Two week ago in writing about grief, I wrote about how it can be reasonable to look at what spaces a relationship filled in your life (after a death), and if there were things that you should do to fill or rearrange those spaces.
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/09/making-room-for-grief-and-healing.html
Those thoughts rose very logically from reading about other people and thinking about that, but then there was this ping, Oh, is that you?
The day after I posted the blog, I saw this Tweet:
https://twitter.com/mochamomma/status/1575612609096650752
Today at grief group: when you consent to love another human being you're also consenting to grieve them.
Now I can think of nothing else.
It was very clear that I needed to go over both of my parental relationships.
I didn't procrastinate, but I was not looking forward to it either.
One reason was that I was afraid I would turn out to be a total ingrate, not appreciating anything about my parents or acknowledging any need of them. I already have a fair amount of guilt knowing so many people whose parents are no longer living, and both of mine are and yet... we'll spend more time on that.
My other concern would be that it would turn out that I am heartless and cold because I don't tend to really miss people.
Perhaps it is significant here that I had wondered if I should go over other people who had died or who were gone from my life for some other reason. Maybe someday that will be important, but it's not an issue for now.
I love people and enjoy spending time with them, but then when they are not around I function fine in their absence. Fortunately, my best friends are good about remembering me, and if someone actively needs me I am likely to have a dream or something telling me, but I don't think about it.
Having gone over it now, I believe that is more a matter of habit than heartlessness. There were times when I was friendless enough or on my own enough in my formative years that I just got very self-contained. Is it a completely positive trait? Doubtful, but it seems to mostly work out. Living alone might not be a great idea for me, though, especially with working from home.
I don't doubt that either of my parents loved me, though then those relationships diverge a lot, and there is too much there to treat them together.
Here is the background for anyone that doesn't know: my mother has advanced dementia. From 2016 to 2020 I was her full-time caregiver, and the "caregiver burnout" diagnosis remains on my medical record.
Once she lost her memories of us, she needed more stimulation than I could provide, so we moved her into a facility with a lot of activities, and that has worked very well. I know we made the right choices at the right times, but there has been a lot of hurt over a long period of time.
I see her every week or two (I do some medical testing that her anticoagulant requires), but she does not know me. The biggest parts of her care are handled by other people.
So even though she is living, and in my life, it is not the same; what potential holes does that leave?
I have been fiercely protective of her since the age of 9. Do I need someone to feel protective about? Probably not.
We had good times and generally got along well as adults. That was not just the two of us, usually, but also my younger sisters, whom I live with. When the three of us continue to have good times and get along pretty well, that absence is not as bad as it could be. Plus, I am the one who doesn't miss people so much.
When I was younger, I felt like she was always nagging about my weight and cleaning my room. I think now that I heard it more than she said it, but what was missing was knowing that I wasn't just fat and untidy. It was a weird thing finding out later that she always bragged about us to other people. That was not weird for her; you correct the flaws in your children, because they need to know. It was assumed that I would know the good things about myself.
I did, actually. What I didn't know was that the good things could be enough for me to be loved and enjoyed and worth being around. I mostly know that now, but not knowing then was a real problem, and it's one I feel disloyal admitting now. Parental relationships can be complicated, and that will be even more true when we get to my father.
The hassles about my weight were very much built into the culture of the time, which hasn't improved that much, even if my understanding of it has. She constantly worried about her own weight as well.
For my room, I believe part of the problem was that cleaning was so much what Mom did, and what she was amazing at. Yes, you could say "acts of service" was her love language, but also cleaning was her avocation.
I miss how clean she kept the house. I can't keep up with it the way she could.
Technically, I am probably a better cook than she was, but I liked the things she made. There were some of them that I never learned to make, and I can't ask now.
Her taking care us of in those ways was her primary way of demonstrating her love, and I miss that. Whether that is more for the tangible results or because it meant there was someone there caring, well, it's probably a mix.
I have goals about getting the housecleaning on more of a schedule, and theoretically you can hire people for that (we can't afford it, but it's a thing people can do), but it will not be a manifestation of love and caring that way again. (Unless my sisters just take it over, but they have the same loss; all we can do is cooperate on that one.)
There is sadness here, and it is harder for this limbo state, where she is here but not really. It is appropriate to be sad about that.
It is also reasonable that limited healing is available while things are this way. I know there is a change that will come at some point, but those are all unknowns. Currently, it is sadness, but manageable.
I also believe that there is a future where all of those temporal problems are past. As she learns everything that she missed, that is going to hurt her, but we understand, and she will understand the things that we didn't handle better, because we love each other, and that will survive.
But for now what I need most for that loss is a cleaner house.
That may make me unsentimental and hard-hearted, but it may also mean that sometimes when I despair about needing to clean the bathroom or figure out what to make for dinner again, maybe it isn't really that so much as that I miss Mom.
If that's a factor, it's better to know. I can be more realistic about what is needed.
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