I Need My Mom

Since I was little, I can remember saying these words: “I need you, Mom!”

And now, at 53, I still find myself whispering, crying, sometimes screaming the same words: “I need you, Mom.”

It feels crazy because the truth is—I didn’t really have you. You couldn’t be present with me. You couldn’t hear the pain of the abuse, both at your hands and at the hands of others.

And yet, in all those lonely places—the solitude of my room, the hospital bed, the group homes, the foster homes, the nights on the streets, even in the seasons of motherhood and being a wife—I’ve still carried this ache. This longing. This child’s cry that never left me.

Today, it came rushing back again. I was driving home, tears falling, the weight heavy. My husband has prostate cancer—stage 2—and surgery is ahead of us. The fear choked me, and all I could say was: “I need my mom.”

But the reality is, I’m an orphan. I don’t have parents to sift through the pain with me, to sit in the joy, to help me with decisions, to hold me while I cry. I don’t have a voice to reassure me with simple words: It’s going to be okay.

And I’m scared. Terrified. Paralyzed by thoughts I can’t silence—what if the cancer is worse than they thought? What if Phil doesn’t get better?

Losing my Boo? I can’t comprehend it.

So I cry out: “Lord, this can’t be it. This can’t be the ending. My heart longs for the comfort of a mom, but instead I turn to You. Can You be that for me, Lord? Can You hold me and tell me, ‘It’s going to be okay, daughter’?”

The uncertainty in my heart feels unbearable. But in the middle of it, I remember what I am certain of: You, God.

You’ve been faithful—to Phil, to me, to our children and grandchildren. You chose him. You chose us.

And so even in the midst of this void, when I cry out for a mother I never had, I find myself falling into the arms of the One who never left.

I need my mom. But more than that—I need You, Lord. And I trust that You will carry us through.