The Day I Lost My Daughter

Actually, I didn't lose her- but it felt like I did.

How?

For the first time in many, many years, she was away from home. Not just for the day, but for the night, five nights in all. What to do with myself? In the morning, I padded by her bedroon quietly, so as not to wake her. Wake her? She wasn't even there. When I walked up the street, I kept expecting the feel of her hand in mine. It was strangely empty.

After about the 4th time this jolt of emptiness came to me, I realised why this was familiar. It was the same as after my Mother died- the oh so familiar just wasn't there. I had lost my daughter.

At the same time, my other daughter, my neuro-typical daughter, was also away from home. As it happens, for 3 months, not for 5 nights. But did I miss her in the same way? No. Not that I didn't miss her- an empty nest is an empty nest. But not in the same way. I trust that although my eldest daughter will always need her home, her path is to journey out into the world on her own. That's what growing up is all about. I trust that process. But it seems that with a "special needs" child, the umbilical chord is much stronger, or at any rate, twists in a different way.

When one has a child dependent on one, hour after hour, day after day, week in, week out, one becomes part of that child and s/he becomes part of us.

When s/he is away, who is really lost? Her or me?