Feeling like I lost my life source

[zeppelins]

Hi everyone! I am so glad I found this forum!

I'm 17 just lost my (single) mother to cancer almost a month ago and I feel totally lost.

 I don't know if our relationship was a rare one (people in my family have told me that it was), but I feel like I have just lost my twin. She never "grew out of" the '80s; before her cancer, she still had the '80s hair, the big earrings, and listened to hair metal bands all the time. When I started high school, I became just like her. I also have '80s hair now...big earrings...rock 'n roll lover. The rock star posters in my room are the very ones that were up on my mom's bedroom wall 30 years ago! We also had the same likes/dislikes. We had the same sense of humor. I already have uncommon interests as it is, so to lose the one that was the closest like me has been a very lonely feeling.

Another major change is that it feels different to have no one that loves you more than any other person in this world. There is no one out there now that sees my artworks I did when I was 7 or my baby pictures as a treasure. I know my situation was pretty unique though. After all, there are millions of children out there who don't even have parents, either that or they are in a family where love is distributed equally. But since I was the only child of a single mom, I had a person who loved me more than anyone or anything else. Now I am trying to learn how to love myself as much as my mom loved me, but that in itself has been an uphill battle.

I am religious, if that helps anything. I know she is no longer suffering and is doing better in heaven than even the happiest person on earth, which has brought me immense relief. Instead of crying over our future being broken apart, I imagine her skipping down golden streets and going to Prince concerts sold-out across the clouds (well, idk about that last part. Hopefully she is! )

Slightly off-topic- I want to love my future child/ren the same way my mother loved me, but I don't think I should even have children in the future considering I would want them to be just like me. Instead of molding them into the child/ren I want them to be, I need to discover the person they are--their personality. But I'm not sure I can do that, which I understand is selfish.

[MissionBlue]

Dear Zeppelins:

I am so sorry for your loss.  I just had to reply, because I can relate so well to some of the things you are feeling.  I am forty years older than you, but I still love the 80's music, too, thanks mostly to MTV. 

I also am an only child of a single parent, the only child of my divorced father.  Even though I have half brothers from my mother, I was not raised with them.  I also feel like I am my father's twin.  In fact, I wish I had been born his sister rather than his daughter so we could have had more time together.  He raised me to like all the things he liked, so we were practically like clones.  His interests were not the typical interests of a girl growing up in the seventies, so I felt different from my peers. For example, I didn't know a single classmate who liked silent films, classical music or Russian films by Sergei Eisenstein (not even my one Russian classmate).  If they did, they kept it a big secret!

With the Internet, it is easier to find fans of these things than before, but still not easy to make friends with any locally. 

I know that feeling that there is now no one in the world who loves me better than anyone else.   It hurts to lose my biggest fan, and I was my dad's.  It's terrible not to be able to share my interests with my dad the way we used to. 

One of the reasons I never had children is because i was so content to spend my spare time with my dad, watching films, listening to music, singing and playing the piano together, and just talking about anything under the sun.  I also didn't want him to be lonely. 

I also would want my children to like what I like, and maybe that wouldn't be doing them any favors, but at my age having children is no longer an issue, so I don't have to worry about it.  If I had met a nice man and fallen in love, I probably would have married and had children, but as a fulltime caregiver for various family members, I didn't get out much. I also went to an all girls Catholic high school which did not help me at all to meet guys. 

Still, I wouldn't worry about your molding your children the way you want them to be.  If you can do it, and they still love you, then I think it was meant to be.  There are children who turn out differently from their parents no matter how hard they try to mold them.  For example, my half brother and his wife are born again Christians, but their daughter is an atheist quasi-Buddhist living with a death metal guitarist.  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Wishing you and everyone here peace of mind as we struggle with the hardest transition of a lifetime.

Love and hugs to all....

[The Girl]

I'm very sorry for your loss.  The relationship and bond you shared with your mom is special in that it can only exist between the two of you.  It's an especially difficult one to get through.  But it also graced you with the person you are today, and it's a treasure to have so much in common to remember her by.  There will be many, many more loving relationships in your life.  They won't be the same, and really, who would want them to be?  You'll always have that with your mom wherever she is and it's something you'll always charish.  But you'll develop other strong bonds that will get you through each phase of your life.  

I lost my mom 2 months ago and she imparted much of her interests and personality in me as well.  She wasn't a single mother, but my dad worked like all the time and I have 2 brothers, so our mother daughter relationship flourished...hence my username The Girl.  The music she shared with me has been comforting through this, and often saddens me at the same time.  But one of the most comforting moments in my grieving was creating a playlist for her funeral.  So many songs we loved I saw in a new light.  They spoke to my feelings in words I wouldn't have thought of on my own.  The hair bands of the 80s were known for their ballads.  I know I've created playlists from those alone!  So maybe you would find comfort in that, too.  A playlist just for your mom to listen to when you need it. 

As for your own future kids...if and when you decide to have some, chances are you'll connect with them despite what interests you share.  You'll imprint on them regardless, and love the person they become, whatever they choose to like.  

[zeppelins]

Thank you so much for your responses, and I am so sorry for y'alls losses.

@MissionBlue, that is pretty wild how close our stories align! I was a clone of my mom's too. And those sound like very neat interests.  

@The Girl, Yes, it is good for me to realize that it was a relationship that only existed between the two of us. I need to not wait around for someone to make me feel happy now when the only person that can do that is myself. As for a playlist, it's been pretty tough to listen to Def Leppard tbh. "Love Bites" and "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" would have me cry'n for sure! Hopefully soon I can listen to them again in a new light.