August 2, 2020 The Hangover

I woke up this morning, sad, and deeply hollow—hungover from the mania of our adventures after dropping off Fiona at the Canadian border and possibly from a glass or two of scotch. The joy of successfully getting her back into Canada and her life in Montreal buoyed the rest of the day for us. Seeing her happiness about returning to her life of autonomy is always well worth the acute suffering I first experience at her leaving. 

The sadness I felt this morning blossoming under my headache carried with it an instinctual need to keep it to myself. We as parents are only expected to be seen applauding our children’s continuous flight away from us as it is not only deemed to be natural, but it IS the brass ring of successful parenting. 

My discomfort with the notion of my sadness, led me to scramble toward a justification for its acceptance. I posited this thought—when our parents die in old age, it is natural, it is expected, it is what we all had planned and is the natural order of things. But no one tries to make you feel guilty for grieving the death of your parent at any age. Your friends don’t write, “What are you whining about, they were 85, you should be grateful!” on your Facebook. I well know these losses are not equal. But natural order grieving is still grieving.

Grieving is processing. I process by writing. So here I am, deeply thoroughly grateful that my daughter is back on her path of life—while still hearing the phantom sounds of her and trying to help my head and heart reckon with the reality that I don’t know when she’ll come through our door again, shouting “hiiiiii” as she has done every day for the past five months. 

Fiona fills our house and our lives in a way that understandably casts a shadow when she leaves. As my husband and I walked yesterday, he turned to me and said, “I don’t blame you for being sad, she adds a lot.” Turns out, he’s sad, too. How lucky are we to have a child who adds light and leaves a vacuum?

I know grief, it gets better. I know myself, I will cradle hope, massage it into a new shape of life. Certainly, watching my daughter thrive will hasten that process. But until then, I will let myself be where I am. I will try not to grief shame myself with thoughts of how much truer, deeper grief others are experiencing. Or rush myself because I know the countless, boundless blessings of my life. I know how to be gentle with myself. But I don’t know, honestly, how to ask others to be gentle with me. I think it’s something we are all struggling with—being gentle with each other. I guess the first step is asking.