a support group for motherless daughters? If so, email Dr Saliha Afridi at salihaafridi@gmail.com.
Dealing with unresolved grief
Counsellor and parenting educator Helen Williams lost her mother at 17, and then her father, two siblings and two grandparents within the next few years. As a result, Williams has become an expert on grief and bereavement counselling. She says that many clients come through her doors struggling with issues which stem directly from unresolved grief. "In my experience, if you can't grieve properly, you end up with an empty hole... a longing, which you can't name, but which has to be filled with love substitutes, like shopping or partying."
Unresolved grief may surface in other ways, too, such as rage, addictions and illnesses, says Williams. She points to an analogy from Hope Edelman's book, Motherless Daughters, which likens unresolved grief to a broken bone that has set badly - you may think you are fixed because you can walk on it again, but it will cause you problems and leave you vulnerable in the area for the rest of your life. "Like with a badly set bone, we have to go back, re-break it and set it again," says Williams.
When helping a client who is struggling to access grief after years of holding it back, Williams tries various approaches. She says, "Sometimes all they need is a gentle suggestion that the reason they are feeling depressed or angry might be linked to the fact that they lost their mother at a young age. Others just need a gentle, motherly stroke on the arm or back, a soft voice and a blanket around them. Some need to get up and storm around the office - and that is OK, too."
According to Williams, some people have become so accustomed to denying their pain that it takes them a long time to be able to talk about it and allow themselves to feel it. In these instances, Williams tells them to go home, wrap themselves up in a big soft blanket and get into bed where they feel safe, and then slowly let themselves remember. She says, "If feelings of pain and anguish come up, let them. If you still can't relax enough to let the memories come through, try writing a letter to your mother. If you still find that difficult, try writing a letter to your eight-year-old self, or however old you were when your mother died."
To book an appointment with Helen, visit www.counsellingdubai.com or call 055-8936524.
