Wednesday, March 20, 2013

LOSSES

It is a sad day today.  I just woke up and got a message from my cousin that her mom, my Great Aunt/godmother passed away.  I have not seen my Aunt Rosemary for some time and was hoping to see her over the weekend, except I have been sick as well.  I am thankful that my cousin messaged me to let me know.

I have been sitting here kind of in a daze, thinking of all of the Sunday's and times at the Lake with my Great Grandmother, and our Sunday cookouts, where her husband, who was our cook at our cookouts every Sunday until he passed  many years ago, cooked the hot dogs the only way I will eat them - very charbroiled, almost to the point of burnt.  Getting thrown in the lake off the end of the dock and the security and happiness we all felt there.

My Great Aunt Rosemary was a wonderful lady.  she made the brownies.  That is how my youngest son will remember her.  In my estimation she was the nicest of my Grandfather's siblings.  Not that they were not all  nice, it is just she wasn't as scary as the rest of them, with their French/German demeanor.

Family is important to me.  I have been separate from my family for many years now, not really by choice, but by life.  It will not be a good time for me to reunite with my family, on the contrary, it will be very awkward and uncomfortable given the state of my mother and my relationship.

It was awful at my grandfather's wake and funeral a few years back.  My mother is very intimidating and everyone is afraid to talk to me when she is in the room.  I can feel the anxiety already, mixing in with the sadness I feel about the loss of my Great Aunt.

It is a horrible feeling to be sure.  All of these years away from the unity and inclusion of family.  The cottage on the lake, my kids knowing and being around my aunts, uncles, cousins, brother, nephew have been a loss for thirteen years.  They have adopted a kind of separation  a lack of kinship with these people I had spent so much time with my entire life.

Two of my sons did not go to their great grandfather's funeral because of it.  I think the only reason they went to my oldest son's wedding was because they were in it, and they love their brother.  It is very upsetting to me to even think about how my children view family that is not me, their brothers and their Dad's.  One of the drawbacks I guess of having a family so eager to cut you out of their lives, although, I was the one that cut my mother out of my life before she did it to me yet again all of those years ago.

I will never know the loss that my cousins are feeling.  Watching your parents get old, sick and finally pass.  It makes me very sad.  You could say I have already been their and done that over the course of the previous 25 years.  My great Aunt and Uncle were wonderful parents who loved their children regardless of anything they did.

Loss is something I am very familiar with - as familiar as waking up every morning and putting on my glasses so I can see.  I try to block it out, forget about it, but it is times like this, when someone outside of the equation passes that makes it all real and up front.  It makes all of the things that were erased from my life become defined.

The silver lining to all of this is that my Great Aunt is no longer suffering.  She is with my Grandfather, and her sister, my Great Grandparents and her beloved husband once again.  Perhaps there is a version of the cottage on the Lake up in heaven where they are sitting looking over the lake, absorbing the sun, happy and smiling and out of pain.  Reunited once again.

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