All through this week, I’ve been getting the signal that loving people is not enough to make my relationships what I want them to be. My daughter left our home at Christmas this year, angry and fed up with me and her sister. I let her be angry. I didn’t try to talk with her, nor influence what she was thinking or any of that. I just let her be. She lives 800 miles away and my time with her is very limited.

It’s frustrating because I m.i.s.s. her and my grandsons e.v.e.r.y. s.i.n.g.l.e. d.a.y.

So I let her be, but she was angry. She tells me “why should I be angry when I can just move on?” And what she means is, move on without me. That’s what she means. Yep, she is kinda mean.

I cannot live without her. I need to see my daughter, I need to touch my daughter. I need to know that my daughter is okay. That is my need – not hers. BTW, she is 37 years old.

I am in so much more need than my daughter is. She is busy, a single mother of two boys. I am disabled and live my days at home alone. It is I who want to spend time with her. It is I who has a need for contact. I want to see my daughter and touch her.

I kept texting her and she never responded. Of course, my need to see her grew. Her sons talked to me and I cherished their words. The thing is she has no way of knowing anything about me. I have to attend to her to get her to see how I feel. She will never know unless I attend to her. I can’t just love her from afar. It won’t work, not if I want a loving relationship with my daughter.

Yesterday, I was talking with my son. He was on the edge of a meltdown and we were talking about all the parenting stuff. I told him that my confidence came from being loved by my parents. But it wasn’t just being loved, it was feeling loved. That came from being attended to. When my parents paid attention to me, when they provided for me, when I got the dress I wanted for school when I was 11, I was feeling loved. They were attending to me. Reaching out to be concerned about the kids’ lives, talking to them, being there in times of crisis, that’s part of the love package.

I want my daughter to feel loved. I want my daughter to feel that love is flexible; if her beliefs and actions change, my love will not change. I will follow her wherever she goes, and I will take action to show her that I love her.