Unconditional Positive Regard

This was the term I learned WAY back in college, which described the feeling a parent has toward a child. In other words, no matter what you do, that love and affection will always be there. No reservations, no strings attached, no mitigation; just pure and unalterable love. It's automatic.

If you are lucky enough to have someone like this in your life, and you are reading this, please tell me how glad you are to have them around. I have been thinking a lot lately about how wonderful it is (or was) to have this in your life, and how hauntingly empty it is to live without it. You can have love, and good will, and caring and lots of positive stuff, but if you don't have "UPR", you are really missing something. I was fortunate enough to have it for over forty years (my mother) and in its absence, life goes on, but it's a very strange, disconnected and scary life. I'm sure there are millions of others in the same situation, but looking around me, it sure doesn't seem so. Everyone I see seems to have a parent, spouse, sibling or "significant other" within arm's reach, caring absolutely and totally...and I am jealous. It's not right and it's petty, I know, but I guess it's natural and I know it's true anyway.

I miss having someone care about me no matter what. It's an awful feeling to have that special gift for so long and then lose it. And I am grateful for the length of time I did have my mom, so very very grateful. And I'm not "mad" at her that's she's gone. She certainly didn't want to leave. But the little boy, the part of me that still expects nurturing and protecting and sheltering, wants to stamp his foot and demand his mom come back. The adult, who grew to love and respect my mother as a friend and a great person, misses the companionship.

Hell, I just miss her.

Give your special one a hug for me.