Loss and change

Change has always been difficult for me. Nothing more so than abrupt change. When a thing changes suddenly it’s like I’m not really sure what to do. There will be a time of cognitive struggle with anger ,then after some time has passed, adjustment. I say that as if it’s no big deal but ,in the moment, it can feel catastrophic to me.

Perhaps my schedule at work changes or the area that I am assigned to cover. My reaction to change is not always a rational thing. Once my employer changed the Wednesday menu at the cafeteria and looking back it felt so horrible to me at the time. I wrote an essay on the company website about the comforts of employees having the food that they enjoyed and have come to expect.

In all actuality I was the only one so torn up about not being able to have fried chicken wings , turnip greens , sweet potatoe casserole and dressing every Wednesday for lunch.

These few things I’ve described seem different to me than the most profound change I’ve ever felt. This is the change that comes with loss. The loss of a loved one.

The loss of a person that is a part of who you are and where you are from suddenly just not being there anymore. It’s tragic ofcourse but there is something very different about this change. I struggle to understand this type of loss. The emotions I feel are not the same as the exaggerated feelings when routes or responsibilities change. It’s real, non negotiable, final.

There is no question of how I should feel as there is with everything else. Should I be mad? Should I be accepting? Should I be aloof? There’s no steering either, it is what it is whether I agree with it or not.

There’s not somewhere else I can go, no eloping or running away. It’s bigger than me. There is no control.

The holiday season is here , and for the 1st time I don’t have a living parent. My relationships with my siblings are estranged  and that is by my choice. The right and wrong or responsibility of my relationships with my siblings may be debatable but the fact is, there isn’t one.

I have a loving wife and children. I am as far from alone as anyone could be but the specter of the loss of loved ones from before my wife and I started our family is weighing on me.

I’ve not really dealt with the loss of my parents. My father passed 11 years ago and my mother earlier this year. There is no joy in loss.There’s a cold numbness inside when I think of them both.The grey reality of death has an emotion that I can’t quite define. It is as it should be and foreign at the same time.

Maybe I’m mourning a simpler time. A time when all the responsibilities and realities of living this life seemed so inconsequential. As a child I looked for every bit of happiness I could find. I could create that happiness , it seemed, with a witty remark or loving action towards my parents or siblings. As I was the youngest everyone seemed to share in my happiness. There was hope for us. There was love.

As time passed the family I grew up with had their differences , as all family’s do. My father was a strict disciplinarian most of the time but at Christmas he always made sure there was a sense of amnesty shared with the family. Any perceptions of wrong doing or ill will were forgiven , if only for a couple of days.

To me it seems the hope for that family is gone now. Life has taken a negative toll, as it sometimes does and turned that family into something that doesn’t exist anymore. Just a memory.

The holidays now, with my wife and children, are the most wonderful time I’ve ever known. My wife decorates the house with love. She takes care to make sure our children and I have all the beautiful things that the holidays have to offer. She will bake treats and wrap gifts. Our home ,especially at this time of year, reflects how much my wife loves her family. The joy she creates is beyond measure.

We will visit with my mother Inlaw and her husband , my wife’s brother and his wife will join us. We will have all the delicious holiday food and share the kindness with each other that can seem easier to find this time of year. It will be, and has always been a truly warm and happy occasion.

My wife’s father passed almost two years ago. She too misses that part of herself that he represents and the love she shared with him.

This all too, will one day change. I will be the one that’s gone and my children will be left with only the memories of Christmas’s passed.

I think there’s a lesson in that for me. I will go on as my parents would want me to and as I wish my children to do as well.

I will keep only the love and happiness from my youth and give as much of that as I can to my wife and children. 

Loss and change are what makes life special, if you can grasp that in the moment. Because moments are all we have , they should each one be filled with love and joy.

So this year I will take a moment and reflect on all the love and happiness my parents gave to me and in the spirit of my father grant amnesty to all those not present , and myself, for any perceived wrong doing or ill will.

I will live in this moment , not in moments passed or yet to come but in the moment that exists right now and I will put as much love and joy into that moment as I can.

To Mom and Dad, I love you both.