Grief is such a strange thing.   There are so many layers to it and they shift from day to day, sometimes minute to minute.  I like the use of the word layers when referring to grief because they do seem to pile on top of each other and shift seismically from time to time.  For instance, I might be doing something random and suddenly hear a song that my Mom always loved.  So at first, I smile, then I remember that she’s gone, then I feel sadness and then loneliness because she can’t hear it anymore.  These feelings shift around at once in what seems like an eternity but is probably only a minute.  I wonder whether there will ever be any consistency with grief.

I’ve read things about the process of grieving and understand that it can take a long time.  I am of the belief that it never really goes away.  You always feel a loss or emptiness where that person has been but I guess you do learn to live with it.  So they say.

The part I am struggling with right now is the selfishness I currently feel.  At this moment I am grieving my parents.  Both of them passed away separately but within a year of each other.  My parents were divorced for many years and didn’t really keep in touch once that event ended our family unit.  So the closeness of their deaths didn’t have anything to do with their relationship.  I guess it was just coincidental timing.  In any event and no matter how you slice it, I lost both my parents within a year.  And it has made me feel homeless.  I know that seems a weird way to put it but that’s exactly how I feel.

I’ve had my own home and family for about 20 years.  Nonetheless,  I have always felt safest and most comfortable when staying with my parents.  I loved having sleepovers with my kids at their homes.  It was like bringing my children into my youth and there is nothing more homey than that feeling. And there was always someplace to go that was “home” – even long after our family home was sold.  I realize it was my Mom and Dad that were “home” – not the place.  Now that feeling is gone for good.  I guess part of this is acceptance that now I am it.  I am the real grown up and the one in charge.  There is no one to take care of me or to fall back on.  There is no anchor….  I am the anchor.  This is such a strange feeling and I admit one I don’t like at all.  I’ve never wanted to be really in charge.  I am certainly independent and like to be able to take care of myself without help.  The feeling of being in charge here though is a different one.  It is more final.  I am less connected.  What’s really funny about this is that I never ever acknowledged this feeling while my parents were alive.  Not really.  I often made a big deal about how “now it’s my turn.  I have children and that’s where my focus is.  You’ll have to wait.”  Now I see how stupid that was.  And how selfish.  Well it’s really “my turn” now.

It’s also a matter of being loved unconditionally.  I fully understand this because I have my own children and would do anything for them.  I would give up everything I have – including my life – to save them.  That’s pretty unconditional.  Even as an independent and often selfish person, I am first and foremost devoted to my children.  I would never have thought this before but my parents must have felt this way about me too.  I know now that I certainly felt that from them.  Not consciously or with any actual thought about it, but I knew it at my core.  And now it’s gone.  There is no unconditional love for me.  I do NOT say that with the intention of sounding sorry for myself or boo hooish.  It’s just a fact now.  Of course, my husband loves me and my children most certainly do.  I have close friends that love me as well.  But it’s absolutely not the same.  And it is most definitely a loss.

So my conscious thought  now is:  I know it’s your journey but what about me.  So many people, some religious, some not, have said things like:  “They’re in a better place now.  There is no more pain or suffering.  They are whole again and onto their next adventure.”  These things are all well meant but it doesn’t help me at all.  Not one bit.

I am not necessarily a religious person.  We were brought up as Protestants but rarely went to church.  I would like nothing more than to believe in God and an afterlife.  To believe that when we die, our souls or spirits move onto another realm or another adventure.  Or maybe that our spirits remain with those we leave behind.  Now that would be very reassuring and comforting to me.  It would also remove that absence of unconditional love feeling that I now have since the spirit of my Mom and Dad would be beside me.  But I just do not have the faith required to really believe this.  I told one friend in particular that I just wish they would come to me in some way or send me a message.  She said to me, “They can’t!  They aren’t here anymore.  They are somewhere else.”  My response was, “That is EXACTLY the problem!”.  And it is.  They are not here.  They are not anywhere.  And I am left alone.

While of course I hope that they are actually on another journey – a beautiful one filled with love, all I can think of is that’s great for you but what about me.  I’m still here.  Without you.  Without my anchors or my true home.

Like I said…..selfish.