Lost Parents, Lost Children

My husband died a week ago.  We haven't lived together for fifteen years, but he was a friend.  Or a brother.  Like a big brother, he and I fought at times like cats and dogs, but when I needed someone to talk to, his was the number I called.  And with the miles, there were no fights.

When the cancer was diagnosed, it seemed that my daughter and I got closer, then began to grow farther apart.  The curtness, the distance between calls, the less we talked about what was personal, I attributed to stress at work, her father's illness, academic pressures.  Then I decided that because of all the above, she had just become annoyed with me, the way we sometimes are annoyed by those we love.

When he died, my daughter and son came together, but they kept me apart.  This past week, I have been here, they have been there.  When they changed plans to be together at Thanksgiving but away from me, my world crumbled a bit more.  It feels as though I have lost, not just my husband -- my best friend -- but my two children.  This feeling that I have today is about as alone a feeling as I have ever had.

In the wee hours of the morning, I went to the internet to look for clues, and maybe some solace.  It seems that when children become adults, even if they have grown up with love and the usual number of parental mistakes, some take paths that we would never have thought possible.

So it is with my daughter.  It was with some relief that I found stories of adult children who for no clear reason became estranged from their parents.  I, the psychologist, joined ranks with physicians and teachers, we who are supposed to know how to raise children and end up clueless as to what went wrong.  Assumptions of normalcy and dreams of closeness, out of our control.

It seems that all I can do is try to be there, and hope that some day she will take a tentative step back to trusting me, liking me, caring what I think, wanting me to be there.

So this will be a Thanksgiving of grieving for me.  For my husband, friend, brother, Stephan.  And also for my children who are (thankfully) together, but far from me.