ESTRANGEMENT

It's a peculiar feeling being estranged from a person you have raised from being a helpless infant to an independent and strong individual.  The bond between us has been very strong at times.  I am perhaps guilty of expecting that bond to be so secure as to never break.  It's come as a bit of a shock that the bond was never very strong to start with.

Parents make mistakes the world over, but to a child whose entire world is her family, the mistakes of her own mother are huge and even sometimes unforgivable.  That I understand.

I was separated from her father though he was still very much present and we worked together to try to do what was best for our girl.  Andrew never had another woman, but I had a few relationships after the separation.  I'm not the best judge of character and certainly not the wisest person.  Needless to say, they ended pretty much broken.  My character is such that I don't give up easily and I didn't see the harm that struggling on with these disastrous relationships was having on my daughter.  

The relationships stopped and I concentrated on my relationship with Andrew and worked hard on my relationship with my daughter.  From finding an extra curricular course for her to snatch the Senior Dux medal from one very unhappy boy at school to allowing her the freedom to be who she was and express her thoughts and feelings.  We supported her at every turn.  

The relationship with Andrew grew and we were closer than we'd ever been; we had the love as we always had, but we had the understanding of each other and were comfortable with it.

Then Andrew died.

My daughter was a lot stronger than I was and it's because of her that I got through that initial period where paperwork has to be completed and registrations and certificates have to be sorted.  To be honest, I don't know how she did it, but she is a very strong woman.

The funeral over, she went back to university and got her head down.  Andrew always told her to work hard and play hard and I can only guess how she coped.  Once Christmas was over I felt she wasn't at home here.  She said that, for the first time, she felt like a guest in this house.  She also said that she didn't want to do Christmas anymore.  It has to be said, the day was difficult.  Well, it was always going to be.

Just short of a year after Andrew's death my daughter ceases to communicate with me.  It took a while to find out why, but when I did there wasn't a great deal I could argue about.  Those disastrous relationships had taken a toll on my daughter and the harm they (I) did her during that time had taken root and were now being cited as the cause of her mental health problems.

We had talked at length about the mistakes I'd made and we had become close.  Andrew said he was so happy to see us become close again, talking again, spending time with each other again.  My daughter and I would occasionally have our  midnight conversations either on the sofa, or she'd come into my room and we'd sit on the bed, and we'd have a real heart to heart.  I had told her what was going through my mind, and she had told me what was going through hers.  I had apologised and, I thought, shown her that she is my priority.  There was never going to be another Tony, or Keith, or Paul.

Just before the anniversary of my husband's death my daughter becomes estranged from me and now I have not only lost my husband, but also my daughter.  

My emotions are swinging like a pendulum.  From feeling desperately lonely and unhappy to feeling so angry that she chose this time in our lives, after everything we'd discussed between us, to leave me alone with my grief.

I understand her need to detach herself from my part of her life at this moment; she's in her final year at university and she needs to get on with it if she's to make a success of it.  She doesn't need reminding of the time her dad was here and we were building on our happiness.  She doesn't need to be reminded of the bad experiences she went through while I was in relationships.  What I don't understand is how she can do it to me now.  Why couldn't she do it when Andrew was here?  Why couldn't she do it after 6 months?  Why wait until the anniversary was approaching.  I know she's hurting; she will have felt that sickening ache as the time approached.  I tell myself that this is all because of her dad, but don't actually believe it.

I hope one day she can forgive me.  I hope one day I can forgive her.