When we are very young, we cling to our parents. Once we have entered double digits, it does not take long before the battle for independence begins. By our teenage years, this fight makes the Revolutinary War seem like a discussion with your spouse about what to binge next (although those can get quite heated, too!). Hopefully, when the child reaches their 20’s, the relationship segues into more friendship-based, the degree of closeness hinging on many variables: geography, career, your own partner and children, personality, old wounds that have never healed. Perhaps you became the protector and adult to your parent at a young age, as I did with my mom. She and I were extremely close despite the frequent role reversal. My in-laws were great people, and we were definitely good friends until their passing as well.
It is an interesting transition over the years as we all age. Perhaps the most surprising is what happens when our parents are gone. There is, of course, the initial crippling grief, which slowly changes into a loss you carry with you like a backpack you can never take off. You learn to survive the birthdays and holidays, you work to find the precise amount of memories you can tolerate in one sitting without having to curl yourself into the fetal position. In my case, I still have difficulty talking about my mom for very long without tearing up. We were a lot of different things to each other, her passing was the equivalent of losing multiple people.
Our home intentionally displays items that belonged to our moms and dad. They are evident every day. But as time has moved on, although we talk about them all the time, they have shape-shifted again. They live more inside of us than ever before. In a way, it doesn’t seem like they were individuals, such have the lines blurred between them and us. The undeniable impact of death has somehow created the effect that they were not really here, that they are characters in a book we have read over and over again. Even our most favorite fictional characters, however, cannot become a part of you like a parent after they have died. History, love, DNA, the unique intricacies of the two of you and even a little lore all integrate, resulting in you with a big part of them. If 60% of the human body is water, every nook and cranny is them. I mean you.
I would prefer they all were standing before me in their own healthy forms but there is no escaping the circle of life. I know how their novels ended, my final chapter remains to be written .. . . by all of us.
#sisterrain #alittlesightalotofheart #legallyblindwriter #iammyownwomanandhertoo
