Awakening From Grief by John E. Welshons

Author:John E. Welshons
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781577319887
Publisher: New World Library

Chapter Fourteen

WORKING WITH THE DEATH

OF A PARENT

NOT UNTIL THE PARENT DIES IS THE CHILD FULLY BORN.

This statement may sound cold, cruel, heartless, confusing. But let me explain: At some level, we live much of our adult lives in a subordinate relationship to our parents. Our bodies, and personalities, were molded by them. We are, in a very real sense, their creations—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Our parents implanted their genes in us. They shaped the environments into which we were born. They taught us how to communicate. They helped us learn to move. They surrounded us with value systems. They showed us how to interact with the world and each other. They showed us what was right and what was left. They showed us what was “right” and what was “wrong.”

At various times, we fulfilled our roles as children by turning against what we had been taught. We asserted our individuality. We defined ourselves by rejecting our parents’ beliefs, values, and behaviors. At other times, we’ve made it our business to mirror them—to become replicas of what they were, to espouse what they stood for.

As we get older, we may realize that we have never fully emerged from their shadows. We may begin to have moments when we hear our parents speaking through us. We may see them acting through us. We may look in the mirror and see our bodies turning into theirs.

When we are young, we “parrot” our parents. Later in life we feel them in our souls. We act and speak as they would—in spite of ourselves. There are moments when we feel pride about that. And there are moments when we feel nightmarishly deranged and possessed.

Some of us honor our parents for making us what we are. Some of us curse them. Some of us do both. Some of us honor one and curse the other. Many of us love our parents dearly. Many of us long for a love that was never there.

So the death of a parent is a very complicated issue. In a very real sense, a part of us is dying, too.

Our love for a parent who has died will cry out in fear and sadness as our minds try in vain to cling to what used to be. And the ways in which the relationship feels unfulfilled will give rise to a subtle panic as we confront the possibility that a parent will die without ever helping us resolve that which remains unresolved. We begin to feel an eerie, uncomfortable loss of safety as we realize that if our parents are vulnerable, so are we.

At times, we question the wisdom and benevolence of a Universe that would allow suffering, that would take away our protector, our lifelong companion, our friend, in such a cruel manner. And our culture, obsessed as it is with eternal youth, has given us little preparation for the inevitable physical parting that must take place.

So we look upon the myriad of methods our Universe employs to take the life out of a human form as mistakes, as aberrations.

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