Is there a best (and safe) way to detach from those we love?
I am not one to cry. No matter the pain. Even if I am alone and I get teary, I am embarrassed for myself. Pathetic, huh? So, how do I grieve? I don’t have a consistent way of doing it. Sometimes, I just let the issue bounce off me, move on to something else and forget it. Sometimes, I ‘moody’ through it. One time from a broken heart, I lost my hair, had bouts of nausea, but didn’t drop a tear.
But this time, I cried. No, I wept. From a very deep part of my heart, my pain poured out in tears — when his coffin was lifted by his colleagues and the march out of the church to the cemetery began. That was my Dad’s coffin. I did not make it to the cemetery.
We were completely blindsided by his death. We spoke Saturday evening and he was dead Monday morning. How does stuff like that happen? If I knew he was going to die, maybe I would have called Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening….hell, I might not even have hung up.
I have thought long and hard about death, especially how to conduct our relationships when we are aware someone’s death is near e.g. someone with a cancer diagnosis.
…
I have an Aunt who has been given 12 months — tops — to live. This is someone I love very much and has been close to my entire life. The first time she had her diagnosis, I was sitting with her and she was crying. I was numb and just sat there. Then she said to me: ‘Sweetheart, I think you should start detaching yourself from me now. I don’t want my death to impact you so much when it happens’. I was stunned. How could she ask me to give her less love at this time? Shouldn’t I rather be giving more? Isn’t that what everyone says? That you should love because you don’t know when someone is going to go? And now that we have the ‘privilege’ of knowing when she is going, shouldn’t we love even harder? Is it safer to break the bond now so it is easier on you when it does happen? Is it better to not know it’s coming so you just deal with it as it comes? But, wait a minute. Isn’t life itself a death diagnosis? Don’t we know that we all will die at a point? A diagnosis like my Aunt’s just puts the death on a schedule. I might even be gone before she goes, who knows?
…
From the time of the diagnosis, she has withdrawn a little bit. On the surface, she is pleasant and all but I feel she has put up a wall — even so slightly. I am unable to get through to a certain part of her. We actually spend more time together now because I am mostly taking the kids up to see her but something is off about our connection. Maybe she is dealing with the diagnosis herself and her ‘withdrawal’ has nothing to do with me. And the one poignant thing is that we can no longer talk about anything and everything. I am wary of what I say now so I do not sound selfish and make issues all about me and my need to connect.
Perhaps I am overthinking things. Maybe I should stay away for a year and I might not break down at her funeral.
