So, my parents ashes have been sitting on the bookcase in my living room since their deaths. It’s been a while. It became normal seeing them up there and I didn’t think about it too much. Last October we planned a boat ride, here in Florida, to spread their ashes in the gulf. Apparently, our plan was not acceptable, and my mom caused a hurricane. Her timing was perfect. Scary even. She shut down the state of Florida. We got the message.
Frightened by the events of last year, we developed a new plan and successfully implemented it last week…with no natural disasters…people of the world are relieved. My wife and I drove to New York to visit my sister, brother-in-law, nephews, their wives and children. We enjoyed the drive mostly because it was nine hours less than a drive to Colorado and we got to drive through lots of states I had never been in. Turns out there are many states to go through between Florida and New York…the obvious ones, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia…and then there were a bunch more, Maryland, Pennsylvania, DC, Delaware, and New Jersey. There are so many states crammed into a ridiculously small area.
My sister planned a beautiful memorial for my parents, including food, their favorite drinks, a tent to stay out of the sun and great people. She really did it all and I’m so grateful to her. My nephew created an amazing slide show along with a playlist of my parent’s favorite songs. Everything was perfect.
Listening to everyone’s stories all week, I felt like an outsider looking in…separate from the people who belonged, who really knew my parents. So, I watched and listened. I tried to figure out what I was feeling. Sad? Guilty? Relieved? Numb? I thought numb was the right one. I felt so confused. Aha…that’s the one. Confused. Confused not by how I felt but by how I didn’t feel. I didn’t seem to feel what everyone else felt…a deep sense of loss. I didn’t cry. I was just quietly befuddled.
My nephews and brother-in-law spoke beautifully and emotionally, about what my parents meant to them. They said they received unconditional love and support from my parents…really? My nephew said that in my parent’s eyes he could do no wrong…seriously? That was not my experience of my parents at all. I experienced love based on performance and my performance was never good enough. And in their eyes, I did everything wrong. They rarely seemed happy with me. I felt confused. Perplexed and defective somehow.
It turns out my parents, especially my mom, could love, just not me. Other people spoke about their unending love. That confused me…and hurt. Why couldn’t my parents love me? What was so wrong about me? Still, after all this time, I asked myself, why does it matter? Why am I stuck in this place…this place of believing I’m not enough. When I was in my 20’s, I told my mom that I felt like she was disappointed in me and in who I was as a person. Her response was, “You don’t need my approval.” I said everyone wants their mom to be proud of them. She didn’t say anything else. I was devastated by that conversation. I had prepared for months to talk to her and share my feelings…which took a shitload of courage to do. For most people, it may not be an act of bravery to have an honest discussion with your mother but for me it was. It was huge…HUGE!
She confirmed all my fears by her words and then her silence. She destroyed me. More accurately, I let her destroy me. I risked emotionally opening to her, and she used my vulnerability as a weapon against me. I sat in my bathroom and sobbed for hours after our conversation. Too bad I didn’t learn from that…or maybe it’s good I didn’t learn. I didn’t learn to harden and build walls to defend myself. I believe that what doesn’t kill us can make us kinder if we allow it to. I am committed to softening my edges, not reinforcing them. My mom once told me it would be hard to be mean to me because I’m so kind. That was nice…for a minute. That’s all it took for her to tell me she hated my fucking guts, that I wasn’t a mother because I got divorced and gave my kids away, that I was the bad seed…it went on and on. I mistakenly reminded her of her comment on my kindness…she said nothing. The weight of that silence was hard to bear.
After the memorial I talked with my cousin about her feelings when her dad died. She had a complicated relationship with him like I did with my mom. I guess I was checking to see if I was crazy for feeling confused. I wasn’t. I brought my sister into the conversation and told her what we were talking about. I said we were discussing not being the favorite child and she agreed and said I wasn’t…she was. I told her about feeling like nothing I did was ever good enough. She said that it was true, nothing I did was ever good enough. So, there’s that. I appreciated her honesty. It was helpful to know what I felt and perceived were real…not just something I made up in my head. The affirmation was helpful, and painful. It might have been difficult for my sister too…to confirm something that she knows is painful for me. But it helped. It’s always good to find out you aren’t crazy.
So, I’m confused. Duh huh? I don’t know how to feel about my parents and their deaths. I know what I think I should feel. I should be sad and grieving. I should feel what everyone else feels. But really, I think it’s more important for me to be able to feel my own feelings and to feel the words that I say. Seems obvious, and it may be, but it ain’t easy. It’s scary to admit confusion about your parent’s death. To admit you don’t feel as sad or miss them like everyone else does.
So, is it confusion about grief or is grief causing my confusion? I’m not sure it matters to anyone, except me. I’m confused by how strongly other people feel the loss of my parents…the loss of their love and the loss of the wonderful relationship they had with them. I don’t feel like that at all…and that’s confusing. I feel like I should and that I’m a bad daughter because I don’t. I feel guilty for not feeling the right things…not grieving the right way. Whatever the fuck that means. But here’s the thing, I grieved for my parents for 12 years. For12 years we had no contact, before they lived with me in Florida. I grieved the loss of them from my life, and I grieved for what I wanted from my parents that I never got. I grieved that nothing I did was good enough, not the schools I attended, the degrees I earned, or the jobs I held. None of that was good enough because I wasn’t good enough. I craved unconditional love, understanding, kindness, acceptance…and their pride in me. Just because I’m me. I got none of that.
So, maybe it’s not so confusing. Maybe I’m done grieving. Maybe not. Living with my parents stirred up a ton of shit. There might be more to grieve or just more to let go of. You can’t let go of something unless you know what you lost. Maybe that’s where I am, coming to terms with what I lost. Most of what I lost happened years ago. Although now I’ve lost any possibility of things turning out differently….a better outcome. Maybe a happily ever after. The memorial brought up some new feelings of loss…of being defective somehow. Still, they were my parents, and I longed for them to love me, and maybe even more, to like me. Really like me. But I don’t think they did.
None of that changes my foundational belief that in the end all that matters is how we love people. I really tried with my mom and dad. I did my best. My best may not have been good enough, but I tried. Rest in peace mom and dad…I did love you. I hope you knew.
Kai Raines 