45… That’s the age that my mom always said would be an accomplishment if she reached. That’s because her own mother never made it past the age of 35. She knew loss, she knew grief and managed to build her life from all of that pain. I wish she had prepared me to carry loss as well as she did, but I guess she didn’t know that I would bury her too… Before 45.
For a year after her death I didn’t have a voice, I died inside and my silence was my greatest cry. I shut everything and everyone out, and that destroyed me. What they don’t tell the children of parents with cancer, is that as quickly as you will witness your parent perish right infront of you. Is as quick as you will have to adjust to your new life, because everything changes.
WHO AM I?
That was my greatest struggle, after the last mourner had left, after we had packed away my mothers things, after we had got rid of our furniture because she had once mentioned in passing that she wanted new furniture, after my dad and I had swapped rooms because he couldn’t bare to sleep in their room… A swap that I wasn’t too keen about either, but which I agreed to because his pain was devastating. So after we had come to the realisation that mom did EVERYTHING and that we had to learn the basics of our own household. After all of that I had to accept that she was gone… Something that I haven’t truly accepted to this day.
I also needed to figure out who I was, not from her perspective. I had to figure out how to make decisions without consulting her. I struggled with all of the emotions that they tell you about in those oh so helpful grief books… And everyday that whirlwind of emotions starts from scratch and circles back and I’m on the floor dying of pain… And so it goes on…
So my question to you is, if you have ever experienced a profound grief… It doesn’t have to have been a fallen loved one from cancer. Because honestly loss is loss… How did you deal with the “new” you? Do you know who you are?
Yours Sincerely
A daughter of a Cancer Victim… Starting her life from the depths of an unexplainable pain.
Her Quietude 