Monday, July 21, 2014
The oppressive humidity has yet to be rained out of the atmosphere. It feels like a typical summer day...in Louisiana. And so I have retreated into air-conditioned bliss. I am still finding it quite an adjustment to work full time once more. It was a great gift to transition back into the workforce by only working part-time at first.
As I alluded to in my blog post from earlier today July 21st is my mother's birthday. She is sixty-six years old today. So many years have passed since she and my father were divorced and yet I still feel the grief of losing her to illness. I was thinking about her life on July 21, 1982. She turned thirty-four years old on that day. And by that time she had already long vanished from my life as a consistent presence in my life. As I have alluded to in posts throughout this summer I cannot really recall the summer of 1982. I have been able to reconstruct that summer a bit through my own diligence. And yet I often wonder to myself 'When does the grief end?' When indeed will it end? I do not know. Who can actually know? My therapist cannot know the exact answer either. It simply takes some unspecified amount of time.
I remember reading from one of my uncle Bernhard's letters many weeks ago. In that letter my uncle referred to my mother's return to Germany in August, 1982. She was very ill at the time. I do not recall knowing that this was true at that time. I was still too traumatized by the ending of my father's second marriage. It is indeed no wonder I feel it a miracle I survived to the age of nine years of age.
It's late at night in Germany as I write this. I wonder if my mother is dreaming at this very moment while she sleeps. And if she is dreaming what is she dreaming about? Does she have any dreams about her only son? I can't help but wonder.
A person cannot endure interminable grief and sadness. We must eventually grieve our losses and move on. In letting go we can open ourselves to new life and new love.
I pray that new life and new love will appear in my own life.
The oppressive humidity has yet to be rained out of the atmosphere. It feels like a typical summer day...in Louisiana. And so I have retreated into air-conditioned bliss. I am still finding it quite an adjustment to work full time once more. It was a great gift to transition back into the workforce by only working part-time at first.
As I alluded to in my blog post from earlier today July 21st is my mother's birthday. She is sixty-six years old today. So many years have passed since she and my father were divorced and yet I still feel the grief of losing her to illness. I was thinking about her life on July 21, 1982. She turned thirty-four years old on that day. And by that time she had already long vanished from my life as a consistent presence in my life. As I have alluded to in posts throughout this summer I cannot really recall the summer of 1982. I have been able to reconstruct that summer a bit through my own diligence. And yet I often wonder to myself 'When does the grief end?' When indeed will it end? I do not know. Who can actually know? My therapist cannot know the exact answer either. It simply takes some unspecified amount of time.
I remember reading from one of my uncle Bernhard's letters many weeks ago. In that letter my uncle referred to my mother's return to Germany in August, 1982. She was very ill at the time. I do not recall knowing that this was true at that time. I was still too traumatized by the ending of my father's second marriage. It is indeed no wonder I feel it a miracle I survived to the age of nine years of age.
It's late at night in Germany as I write this. I wonder if my mother is dreaming at this very moment while she sleeps. And if she is dreaming what is she dreaming about? Does she have any dreams about her only son? I can't help but wonder.
A person cannot endure interminable grief and sadness. We must eventually grieve our losses and move on. In letting go we can open ourselves to new life and new love.
I pray that new life and new love will appear in my own life.
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