1425 Losing Parents

Friday, August 10, 2007

I have two very close friends who are worried about losing their parents. We're at that age, so they're at that age. Roman lost both his parents within four days of each other last January.

People assume that I would understand their feelings, because both of my parents are gone. I've been through it.

Actually, maybe I don't understand fully. I didn't have the relationship with my parents that most people have.

When my father died, thirty years ago, the "on top" reaction was merely relief. I wouldn't have to be afraid of him any more, and I wouldn't have to worry about my younger siblings any more. (Which actually was wrong, because the damage done lingered for decades.) I thought we were all finally released.

That was on top, the rational part. Deep down was different.

I never saw him dead, so deep in the dark places I didn't believe he was dead. Daughter was very sick and in the hospital when he died, so I wasn't able to go to the funeral (which was moot anyway, since no one told me he had died until a week later. I don't know why).

Deep in the dark places in my mind, I was convinced that people were just telling me he was dead that so I wouldn't try to kill him. That he was hiding, and would come after me or Little Brother as soon as I got comfortable. I had nightmares for over a year in which I was hiding Little Brother from him, and he kept finding him and beating him. I'd wake up screaming and shaking. During the day, any unexpected movement glimpsed from the corner of my eye would have me shaking. It took a few years before the dark places relaxed.

My mother died seventeen years ago. I was holding her hand when she died. At first, for maybe two days, I felt like an orphan. Like my safety and support were gone, and I was alone. And then that dissipated, and I felt nothing. It took another five years for me to realize that I felt nothing not because of depression, but because there was simply nothing to feel.

She was never our safety and support. She made no effort to protect us (other than shouting "Not the head! Not the head!" when we were being beaten). She never gave us any advice or guidance. No praise or encouragement. She pretty much ignored us. We kids grew up competing for our mother's attention, and learning to deflect our father's anger away from ourselves and onto each other, which doesn't lead to good sibling relations. Our mother was really nothing more to us than the quartermaster, the person we went to for necessities.

We wanted to love our parents, we tried very hard, we wanted them to love us, we tried very hard, we convinced ourselves there was some connection, but it in actual fact, it just wasn't there. If my parents had been rich, we kids would probably have been in year-round boarding school from the age of five. That might have been better.

So, no, I probably don't fully understand how my friends feel when they lose their parents, certainly not the depth and breadth.

I wish I did.
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