Identify

Losing my mum, and the identity I never thought I’d ever lose

Lately I’ve been struggling with my identity.

I mean, I know who I am and all, but I’ve lost part of myself. Part of my identity.

You see, I’ve lost my mum recently and with that I started having firsts without her. I had my first birthday without my mum, followed by my first Christmas without my mum.

I tried to keep doing things that I used to do before, like taking flowers to her on my birthday, because I always tried to do it when she was alive. I’d take flowers and say thank you for keeping me — I’ll talk about that in a future post — for raising me and for everything.

But it’s not the same.

The thing I thought about this week, just before Mother’s Day, is that I not only don’t have a mum, yeah, I’ve realised that, but I am no longer a daughter.

And that’s part of my identity. Or was.

Not only a daughter, but my mum’s only daughter.

I have brothers and sisters, but I’m not their only sister.

I was not my father’s only daughter.

But I was my mother’s only daughter.

And I liked that “only” part of my identity.

I feel lost without it.

I feel like something is lost. I feel like something is missing.

I am grieving all these things, the loss of my mum, the loss of my identity as a daughter, and the loss of my identity as the only daughter of my mother.

I don’t want to let go.

I am mourning this oneness… or onliness.

I was not my father’s only daughter, and I am not my brothers’ only sister.

I was my mother’s only daughter.

But I’ve been thinking about this more.

Trying to understand what exactly it is that feels so lost.

Because it doesn’t feel as simple as “I lost my mum”.

It feels like I lost something in me as well.

And I think I’m starting to understand why.

I didn’t just lose my mum.

I lost a role.

A version of myself that existed because she existed.

Being a daughter wasn’t just a title. It was something active. It was having someone who remembered me as a child. Someone who reflected me back to myself without me having to explain who I was.

And being her only daughter… that wasn’t something that could exist anywhere else.

It was a space that only existed between the two of us.

So when she died, that space didn’t just disappear.

It changed.

And maybe that’s why this feels so confusing.

Because it feels like something is missing.

But maybe what I’ve lost is not the identity itself.

Maybe what I’ve lost is the ability to live that identity in the way I used to.

Before, it existed between us. It was shared. It was reinforced just by her being here.

Now… it feels quiet.

And I think I mistook that silence for absence.

Because when I really think about it, I am still the person she raised.

I am still shaped by her.

And I am still the only person in the world who had that exact relationship with her.

That hasn’t changed.

C, the point is…

I didn’t stop being my mother’s only daughter.

I stopped being able to share that identity with her here, in real time.

And that is what I am grieving. I think.

Maybe this is what grief really is, not just losing someone, but learning who you are without them.