Grief - Part I

Grief is a funny thing. When you're suffering from it, no one can understand what you feel. Sure, people tell you they do, but each case is so different that it's actually quite impossible to know what someone is going through. When my father died, I had no friends at the time who had lost a parent. In fact, only one adult (maybe two) said to me, "I lost a parent when I was a teenager, so I know what you're going through." I smiled politely, and nodded - because that was the reaction expected of me. I don't remember much about the first year following my father's death. I remember anxiety attacks with my economics exam (my most loathed class). I remember my mom and my sister arguing. I remember only applying to one school - LSU - not because of its beauty or other positive attributes, but because it was out of state. The second and third year, I remember a growing anxiety, and seeing a school therapist about it. I tried to tell him it was because I was overwhelmed with exams and papers; he kept trying to go back to my father's death. I don't remember if I had anxiety or other issues prior to my father's death. I don't remember, but perhaps I did. I do, however, remember it more afterwards. When Mom died (it will be almost a year now), Billy tried to get me to see a therapist. I replied, on numerous occasions, that I was fine - I suffered through one parents' death, I can do it again. One of my students' parents emailed me her sympathy, and said that she lost both of her parents before she was 29. I felt somewhat uplifted by that. She has a lovely daughter, so she must have been able to hold things together. People remark about how strong I am, and they know I'll be fine. I nodded, smiled, and said, "Of course." I never let them see, not even Billy, that I often felt like drowning this past year. No one knows how I feel because no one's situation is the same. I find myself not only mourning the loss of my mother, but re-mourning the loss of my father, mourning that stability that so many of my friends have (for still, most of my friends still have both parents; only a handful only have one and I'm the only who have none). I'm mourning that I have questions that will never know answers. I'm mourning laughter, hopes, dreams, my future. I try to block out watching my mom dying, but it comes back at the most inopportune times. I started to become more like a recluse - my already borderline anti-social tendencies flared up. I became angry, I became anxious, I became listless. I pretty much lived on my couch, covered in a quilt that I took from Mom's house, a quilt that I wrapped myself up in while I was sitting next to her in hospice as she died. I find myself angry at my friends who get pregnant or get married, because I know my own parents won't be here to celebrate when those things happen to me. Billy brings up our wedding, and he has great plans, but for many months I wanted to cry instead of put on the happy face I wanted. Even my sister doesn't understand. She had a different relationship with our parents, Mom was there when she was married and had her son. I feel lonely. I feel angry, although much less. I feel anxious, although I know that, too is dwindling. I feel like I have no purpose, although that is slowly going away also. I feel like a fraud sometimes, for I don't know if I'm as strong as everyone says I am. I feel scared that no one will remember my parents, and I'll be a secret-keeper, keeping secrets that will die when I die. I'm scared that I'll die before I can pass on heirlooms to my kids, and then things will end up with people who have no idea how fantastic my father was, how understanding my mom was, how fortunate I was to have them in my life. And most people had no idea how I've truly been feeling. But I'm surviving. I survived Mom's birthday. I survived our first non-family Thanksgiving. I survived the worst Christmas of my life (even worse than the first one after Dad died). So, why now? Because, for the first time, I realize that I AM surviving. I feel the grief lessening it's vise across my throat. I hope this really is a turn, and not a false sense of comfort. But I guess we'll see, won't we? Ciao.