Whenever I see a woman out with her mother, I always think to myself, “Lucky!” or, “Must be nice!”
If the woman is much older than me, I always think, “What?! How is that fair that she still has her mom, but I don’t have mine?!”
It’s not lovely of me, but it’s true. I can’t help myself.
She has something I don’t have and it makes me a little jealous.
But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought that about a woman only to find out later her father died when she was younger.
Or she lost her husband.
Or a child.
Or that she herself nearly died from cancer a few years ago.
The thing is everyone has their shit. You cannot escape this life without going through some kind of hardship, suffering, and loss.
I’m sure plenty of women have looked at me with my dad and thought, “Lucky!” or, “Must be nice!”
I have something they don’t have and maybe it makes them a little jealous.
Of course, they have no idea what I went through with my mom, but how could they?
That’s the point.
We really never know what someone else is going through, what they have already been through, or what they will go through in the future.
We do know that if you live long enough, everyone will lose their mom and dad eventually, everyone will lose someone they love eventually, everyone will go through something hard eventually.
So instead of looking at those mothers and daughters with jealousy, I will try to look at them with happiness and understanding.
Happiness for them that they get to cherish and appreciate their time together while they still can.
And understanding that I have absolutely no idea what it took for them to get there.
You cannot judge someone’s big picture based off of the one image you see in front of you. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that you will never know about.
I will try to remind myself of this every time the jealousy creeps in.
I will always want what I no longer have, but I was fortunate to have ever had it in the first place.
And I’m sure those women appreciate it as much as I did.
