Thank you Cedar, your words and the care behind them are so comforting to me.
.and this happens, something so intimately connected to the heart of the original loss. Even the ex-roommate's cruelty is a kind of replay of the shock, of the unfixable horror, of your daughter's, and your family's, original loss.
Thank you for saying that. Yesterday I was thinking along those same lines. Once the cat died and I realized how the cat was all that was left from the "husband" era, I realized that she was now "empty" of that life and in a safe enough place to perhaps have her feelings come forth. All of her outside stuff is mostly handled for her............and now the cat. And, me, here......... simply being present.
She's been so hardened and bitter and angry for so, so long. I always wondered where all the grief went. Perhaps this can be the opportunity for her to just let go, let go of all of that sorrow,all of the losses she's sustained.......so that hard exterior she manufactured to be able to handle the enormous hurt can melt and allow my real daughter to show up. I don't know. Knowing what I know about denied feelings, that would be my wish for her.
I spoke with her last night again and told her I would take care of the cat and bring her ashes home. She was crying so hard and so grateful that it made me pause, gratitude has not been my daughter's strong suit and this gratitude was so big and so heartfelt. For me, I felt "seen" in a different way...........many times in the past 14 years, since the suicide, I felt as if I were almost invisible to her. As if those of us, her daughter included, were out of her range of sight.
I recall reading Brene Brown's statement about when you don't allow yourself to feel pain you also don't allow yourself to feel love and joy..........you literally wipe all of it away. It's felt as if my daughter did that after her husbands death. Like she wouldn't allow herself to feel. And the armor she erected around her heart was MASSIVE and impenetrable. And................there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Much as I tried. With each loss she sustained, she remained hard and in fact got even harder.
Then you add living at a survival level and having to daily fight the 'good fight'......living without money, without a job, without a home of your own and with the kind of "street" characters she has hung out with, is not only not conducive to 'feeling' you're almost too busy to feel, there is always the 'fight' to survive taking up all of your time and energy. She could spend a week trying to figure out a way to fix her car, when if you had money you just have it repaired and forget about it. But living at a survival level means all of your time and energy is devoted to simply surviving, manipulating, accessing, figuring stuff out...............she was always exhausted from it. But, clearly stuck IN IT.
Having said all of that, I don't want to get engrossed in thinking that she will change, she may, she may not. Certainly it is an opportunity she could take, along with taking some classes she told me about, life skills, journaling, job options..........but, I am fully aware that she has to take this chance now, she has to make something happen from here on out. I can simply be present for her, loving her and allowing whatever happens to unfold in it's own natural way, whatever that is. I don't want to get into 'future thinking' or mulling over the past, I want to stay in the present and be okay with allowing things to unfold.
Last night had meaning for me too. I was present for my daughter, AND I was also present for me. I was aware of my compassion for my daughter, which is usually there............however, I was fully aware of compassion for ME. I went through anger, not really related to my daughter, about my own life now ..............it felt more like just leftover "stuff" coming out. SO and I had a long talk about a lot of things, one of those times when you're able to express yourself clearly without reservation. It was healing and there is more of a sense of an opening, all around. I felt as if I emptied myself and in the emptying, I am freer, cleaner, more able to be present.
Your assessment of this is spot on Cedar, I appreciate that you mirrored my own thoughts about it. Another gift of this board, to feel acknowledged and validated. Who knows what will happen? But, for right now, today, this moment in time, we are all doing okay. For that I feel grateful. You're right Cedar, it is a gift.
