When Your Mother Becomes Your Daughter

Now it’s my turn to take care of her

Photo by RepentAnd SeekChristJesus on Unsplash

“Are you having enough vegetables?”

“Are you following the doctor’s instructions?”

“Don’t forget to go to the bank!”

“Be careful when crossing the street by bicycle.”

Those were my mother’s words I would often hear on the phone, when I started living alone, to go to college.  Mother, I’m not a little girl anymore.  Treat me as an adult, was my response.  To my mother, however, I was still her daughter who needed her care.


Forty years later, living thousands of miles apart, my mother and I video chat almost every day.

Now it’s my mother’s turn to hear words like those stated above from me.

Mother, it sounds strange, but I’m kind of happy to be able to treat you like my child.  Now I’m able to pay you back at least some of the abundant love you have given me. 

Let me keep on treating you as if you were my daughter, the longer, the better…