Yesterday, I was feeling deeply saddened as I walked my golden retrievers, Liza Jolie and Zydeco Ardoin, on the parkway. Zydie is nine-years old, and he has begun to experience serious health problems as so many golden retrievers do at that age. The thought of losing either Liza or Zydeco breaks my heart. They may not be human, but they are my children.

As I continued walking, I found myself grieving that I have never had human children. This is a profound grief I feel from time to time, and I give myself permission to work through it. One thing I’ve found helpful is rereading a post I wrote in early 2010:  “Today I Mourn the Loss of the Children I Never Had.”

After returning home, I reread that blog post, and it did make me feel better. Because there are many people who grieve the loss of the children they never had, I’m reposting what I wrote. Hopefully, it will help others who are grieving feel better too.

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February 2010

Recently, I wrote the following status on Facebook: “Today I mourn the loss of the children I never had.”  I am a 55 year old woman who has never married. I adore children but don’t have any of my own.  There are days when I miss the life, the joy, even the pain I might have had, had circumstances been different. Because I have always loved children, the loss I feel is real. It’s important to grieve this loss. Doing so is necessary to healing.  

I am posting this today because I want other single, middle-aged women who don’t have children to know that it’s okay to grieve the loss of being childless. I want everyone else to know it too.

Only rarely do I feel the need to mourn the loss of children I never had. I discovered years ago that being angry or depressed about this circumstance didn’t serve me well. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I learned to turn my focus to the benefits of not having children. I have a freedom that many of my friends don’t have. I can pack a bag and travel on a moment’s notice. I don’t have to be home in time to pay the baby sitter. I also have freedom on a much greater scale. For example, I was able to leave the practice of law more easily because I didn’t have children. My decision affected only me and not an entire family.

Being childless is an issue that confronts many of us in the Second Half of Life. This is when the reality of the situation smacks us and smacks us hard.  It’s different than the empty nest syndrome.  We grieve the loss of possibility. We are haunted by a sense of finality. We mourn the death of a person we are never to be.

A Facebook friend responded to my status by telling me about a client she is coaching. Like me, her client sometimes grieves the loss of the children she never had. One day while working on this issue, her client realized that she has many children in her life, even though they aren’t her biological offspring. In fact, she has raised, nurtured, and encouraged many children over the years; mothering is her calling in everything she does. Another Facebook friend wrote that she saw me as a Universal Mother. She said that while some women mother a select few only, my mothering path crossed all age, biological, and spiritual barriers.

I smile every time I think about these comments. I love that even childless, I am a mother. Universal Mother – I can live with that.