The bond between a girl and her mother is incredibly special and nearly irreplaceable. Your mother carries you for 9 months in her womb, protecting you from harm, telling you how much she loves and cares for you even though she has yet to see your little face. The love of a mother is meant to be unconditional, and because of this, many daughters can consider her mother a best friend.

I was not raised by my biological mother, and I know many girls who were not raised by hers either. I feel that this absence of my mother's constant love has affected me in many ways throughout my life, and some of them have not been very positive. I have my grandmother to thank for the way that I was raised, for she stood in and did absolutely everything to make me feel as if I never missed out or had anything to want for by means of maternal love.

Every year around Mother's Day I am reminded of the fact that I have never really felt the need to call my own mother up and wish her a happy day. In fact, every Mother's Day, I long to dial her number and let her know the fact that she was basically a ghost for most of my childhood and teenage years, which was not okay. I imagine the message I would leave her would sound a little something like this.

Mom,

This is not a letter trashing you. This is not a letter to tell you how much I resent you for not being around when I was younger; for not being around now. Because I was loved and taken care of, despite your absence. I was nurtured and transformed into a fine young woman, regardless of the fact that you had next to nothing to do with my growth. I love you because you are a part of me. But you are a part of me that I do not understand or recognize. You are unknown to me, as I am to you.

I will never get back all of the mornings before school where someone else did my hair. I will never get back all of the playdates that someone else took me to. I will never get back the holiday baking and trick-or-treating that you were not a part of. I will never get back the terrible makeup looks I tried out because I didn't have you to teach me that a little goes a long way and that blue eyeshadow is a fickle thing that takes skill to use properly. I will never get back the homecoming dances or prom; I could have really used a second opinion on the dresses I wore. And what about my first heartbreak? I will never get back the nights I lied awake in my bed wishing that you were there to rub my back and tell me that there would be others, that he wasn't what I thought he was, that sometimes people disappoint us and that's life.

Sure, I saw you on Thanksgiving and Christmas, maybe you sent a card for my birthday, but there was no real bond. I saw you from the outside looking in and always wondered exactly what it was that kept you away from me, what it was about being a mother that you wanted to skip out on. You never posted my good grades on the refrigerator door with a magnet or rewarded me for my good report card. You never caught me sneaking in way past my curfew or lectured me on the dangers of drugs and drinking. We didn't binge eat ice-cream when I was sick; you weren't around to hold my hair back when I was getting sick in a trash can because of a bad bout of the flu. You didn't make my doctor's appointments, and you didn't go with me to hold my hand when I had to get shots as a toddler. You never watched me have a falling out with a friend over something stupid or went to my school to stand up for me when I was being bullied by others. We never had girl nights where we stayed up talking and giggling about how goofy my dad was, or making fun of celebrities on late-night television.

Do you know how much I envy my friends who call their mothers their best friends? Do my feelings mean anything to you? So far, you've missed out on the majority of the past 20 years worth of my life. You used to call on my birthdays and ask how old I was now, but it wasn't a joke. You actually didn't know. You knew nothing about my life in high school and you weren't there the first time I moved away from home into my first apartment. I doubt that you knew what my old major was when I first started college, and I doubt you know that I changed it when I was a junior. I doubt you'll be here for my college graduation, I doubt you'll be front row at my wedding.

There is an entire world surrounding me that you are not a part of, and you could have been from the start if you had tried harder. And I know your excuse, you were working. Well, so was every other adult in my life....and they still had plenty of time for me.

I wanted your time. I wanted your advice. I wanted your friendship.

And I never got it.

There is nothing now that could ever make up for the fact that you honestly and truly, do not know who I am. More importantly, I don't really know who you are. And there have been so many instances where I have felt as if I am drowning in confusion and uncertainty over not being able to understand who I am because I don't understand you.

I may not have been raised by you, but I am still proud of the person I have become. I just pity you because you were not a part of helping me become this person. You didn't get to see me grow up, and that's your fault, not mine.

I just want you to understand one thing: you missed out.