Loss of your family

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother. A dear friend and penpal of mine just lost her.

They were very close, had an obviously special and unique bond.

Her father has also passed. She has no siblings and very little family.

I feel for her. I relate.

She says that she is numb and devoid of feelings.

My heart is heavy for her.

There is a shock, a pain, a heaviness, that comes with becoming orphaned….no matter how grown you are.

In losing your confidant and biggest supporter, the maternal loving force in your life, if you’re lucky enough to have that.

Joining the Dead Mom’s Club fucking sucks.

There is no other way around it.

Many of us will experience it. Even though we know that, even when they’re suffering, even when we are trying to brace ourselves for it—

There’s really no way to adequately prepare yourselves for the loss of a parent.

The world looks different when your parents are gone.

Even if they weren’t great parents. Even when you have a tumultuous relationship with them.

They are still yours. Your genes. Your family. You share DNA.

It’s sobering.

And they’re why you’re here and they have always been here.

To adjust to living on this Earth and existing without them takes a refocusing and a shifting of your lens of why you’re here and what you’re doing here—

When you exist without your people.

Losing kin, even when you aren’t close, and when you have your cultivated, chosen family, which I certainly do—

I don’t know how to adequately describe it.

Words fail me.

There is an emptiness. A hollowness.

A momentary existential crisis.

Especially when you’re the sole survivor. When the sibling is gone too.

There is a freedom and a release in my toxic and dysfunctional members being gone. I feel badly and guilty writing that, but it is true.

But it is not ever just one thing. A solitary emotion.

It is complicated.

I still feel lonely. Alone, at points.

And when I consider other friends who are always joining that club, sharing a similar existence now—

All I can think is…

I am sorry you had to join the club.

Solidarity, beloved.