I Miss Your Mom As Much As I Miss You
By Anonymous
I dream about being friends with your mother.
I imagine our first encounter, probably awkward, because we’ve never met each other yet heard so much about one another. Even though you and I are broken up, I feel this urge to meet the woman who raised you. You said she never liked any of your girlfriends, but she instantly felt fondly of me even though it was all through your word of mouth. I figure her an honest woman, so I think her feelings were genuine.
I picture us nonchalantly bumping into each other at a grocery store. Of course, this means we’d have to live in the same city, so I also hope that one day I will move to her city (–inevitably, your city.) We recognize each other from photos you sent her of us when we were together, and photos you showed me of her. I feel an overwhelming sense of happiness, peace, and perhaps even love emerging between us. To me, she is the mother-in-law I never got to meet; the one who will never assume that title because you fucked up our relationship.
She tells me to call her by her first name and hugs me back. We chat for a while before we exchange numbers and agree to meet for coffee someday.
Fast forward a couple months, and your mother and I are in her kitchen cooking, baking, sipping wine, and just laughing and enjoying each other’s company. I was never looking for a substitute for my own mother, but your mother’s caring somehow means so much to me — perhaps because I moved far away from my home and my mother, or perhaps because loving you means inherently having some kind of love for her.
We seldom talk about you. One day she casually asks about my love life and I tell her it is nonexistent. Does she know any nice men she can set me up with? She smiles and then so do I, as we both realize the man she would most highly recommend is her son. My smile quickly turns into a frown because our ship has sailed. We dated, we didn’t date, we dated, and then you officially told me you don’t love me. She tries to soothe me before inquiring what ever went wrong between us, and whether I’d be willing to give us another chance.
“Of course I would, of course I would!” my heart wants to sing. She asks if I still love you, but words aren’t necessary to respond — one look from me gives away the answer that my heart will always have a place for you, even though yours never had a place for me.
It must be a sign of great sadness that I day dream not just about you and me living happily ever after, but me actually becoming a part of your family. I wish I could be your mother’s daughter-in-law more than anything. She wasn’t the perfect mother, but the way you talked about he so positively and the way she always told you how beautiful I was and how happy she was for us when we were together made me feel like she was always on my side somehow, rooting for us….rooting for me. No one was ever good enough for her exceptional boy but me. But then it turned out I was the first one not good enough for you (even though you say I was your best girlfriend ever….but that story’s for another time).
I miss your mom almost as much as I miss you. I hate you for taking away my opportunity to meet her, to be a part of your family.