What I Realize is Important

Three months earlier............

Tonight’s been rough.  I have been alone for two days…I haven’t been alone really since before my dad died.  I didn’t realize how dependent on others I am.  More than that, I realize that even when I am with others, I am alone in my grief.  Not to say I don’t value my friends and families well wishes, company and comfort.  I am realizing this is an experience I have to go through alone. I have to own it.  I will need the shoulders, sweet words and understanding of many, but my experience is unique and I have to fight through it.  I grieve the love I didn’t have with my brother…I mourn the memories my dad didn’t have of my girls. I am desperately afraid my children will have to endure the loss of a sibling…they are so intricately tied to one another.  If I am suffering so deeply how will they feel at the loss of one another.  My head is swimming with tears and regret.  I am so grateful for my family and close friends,  but mostly my children.  Their relationships are so normal and beautiful unlike my own.  I pray they all grow very, very old together enjoying one another and all of their children and grand children.

When I hear them talk to each other, giggle, and give advise.  I know that God had a plan for me.  I’m not saying that I’m a martyr or that my sad situation with my own siblings was a horrible fairytale out of the Brother’s Grimm, what I am saying is that despite my circumstances there is light and hope and joy.  I have been able to, partly with God’s grace, and with the experience and help of two amazing women, my mother and my mother in law, raise three incredibly bright, sweet compassionate girls who individually are amazing but together as sisters are unstoppable human beings.  Everything that I wished I had in a relationship with my own siblings they have in spades.  I’m not sure if this was completely by design or if I just worked harder to correct my own broken relationships in them.  No matter.  As I struggle with a kind of grief I don’t wish upon anyone, I take great comfort in the simple joy of three sisters who genuinely love each other and are willing to fight for their relationships as family.  I know I will get through this.  I will feel alone among many.  I will question my relationships and wonder if there was anything I could have said or done..I will never regret my experience, my childhood, my family dynamic.  This is all a part of who I am.  Funny, ugly, fierce and dysfunctional.