The greatest compliment for a motherless daughter to receive

Last night my husband gave me the greatest compliment. Our daughter is still away and it is the longest she has ever been away from us so I have been doing little things to let her know that she is loved and missed in our home. I have been sending her letters, postcards and little care packages so she will know we are thinking of her. Particularly because in the first week, we were not allowed to contact her because the camp prefers to let the children get used to their routines. The camp also says the first week is the hardest week for the children because they are away from home and have to establish themselves in their new environment.

So the first week was particularly difficult for me as a mother because I had no way of knowing whether my daughter was okay. Although I was somewhat comforted by my instinct, my gut telling me because she was in an environment she had chosen as well as loves, I felt she was doing well. Even still I needed to feel I was doing something to contact her without hearing her voice by sending her things to open from us.

But coming back to the compliment from my husband - last night my husband asked me what the stamp was for on my desk and I told him it was for the postcards and letters I had been sending to our daughter. He looked at time for a long time in silence with a tender look on his face, then he said, “You are a really good mother.”

I can still feel the joy that coursed through my body and the tears that welled in my eyes as if he is speaking those words to me right now. For a moment I could not respond. Did not respond because I was embarrassed, elated and surprised at the same time to hear him speak those words with such sincerity. And because I was taken aback, I changed the subject until I was ready to come back to his compliment.

A few minutes passed and then I said, “Thank you for saying I am a good mother.” And still needing more to process what he had said, I then asked, “Do you really think I am a good mother?”

To which he responded with all sincerity, “Yes, you are a very good mother. I wish I had a mother like you.”

I was completely blown away then. To hear my husband say, I wish I had a mother like you is a huge compliment because my husband calls his mother every single Sunday and they chat for hours. A relationship I wish I could have with my mother. Considering how he feels about his mother, to hear him say he wished he had a mother like me is the greatest gift a motherless daughter like me could ever hear. It was like music to my ears.
“It’s because I didn’t have a mother from the age of 13 and I want our children to know they are loved always and thought of always just in case something happens to me,” I answered. Tears stinging at my eyes.

As I thought about our conversation, I realised each one of us is living out the childhood hurts and pains we experienced as children when we become adults. Even more so when we become parents. I know it is true for me. Because I went so many years without any real parental support – no one to show up at parent meetings. No one to send me gifts of any kind when I achieved anything or when I was lonely or sad. So I have been making up for the feelings of neglect I felt by not letting my children ever experience those feelings.

I also know that life can change in an instant and I want them to know to not take showing their love and appreciation for granted. To express it as much as they can by me expressing it to them.  And I see it it in them by the way they express their love back to us and to each other.

When we had the opportunity to speak to our daughter for the first time on Sunday night, she told me she loved me then she wanted to speak to her big brother to hear his voice and to tell him she loved him. Then her papa. When I think of the warmth we share as a family unit, I am glad I chose to become a mother even though I was terrified that I would leave them too early as my mother left me when she died. But now even if something was to happen to me tomorrow, I would feel comfort in my heart to know I loved my children as much as I could and even more than I ever thought I could love anyone.

There is no greater love than a mother’s love and I know this expression to be so true now that I am a mother. So grateful to my husband for recognizing and speaking out loud that he thinks I am a good mother because that is the greatest compliment this motherless daughter could ever receive.

This is a photo of the last time I saw my daughter's face over a week ago now. Missing her beautiful face and smile.