How Can You Miss Someone You’ve Never Known?
Phantom Loss
Ann Patchett’s main character in the novel The Dutch House asks, “How can I miss someone I’ve never known?” He is talking about not having met or known his mother. And yet, when the character’s father died, he really missed his mother. I surmise that most of us do not remember our birth mothers, but, yet, we miss them. Is that phantom loss, much like losing an arm, but believing it is still attached.
My initial, albeit cynical, thought would be we find comfort in the romantic make-belief: the relationship we would have liked to have had with our birth mother. The reality is we’ve probably watched too much television. We glom onto the warm embraces, the mothers who love us unconditionally, the mothers, who, according to Patchett, are the measure of our feeling safe.
Feeling Safe
In a way, that last part is close to being realistic. Nancy Verrier, a licensed family therapist and author of Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child, opines that early needs are formed in children as a result of abandonment. The loss of safety is one of those developments. A friend, who adopted a child at nine months old, made biennial two-week trips overseas without her daughter; the child was too young to take along. On the day of departure, the child routinely screamed non-stop and held onto her mother’s leg, regardless where the mother went. Eventually, the adoptive parent had to have the child stay with her brother and sister-in-law the day before leaving. Clearly, the child thought her second mother, as well, was leaving her, and did not feel safe.
The opposite of make-belief is reality. We can wish for the traits of what someone represents. “A mother is a measure of safety” (Patchett); so, what we really miss is safety, warmth, reliability, consistency, calm, patience, forgiveness, and fierceness. We miss having someone who can supply these needs—.replaced by a good grandmother or adoptive parent, or, in the case of The Dutch House, a caring older sister. Perhaps the main character knew what ought to be; he was missing someone to meet his needs.
What do you think? I might have led you to believe that mothers can be replaced, as long as the needs are met. Oh, oh, that’s another topic.
My memoir is availabe on this site, if you’d like to read more.
2 Comments
I recently read Dutch House, and that quote also jumped at me. As an adoptee and an adoption professional, I understand the feelings of abandonment and attachment on both an intellectual and emotional level. I don’t believe adoption defines me; however, it is a part of who I am. I connected with my birth mom 25 years ago, and she didn’t want me to “ruin” her life. Her daughter called me a few months ago when “her mother” passed away and asked if I wanted to be at the funeral. I went. I cried. I was in in so much pain – this is a woman who was not nice to me, didn’t welcome me and I was so sad. I felt as though my story died with her.
Very compelling remark. When my birth mother died, I did not go to the funeral, but because she had lived in such a small village, I thought that instead of her passing being the intent of the funeral, her “long lost daughter” would have been the center of the mourners’ attention.