Losing Parents Changes Lives
My daddy LOVED to laugh, and he did it with everything he had. When something was funny, his laughter came up from his toenails and radiated out in all directions, a full-body guffaw. He also loved to be with his family, and to help take care of people. People were the most important parts of his life, and everyone who knew him was aware of his values: people. He helped people, whether or not he knew them and whether or not they “deserved” it and whether or not he had everything one might need to help them. He was a devoted man, and if you were one of HIS people, you knew you were loved. Period. He died 22 years ago today, and I thought I’d never survive without him. But here we are, 22 years later, and I am still here, and have lived not perfectly, but well, without him. This has taught me that we can survive all kinds of things that we think will destroy us.
Last month, my mom joined my dad after years of longing for death. My mom’s laugh was soft and subtle, and I’m afraid the laughter was few and far between for her. She was always the serious one, always the worried one, always the one who saw the worst case scenario. If she saw the best case possibility, it didn’t occur to her to tell us about it. I feel like she lived her life on a very short leash, and I always wanted nothing more than to. NOT be like my mom. When I was younger, I couldn’t get far enough away from my family, from my mom. I always wanted to be near my daddy, and my brothers, and my cousins, and my Grandmother, and my uncles… but I wanted to be as far as I could get from my mom. It’s taken many years to understand all of this, and to really grapple with the push-pull within myself around my feelings, always complicated and mixed up and confusing. Her life has taught me that learned helplessness will first destroy you and then it will kill you. She was totally dependent on my dear brother in her last 18 months of life, and she was never able to tell him how much she loved and appreciated him, and his help, and his strength, of body, of mind, and of character. In all her years, she was never able to fully express all of the things I know she felt. She felt them, but couldn’t allow herself to feel and embody all of it. She was too caught up in her belief in “the hereafter.” She was too ashamed of all of her human parts - and that included all these messy emotions. She spent almost my entire life longing for the afterlife, crushed as she was from losing her own mother when I just 6 years old. And for this, I can never forgive her. And for this, she never knew me, nor my wonderful brothers. For an afterlife, she traded her whole existence.
And I loved her and I miss her and I feel so very lost, again. But this time, I’m lost with the knowledge that I can and I will survive. And with the knowledge that my little mommy really did the very best she could do with the cards she was dealt. She never learned how to deal with emotions, or how to express them. She wasn’t allowed to express her feelings; I’m sure she lost any ability she had when my Nanny (her mom) died. And she just stopped trying. She cried when she was overwhelmed, and I spent my childhood trying to understand what she was feeling. She cried; I tried to understand and to comfort. I felt everything for her! It took me years to discern the difference between my own feelings and my mother’s feelings. No matter how much I tried to numb them, I felt ALL THE THINGS, all the time.
I spent years trying to protect my family from my own horrendous experiences, bottling things up and keeping my heart sealed off. I talked constantly, but I always deflected conversations about my own inner world. I got so good at it, my default setting became to deflect conversations about my inner world. It took me 35+ years to tell my family about sexual abuse in my childhood that really put me on a difficult emotional track for a very long time, and I still haven’t told them everything. When the only feeling you can actively feel and label is shame, it shuts down your whole brain and your ability to articulate desire and care and all the things that make this life magical. Whether she meant to or not, my mother taught me all about shame, and it was the dominant emotion of my youth and of her adulthood. Thank goodness she and I both were so smart, intellectually; it’s intellect that saved my young life, and I’m sure it’s intellect that kept her alive for many decades.
I spent the week from Christmas Eve until New Year’s with my mom and my brothers, and I am so thankful that I did. When I saw my mom on New Year’s Day, I told her I loved her, and I also told her it was 100% okay for her to just let go, and go visit her brothers (long deceased), and Nanny and Pappaw, and Daddy, and all the many other family members that have been gone so long. I let her know I understood that her life had become painful and difficult, and that we (her children, her grandchildren) would be okay without her, and that she had done a great job preparing us to live in the hard world. She did do that: we know how to survive and we have great examples of both what to do, and what not to do. And we all know that life is short, and when it’s time to go, you just go. As my daddy said, “Poof! No difference.”
On this anniversary of losing my Daddy, my mind is continually going back to his laugh and my mother’s grit. She lived with one foot on the earth, and one foot in the grave. Daddy lived with both feet on the earth, and his heart bound up in every single thing he ever did, including my mom and his children. I think of how much he would have adored his grandchildren! I can still feel the love they shared in my own heart and soul, and in every conversation I have with my brothers. All for one, and one for all!
