1. What have you lost, what are you grieving?
2. 20/20 | Hindsight is the one thing we never benefit from in the present. Is there one moment you wish you could do over?
And here I am running a day behind again. That's okay, however, because it all will eventually get done!
1. Grief. What a loaded, difficult word to process. What a complicated, frustrating, sad, angry emotion to deal with, and on so many levels too.
The primary grief I have felt not just this year but for some time is for my daughter and for the relationship with her that I expected to have. It makes me sad often, it makes me angry sometimes, and I continue to work on accepting and even embracing what is rather than grieving for what is not. Not there yet.
It is not that I had big expectations of what I wanted her to Do, to BE in her life -- that was always simply to be happy and fulfilled. She is neither. She is struggling with some very bad choices on her part along with some health issues both genetic and caused by her own actions, and that is very hard to watch, powerless as I am to fix any of it. So I grieve for the talent and intelligence and promise that she showed as a young woman that has been so buried under the consequences of her choices, for the lost opportunities for a safe and solid home and loving partner for her, for the uncertainty and fear that I know she lives under. I watch friends who have children who are living what appear to be solid, good, loving lives, and I am envious of them. I hope they know how very lucky they are.
And I know God's not finished with her yet. So patience and love and hope are still my constant companions on this journey.
2. Hindsight. Ah. The old Monday morning quarterbacking. I have done a lot of that in years past, but not so this year, actually, at least not much. Maybe that means I am putting the brain in gear before engaging the mouth more often. Maybe that means that I care less about what people think about what I say. Maybe it means that I accept responsibility for my words and actions, finally.
Words spoken in anger and fear and frustration are what I'd most like to take back, and those have been directed at my daughter more than once this year. I want kindness to come out of my mouth, and if I can't be kind, i prefer to be silent. Harsh words do not effect positive change for anybody, including the person who speaks them. I do not want to be a naggy, angry, bitchy old lady, not at anyone. I can speak more with cold silence than with angry words. I can be more effective with gentle tones and neutral words. As Thumper's mom always said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." Yup.
2 comments:
Ah, yes, and once again you have written the words that I so often have tried to cobble together in my own mind. Words that I just try to find to describe my grief for the daughter in my life. Her choices have found their way into my own. I have wanted to hold her and tell her how much she is loved, but I cannot, I am not allowed in. The pain of acceptance is never easy, nor gone, it just is. So, I keep my life moving on; hope for renewal cannot be taken away. And I do not believe that all we see in the lives of those 'others' who seem to have happy, fulfilled families of children is untouched. Every human relationship is touched, good or bad, but never perfect.
Oh Beth. That must be one of the hardest things to witness: the consequences of unwise choices of our children.
My thoughts are with you, and your daughter. xx
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