Still Her Daughter

Why is it that I find myself desperately needing to remain her daughter? She is my mother, always. I am her daughter, always. Her exit from this earth can and will never change those truths, so why do I find myself chasing after them?

I am still her daughter. 

Even those words together seem unfitting and flawed. 

Daughter, still. 

Still her daughter. 

How is it that I can know that I am still her daughter and yet also find myself desperately still needing to be her daughter, all in the same moment? 

Is it because I still hopelessly need a mother and therefore hopelessly need to simultaneously remain a daughter? Is it because I no longer feel like one now that my mother is in heaven? Is it because even as an adult I still yearn to feel like a child, her child? 

Desperately and wholeheartedly, I need to remain her daughter. I need to keep that title no matter the status or location of her body and her soul. I need to keep that title and responsibility no matter if she is in heaven or an even greater place that I know nothing about. 

When she was here I didn’t hold this immense and overwhelming desire to chase my daughter-status. When she was here she was a constant and therefore her status and my status were constant too. Now that she’s gone those things seem fleeting, like they have the ability to evaporate similar to how quickly she did when she passed. 

Maybe I find myself desperately needing to prove that I am still her daughter because people have started to forget her, or so it seems. People have stopped saying her name and stopped sharing her stories. Maybe I find myself desperately needing to prove that I am her daughter still because the world keeps spinning and making new memories with the mothers that remain, while each one of my new memories is void of a mother, my mother. 

I need to remain her daughter. I need to feel like I remain her daughter. I need to feel like she isn’t as lost as it seems. I need to feel like she isn’t as far away as she is. I need to feel her love, her presence, and the way she made the world feel like a magnificent place. 

I guess in hopelessly needing to remain her daughter what I really need is her. What I really need has nothing to do with the title or status marking our relationship. What I really need is her. Here. With me. 

For now I’ll keep needing to be her daughter just as much as I need her to remain my mother, a mother here with me instead of the “better place” everyone tells me about. I need her to still be mine. I need to still be hers. I need things that only a daughter with a mother in heaven searches and wishes for.

Until we meet again, I’ll always be hoping and wishing and desperately needing to be her daughter, still.

xox, Chels