Mother of the Bride

Would knowing the duties that a mother would traditionally fulfill during engagement and the wedding make planning easier for a motherless bride?

Yes/ no/ Possibly?

Show Me Some Love

I often speak to brides who secretly feel angry. Pinpointing a menial wedding detail or comment from someone in the wedding party may be the immediate target of the frustration...but dig a little deeper and the hurt unravels into a deep ache for having mom there to pick up the pieces of logistics, appointments, and attitudes. To reassure the apple of her eye that "everything will be alright."

Many brides spend so much time and energy compensating for her absence, never truely showing the pain. In Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman offers a nugget of perspective that I think highlights the importance of having someone close, anyone sensitive to your situation, to know the truth of reason behind your emotions.

As women, we have few adequate models for releasing rage, and we often give in to the impulse to pretend it isn’t there. Which is really an unfortunate consequence, because anger can be our ally, at least for a while. As a first-response emotion, it can protect us from feeling intense sadness until we’ve passed through an intitial adjustment stage. But clinging to anger too long keeps us from addressing the emotions underneath, and those-resentment, desertion, confusion, guilt, love-are the ones on which true mourning is based.

Your thoughts?

Not alone

For one day in her life the average engaged woman is tranformed into a supermodel for her wedding. A cross between an allstar diva and noble princess. On that day, a slew of cameras and videos, bubbles and confetti, follow her every step. Her hair is perfectly pinned, her face adored.

A little while ago it was my birthday. Another day in the year where I secretly expect the paparazzi to show up and make me feel like I'm the most important person to mother earth. In reality, it's usually not mother earth's snapshot of my life I seek, its my mother's gloating over it that I miss.

The emails came in, phonecalls abounded, my husband's card made me cry from joy. For eight years I had practiced choosing to enjoy this day without my mom recieving the credit for making me happen. The plan for the day was laid out, my favorite comfort foods in the fridge, a slew of social events would keep me busy enough to not really think about it. But this year another curve ball came my way.

My father forgot.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many people remember, it's hard to get over the one person who seemingly forgets, the one person who's absent. An eternal optimist, this was hard to accept at my wedding. Didn't matter how many cameras were clicking or faces smiling, there was one woman in the world I wanted there more than emotions could express. More than my feelings could contain.

In that moment, and in other life moments, I think about my Creator. I listen to that part of my heart that knows there is more to my existence than biological forces shaping atoms and equalizing ions. When I feel surrounded by people yet empty within, longing for my mother's presence, I think about a verse in the Bible that says "When my father and my mother are turned away from me, then the Lord will be my support." (Psalm 27)

On days like these I miss her and I smile and in my heart I kiss her and I realize, God is with me. I am not alone.

Fear of Commitment

Note to self: fear of commitment and mother loss are connected. Check out an excerpt from Buxbaums' riveting novel. Anyone read it?

Blue Dress, Blue Napkin

Remembering random details mid-conversation with friends and relatives may be typical for most brides. Fervently nodding in conversational agreement over microcosmic points of talk that spark monumental inspiration for decorating ideas. Suddenly a friend talking about her new blue dress triggers an idea for blue napkins to be neatly folded underneath the complimentary fusia pink M&M favors.

Taking these random details and thoughts to a "motherly" level can be hard -- to put it mildly. Although I have often heard brides complain of their mother's excessive sharing of wedding preferences in a border-line manipulative way, at least those tastes, opinions and preferences are known.

On and on your friend's "blue dress" conversation continues, while all you can wonder is what color napkins your mom would want? What kind of a dress would she want you to wear?

Would she think my 20s hairdo is hideous? And who will entertain our great aunt and uncle, if not her. Am I responsible to introduce old relatives to the groom's side of the family even though the last time I saw them I was in diapers?

Slowly you feel your "I'm listening to your blue dress story but thinking of something wedding related" nod give way to an unpolished glisten of tears accumulating at the corner of your eye. Taking charge of your tear ducts you hurry a whitty comment that makes both of you laugh. You laugh and laugh till the topic changes from blue to the weather. Your thoughts craving one thing only, a journal.

Photo credit: Kate Nash by Paul Ferrell

Her Dress, My Dress

(Image source: Modern Bride/ Perfect Bound)

This Kaleidoscopic picture reflects the momentum of legacy. The legacy of commitment from your mother's love that nurtured your ability to extend it as a radiant bride.

The bond of a Mother-in-Law

It's taken time to assemble these three short words into one phrase. Mother-in-law.
I remember the first time we met. Just as I had grown accustomed to all my friends having their own mothers to rely on, dating D. caused me to confront a new mind boggling reality - my boyfriend had a mother too. Which meant my universe of empathy, I thought at the time, was shrunken to that of a diary and pen.

Over time I engaged in more meaningful conversations with this vivacious woman, who, over time felt free to call herself "mom." She too ironically lost her mother at age 20 and approached my aloofness with an exponential dose of warmth.

As D. and my relationship evolved into engagement, "mom" and I found a natural bond in shopping and sipping french onion soup. Though I knew comparing her to my mother made no sense, the appeal to do so superceeded any logic. Thus the laundry list began:

She was not from my culture, and could not pronouce words as I did.
She didn't remember my sisters and I fighting as kids, nor did she put ice-cream on my tongue when I was burning with fever.
She never disciplined me as a teenager nor did she shape my worldview.
Yet she did all those things, and more, for the one my heart was in love with, my husband-to-be.

And... she was here. And she was trying to know me. And she was open.