From an immovable giant to a beloved pet.
I’m now an adult orphan. For many who first hear this term it might seem like an oxymoron. An orphan is usually a child, how can an adult be one? Well, for anyone who has lost a parent knows, it is a jarring experience. The immense loss and grief associated with it, the changing family duties, the uncertainty of what the future might hold. This feeling of loss doesn’t change with age, no matter how old you are, losing a parent sucks. Full stop.
So at 36 I have felt that feeling of loss twice. It’s been 17 years since I lost my mother due to breast cancer and 2 months since I lost my dad to liver disease. Even more highlighted was the unfortunate timing that both deaths were within a week of my birthday. I feel like I’m in a new parentless era of my life and it’s a strange feeling.
As people always say, grief never really goes away, it just changes form. It sounds like such an abstract thing to say. When my dad died, it started off as a giant. An insurmountable wall that you can’t even look past. My brain felt muddled, like everything was moving through quick sand or trying to look through a glass, and nothing really seemed right. I knew things had to be done, I knew I had to go shower or eat. Yet getting to that point of actually doing things was impossible. People would ask how I was, or if they could do anything, and all I could reply back with was “I don’t know”. It was that overwhelming to think about.
As weeks went on, I got back to a version of normalcy. I made food, started to work again, and started some personal projects that were set aside for many months. Day to day tasks were less fraught with the overwhelming shadows over them. But the giant that was grief turned into a gremlin, hiding in the inane daily tasks. Watching a movie or finding something that made me think of him brought it back, but not all in the same way. Waves of sadness of what could have been, or missing him, longing to have a chat. These thoughts come unexpectedly and catch me off guard.
With my mothers passing, time has turned grief into that of a beloved pet. I can think fondly of her, and willingly try to remember her. I’m so grateful for the memories I have of her and want to hold on to them forever, but I still have to respect the loss and it’s still something that can catch me off guard. Moving forward, accomplishments, milestones are all tainted by the asterisk that she won’t see it. This point that time goes on is what can make grief so hard. We have to move on. We have to find a way to live without them being around. At some point in the future my fathers grief will transform into the same as my mothers. Where I can look back at him and be grateful for the memories, to be glad when I remember him.
Losing both parents is like the closing of a final chapter you never wanted to end, the final end to your childhood. It feels reminiscent of that unease when you leave home for the first time to go to school. That falling sensation where you don’t know where you’re going to land. I’m not lost in my grief, but I’ve lost my footing and I’m hoping that as time goes on I figure out where I’m going to land.