Charlie

"Yet a part of me wished that my mom had been there."

"Yet a part of me wished that my mom could have been there."

Thanks!

I have one more question though. You omitted the 'had' present after 'me'. So does that mean this sentence is wrong?
"Yet a part of me had wished that my mom had been there"

The "had" puts the verb "wish" in the past perfect tense, which requires a past reference point before which the action completed, so

"As little as three weeks ago, a part of me had wished that my mom had been there, but since then I had stopped caring."

Your sentence could well be fine in the temporal context of a narrative that you haven't specified. As it stands alone, the th

Oh, gotcha. Thank you so very much