For the longest time I felt very alone in my feelings of loss. I felt like no one really understood what it was like to experience the type of loss I have endured. Sure my sister and brother also lost their Father, but since we are not close, it is not like we talk about our feelings. My Mother is so broken, even after all this time, I prefer not to speak about the pain I carry around. Sure I lost my Dad, but my Mom, lost her life partner of 30 years, the Father of her children and her best friend. She has enough pain to carry around, she doesn't need to carry mine too.
It has almost been a decade since my Father passed away. I rarely speak from the heart about how my Father's death affected our family, but when I do I say something like, "you know when someone loses a family member, and the family sticks together and becomes really strong? We are not that family." My family fell apart, because we lost the glue. Not just with my immediate family, but I have also lost the connection with my Father's side of the family. I am not blaming them, as I am as much to blame. It's just different, because my Dad is suppose to be here. He is the connective tissue and without him, it is almost too much to bear. Too much to hear my Zia talk about him or talk about the trials and tribulations of his side of the family.
So for ten years, I have carried around this feeling of loss, of abandonment, and this saddened truth that we are the family that felt apart. No one really understands this feeling, so when this whole topic that rarely comes up in a conversation, is uncomfortably talked about, people want to change the subject, or tell me something like, "it will get better", or "I am so sorry" or "I don't know what that feels like" or "I can't imagine what that feels like". Everyone I know, is either the family that never experienced this greatest loss or the family that sucked together.
Until recently....
Recently, I met someone who gets it.
They too lost their Father and their families connective tissue. They too know what it is like to experience the pain and the sadness of not only losing their Father, but their family as they knew it.
I find it comforting.
For the first time in ten years, I feel free. Free from being isolated by my feelings.
I am not happy that someone else has to experience this pain, but I am happy to know I am not alone with my thoughts and feelings.
The world got a little brighter for me these last few weeks and for that I am grateful.
