A nun left a voice message saying her ninety-nine year old mother had died recently. She seemed rather upset so when I called her back I was fully prepared to hear how no one would allow her to grieve. Since her mother had lived so long, most people would think she should be glad she had her for such a long life, and not be shocked by her death. I was fully prepared to give her permission to grieve. I was shocked by what I heard, and when our conversation ended, she asked me to write her story.
Her first words were, “My mother lived to be ninety-nine and I never spent a single night with her. She abandoned me in the hospital where I was born. After a few weeks, some nurses took me home with them and kept me for three years. Then my mother took me away from them and placed me in an orphanage where I stayed until I entered training to be a nun. Last year God dropped her in my lap. She had a heart attack, they found my name in her purse, and suddenly, she was in my care. She had to go to a nursing home and that is where she died. I had to borrow several thousand dollars to bury her. My eighteen year old cat died last week, and to be honest, I have much more grief about my cat than I do about my mother.”
Her case is an extreme example of thousands of folks who face the loss of a family member that was not lovable and almost impossible to love. There are some people who are not lovable. Not every mother is warm and nice. There are fathers that are cruel. There are brothers and sisters that do not love you and will not allow you to love them. When they die, what are we suppose to feel? How are we suppose to respond? Are we suppose to grieve anyway, or at least put on a front like we are in grief?
I sat with a woman whose story was very much like the nun’s. Her father abandoned the family. She did not know if he was even alive for thirty years. The last year of his life she suddenly became his only source of support. She whispered to me that she was just glad he was gone, but could not say that out loud, and did not know what to feel or how to act.
I said, “Sometimes we have to grieve that which we never had. That which we wish we had. You never had a father, and now that he is gone, you are faced with the fact you never will have one. That is something that must be grieved. It will not seem like grieving. It will seem like dumping a life time of anger and frustration. It will not be easy nor quick because the anger and frustration you feel is toward him and there is no way to tell him how you feel, so you must tell someone else and that is not the same. Surrogate anger targets are never as good as the real thing, but in time, they can work.
Beyond just dumping anger and frustration, we need the chance to tell our story and it be heard. I have some dear friends whose mother was a constant source of pain and rejection. When she died, her three daughters told me they did not intend to have any funeral at all. Not even a graveside burial. I asked them to bring the immediate family to my home for a story telling time. They were reluctant at first, fearing I would force them to feel things they did not want to feel. When we met I simply said “Sometimes we must grieve what we never had.” and the dam broke. They began to share feelings they had buried for years. They began to realize their sisters felt the same way so they were not alone. They realized it was not their fault and they were not bad people. Far too often rejected children internalize their feelings and blame themselves. For a while it was a perfect storm of anger, and then the grandchildren began to speak. They had a far different view of their grandmother. She had been very good to them, she just didn’t know how to be a mother. Gradually things began to heal. I have kept up with the family since that time and honestly believe that session set the stage for some real healing.
Sometimes we must grieve that which we never had and wish we could have had.
Copyright Doug Manning of In-Sight Books, Inc. Doug’s books, CDs and DVDs are available at www.insightbooks.com. Post originally published on Doug’s Blog at The Care Community www.thecarecommunity.com.
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