It’s still unnerves me whenever a friend or colleague expresses surprise when they find out my parents are dead.
Medium recently had a highlighted section on “grief” and as usual when I see such call-outs, I felt I should participate. Read. Comment. Write. I know this solemn drum beat very well, after all. My status as an adult orphan is so central to my identity, I cannot fathom how anyone can see me without knowing it. Is it not writ large on my skin, my soul?
And yet…
My parents died 20+ years ago. I have been alive as a motherless daughter longer than I was alive with a living mother. I would say that at least 80% of the people I am friends with now who are not family have never known me otherwise. That percentage would be higher if not for online social networking putting me in contact with fellow New College alums, honestly. And hell, only a few of them ever actually met my parents.
It would seem that when it comes to grief and loss, I would be able to speak up, share, and contribute to the discussion.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I have much to give. I’ve tried, and sometimes even manage to put out a post about grief. I ostensibly manage a site dedicated to atheist grief (www.patienceandfortitude.net) but I never seem to come up with posts that are not A) depressing or B) ironically preachy, so it’s static. Not to mention, over the last five years, there has been a huge upsurge in websites, facebook pages, and tumblrs focused on death, grief, and mourning run by people who have devoted their lives to talking about it all. What can I add to that?
So I sit it out, and don’t talk about my loss except as an “aside” every now and again. My grief destroyed me several times over, and I’m still dealing with that four year span of unfathomable loss even after all this time.
Oh, the irony.