One of the worst aspects of missing someone for me is knowing that other people are in the same position.\u00a0 I wish I were the only one.\u00a0 Not for notoriety or exclusivity but because the feelings that I have should never be felt.\u00a0 Not by me or anyone else.\u00a0 Not to say that everyone will feel the same way because obviously they won\u2019t.\u00a0 But the basic feeling of yearning for a person that you love who has passed for any reason is universal.\u00a0 Missing someone is so very painful; physically, mentally, spiritually painful.\u00a0 The gut wrenching pain that starts in your chest and moves to your stomach and up into your head and just won\u2019t let go.\u00a0 No matter what you do you cannot escape that awful nagging feeling that takes over your body; the feeling that nothing will ever be the same again.<\/p>\n
Nothing will<\/em> ever be the same again.\u00a0 Making that realization is very difficult but very necessary.\u00a0 Getting past the constant pain to get back to life doesn\u2019t mean that life will go back to normal.\u00a0 For one thing, what is normal?\u00a0 Second, the normal you knew included someone that is no longer there.\u00a0 So, if they can never return how can normal return?\u00a0 It seems so simple but yet it is an elusive conclusion that most people cannot seem to come to.<\/p>\n It was at the 25 year mark that I really lost it.\u00a0 It was June of 2001.\u00a0 I was just starting a new job; our daughter was 20 months old.\u00a0 Pasith had just started school.\u00a0 Our lives were pretty intense.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it was that set me off.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if it was my daughter or the big \u201c25\u201d that seems to be a marker for anniversaries.<\/p>\n Whatever the trigger was it hit harder than it ever had.\u00a0 When I went for my first interview for this new job the head of Human Resources at the time was wonderful.\u00a0 She made you feel comfortable and relaxed.\u00a0 During my first interview I felt fine.\u00a0 But the second time I met with her I was depressed and sad.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t muster up a smile.\u00a0 I was a different person.\u00a0 I was in a fog like I had never experienced.\u00a0 The pain was overwhelming.\u00a0 I could hardly remember driving to the office.\u00a0 It was June 12th<\/sup>, 2001.\u00a0 25 years to the day.\u00a0 I tried to hide it.\u00a0 I tried so hard to smile, to bolster the energy to at least sound cheerful or even human.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 Finally, she asked me if I was ok.\u00a0 I had to be honest and said, \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0 I explained what day it was and how it had never affected me this way before; that I was lost in the fog.\u00a0 She was understanding and wonderful.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t falling over herself to be sympathetic, didn\u2019t ask a million questions.\u00a0 She just let me say what I needed to on the subject and left it at that.\u00a0 I was in so deep I didn\u2019t care if she believed me or not or if I got the job at that point or not.\u00a0 But, she did hire me – in spite of me.<\/p>\n I was like that for a month.\u00a0 I could not come out of it.\u00a0 I went through my 2 weeks of job training around my birthday, June 25th<\/sup> and couldn\u2019t focus.\u00a0 I still didn\u2019t really know what the real issue was.\u00a0 I mean I had always had nightmares during the month of June and sometimes I was a little sad for a day or two.\u00a0 And some years I forgot about it until my birthday and then I felt bad that I hadn\u2019t been sad.\u00a0 But, this was different.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t shake this horrible feeling of dreading getting out of bed in the morning.\u00a0 It took till almost the end of the fog for me to realize what was happening.<\/p>\n Well, this realization was that I suddenly knew that the pain didn\u2019t stop with me.\u00a0 Maybe that year was when I finally grew up and realized that the earth didn\u2019t revolve around me.\u00a0 Not sure but I\u2019d prefer that my big realizations in life come a little more gently.\u00a0 The pain of not knowing or having my father did not and does not stop with me.\u00a0 My daughter will not know her grandfather or have a ride on the farm tractor.\u00a0 She would never run around the farm chasing the chickens while my Dad looked on.\u00a0 She would never feel his hugs and hear his \u201cI love you\u2019s\u201d.\u00a0 She would suffer the same fate as I had.\u00a0\u00a0 My then future son would never know him.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t stop with my children either.\u00a0 My niece and future niece would never know their grandfather either; and all the grandnieces and nephews.\u00a0 The pain didn\u2019t end with me and my sister.\u00a0 The pain would continue to spread to the people around us.\u00a0 And there was nothing I could do to stop it.\u00a0 I felt so helpless.\u00a0 And the special life moments would continue to have one person missing. \u00a0Aside from all of the moments that he had already missed, there were my children being born, their birthdays, their Christmas\u2019s, their recitals and concerts.\u00a0 Why does the victimization have to continue through generations?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t one generation of suffering enough?\u00a0 I was innocent and surely my children are and they deserve a grandfather.\u00a0 It\u2019s called the ripple effect and I hate it.<\/p>\n When I finally came to the conclusion that there would be other people in their lives that would fill that space to some extent the same way that many people had done for me I was able to let it go \u2013 or let it go enough to move on with my life.\u00a0 Sidney had another Grandpa that she loved very much and she has uncles close by that love her very much.\u00a0 God puts the people in our lives that we need.\u00a0 And I now have to trust that he will do the same for my children and nieces that he did for me.\u00a0 Trust is hard.\u00a0\u00a0 All I can do is to make sure that they know who he was and that he really did exist and hope that the memories will lessen the pain for all of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the worst aspects of missing someone for me is knowing that other people are in the same position.\u00a0 I wish I were the only one.\u00a0 Not for notoriety or exclusivity but because the feelings that I have should … Continue reading