Badly Dressed

 

1.  ragged

(ragged - battered - broken - dilapidated - disorganized - fragmented)

In retrospect I realize that I haven't done so badly through the last decade or so.  I lost both of my dads, I lost my mom and her sister who was like a mother to me.  I lost my honest and forthright Uncle Roy.  I lost my sweet and funny Aunt Jo.   I lost 2 brothers and a cousin who was like my little brother. And a whole host of friends.  Here I am clinging madly to my little handful of BIOLOGICAL family, my kids, my grandkids, a brother and a sister, a treasured Uncle and a handful of precious cousins.  I have practically lost the entire history book on my life.  The stories of how I looked, what I did, what I meant to them throughout their life and mine.  Everyone who is left...almost....is younger than I am, therefore they don't have a lot of history of mine to talk about.  I have written or delivered eulogies through near paralyzing grief for people who took great chunks of my heart with them.

I have repeatedly been pounded on the head with losses that fell on me like a row of deadly dominoes set carefully in a line only to be kicked over by a ticked off toddler.  My earth dad and 2 bonus brothers went one right after the other....boom, boom.....and boom.  The boys who called me names but offered to fight my battles........gone.  The man who took someone else's kid and made sure she had a great life.....gone.  The woman who gave me life....gone.  And that one,  my friends, was awfully hard.  I have no full fledged biological siblings.   I had 2 step-brothers (I hate that word) and I have a half brother and a half sister.  But none of these people and I shared my mom biologically.

When she passed I was left badly dressed (see definition above) and drowning in the remains of her life.  My days became endless sessions of sorting, shredding, gifting, selling, donating....and crying.  Crying over the things I found and sometimes the things I didn't.   My nights were sleepless and fitful events,  knowing that there was so much left to do and no one who could do it but me.

My only recourse was disassociation.  I clicked on the auto-pilot and navigated as well as I could.  I kept myself upright and I kept my job and did as much for my partner in life as I was able.  It wan't much. My husband couldn't help as much as he would have liked either, as he was in the process of losing his parents as well.  So we passed like friendly ships in the night, each of us needing things neither one of us had enough of to share.  Fortunately, for Roger, he did have some of his siblings and therefore someone who fully grasped his grief.  My children helped me as much as they could but that job belonged to me since I was the holder of mom's history.  I was the only person who could say "that thing doesn't matter" or "yes, we need to keep that."  The greatest gift they gave me during that time was the gift of letting me process and not expecting the mother they actually deserved.

When I say I disassociated I mean truly.  I had no time to be the person I really wanted and needed to be.  I had to just be and I had to move through it at my own speed.  No one grieves the same and there is no handbook for an appropriate timeline.  And multiple losses do not allow grief to run its course and settle.  Each hit brings every previous one roaring back demanding that to be felt again.

Now, I realize that I never did the "please pity me" or "please feel sorry for me".  Traditionally, I lose my crap over little things and the big stuff just sets my jaw and my shoulders and I soldier on.  Not silently but still......I get through eventually.  I guess I just thought that some understanding and awareness would be a given....that people would grasp that I was going through some stuff, physically, mentally and emotionally and even though those things didn't touch them personally, they would be there to help pick up the pieces of normalcy when I was ready.  Nope.  There were expectations.

You need to be more patient....here wear this and we will like you better.  You need to be more present.....here is a shirt you can wear with those pants we gave you before.  You need to be more selfless, you need to not be sad, we only like happy people.  Each thing that was expected of me was given like a ratty piece of clothing that if I put it all on and just pretended then everyone would like me better.  And yet, these things weren't verbalized.  Again, no one thought to ask "hey, what's happening?"  or "are you okay?"  But perhaps the thing that got to me the most was the emotional outfit I was supposed to wear that would indicate that I would not stick up for the things that were truly important.  The things that every wife, mother and grandmother just does organically.  I wasn't combative, I was simply withdrawing more and more into the camp with the people who weren't expecting me to look, or act or "dress" and behave in a certain way they deemed appropriate.

I didn't matter one bit what I had done in the past that was good.  There was always a hidden agenda or a deliberate affront attributed to each and every move I made.  The slightest offense either real or perceived, sent me back to the penalty box to watch all the "real" team members play the game.  And guess what?  I kind of started to like the penalty box....it didn't require anything of me.  If I was having a particularly bad day, it didn't judge and every time I was able to feel my feelings without judgment, an article of someone else's clothing for me dropped away.

I have come to identify quite closely with a past President who never got the benefit of the doubt.  Whose every action, word or expression became the topic on which people judged worth, or lack of.  Both of us have had more than a passing glance at the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" intersection in life.

What I am finding almost funny is that the person I am today is the person I was always meant to be.  I am honest, forgiving, thoughtful, loyal..........and steady.  I feel like I have been forged in the fire of true emotional, gut wrenching pain and come out a warrior clad in truth.  Under all that disorganized, fragmented, battered wreck of a person was a truly unique individual with a lot to offer.  If you knew me 10 years ago, you don't really know the me I am now.  I am different and I am worthy and I will no longer wear the suit of clothes others choose to make for me.

But, what I will do when the day comes your world falls apart over and over and over again, is hold your hand, listen and try to help.  What I won't do is judge how you handle it....I will let you wear your most comfortable clothes and love you anyway.