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Loss and The Grief of Abandonment
A reader writes: I was recently informed that my mother has died, and I am grieving. My mother left me when I was a little girl. It hurt. I denied it for 40 years. So far I have attended two different bereavement groups. Both are filled with people who are grieving a loved one. I am not. I do not have a string of memories of our times together to talk about: how she taught me how to bake a pie, helped me plan my wedding, helped me through my divorce, paid for college, took care of my kids while I met my second husband, etc. I do not fit into those groups. They are grieving such a beautiful memory that I’m afraid I will poison their precious period of grief if they hear my story of abandonment. I didn’t have a mother to maintain kinship ties with an extended family. I had an evil stepfather who was remote and distant and lied to me about why my mom was gone: “She left you.”
Where is a group for me? I am mourning (a) my mother's death and my loss of a hope of a reconciliation where she tells me she is sorry, (b) my initial wound / loss that I never faced, and (c) finally facing that for 40 years I walked around with a huge ball of grief that I never admitted. There is no one to help me. I am all alone. There was no funeral, no coffin, no wake, no gravesite. No one came to me. No one sent flowers.
Today I bought myself a dozen roses. For the rest of my life, I will buy myself flowers every week, if that is what I need to be nurtured.
A reader writes: I was recently informed that my mother has died, and I am grieving. My mother left me when I was a little girl. It hurt. I denied it for 40 years. So far I have attended two different bereavement groups. Both are filled with people who are grieving a loved one. I am not. I do not have a string of memories of our times together to talk about: how she taught me how to bake a pie, helped me plan my wedding, helped me through my divorce, paid for college, took care of my kids while I met my second husband, etc. I do not fit into those groups. They are grieving such a beautiful memory that I’m afraid I will poison their precious period of grief if they hear my story of abandonment. I didn’t have a mother to maintain kinship ties with an extended family. I had an evil stepfather who was remote and distant and lied to me about why my mom was gone: “She left you.”
Where is a group for me? I am mourning (a) my mother's death and my loss of a hope of a reconciliation where she tells me she is sorry, (b) my initial wound / loss that I never faced, and (c) finally facing that for 40 years I walked around with a huge ball of grief that I never admitted. There is no one to help me. I am all alone. There was no funeral, no coffin, no wake, no gravesite. No one came to me. No one sent flowers.
Today I bought myself a dozen roses. For the rest of my life, I will buy myself flowers every week, if that is what I need to be nurtured.
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