Tell us about them

seenitall

I’m similar to the preceding post. I found out earlier in the evening someone passed away that I didn’t know her death was going to hit me the way it has. It’s a bit strange. I’m a survivor of familial child abuse and I thought that might be the cause of my usual reactions to deaths in the family where to be honest there is usually barely any grief inside of me to speak of. That’s what comes of having grown up in a fcuked up family.

But I have this evening rediscovered my ability to feel loss and grieve in a slightly strange way.

She wasn’t even family. She was a friend of a relative, she was 83 years old, but there was something in her I was hugely drawn to without properly realising it. A humanity, a warmth that wasn’t even apparent at first; she had a sharp tongue, didn’t suffer fools gladly. But she was a decent, generous, caring human being, always so lovely and kind to me and later to my daughter; it’s a type of love I guess, and for me love has always been at a premium. I didn’t see her often but I saw a lot of her and knew her well enough when it’s all added up throughout the decades. I had this silly notion in my mind that one day I would be able to properly reconnect with her and spend time with her (she lived in a different country and was bedridden for the last few years, so with my own busy life and some other circumstances in the way, this wasn’t really going to happen, not before the time ran out for her with her various serious ailments, anyway). So I am now grieving for someone I wasn’t even supposed to grieve for. I didn’t even know she had died until today, and today was the funeral and also the day I found out. I feel so sad that I’ll never see her again, and that she ran out of time. I wish she’d lived longer and been healthier longer because she deserved a good life far more than some other people I know. (Not that she didn’t have a good life altogether, but it wasn’t a bed of roses either.) And I wish I could have said Goodbye in some way, said something meaningful :(

I don’t understand it. I mean, I do understand it, but it’s messed up, I swear. This is because she was always, always nice to me, and so few of my family have been. I don’t believe I shed a single tear for my aunt who died a few years ago, and there are other such instances. And here I am, crying and missing this woman who I saw or heard from really rarely. I’ll always cherish her memory, That’s all I can do. It’s all there is to do.

Thanks for reading.