scar tissue

Why is saying farewell so complicated?  Adults should be prepared for the sentiment.  We know that other people will die and eventually we will too.  We know that our children grow up and become independent.  We know that our pets, in most cases, will say farewell to us long before we are prepared to say it to them. Despite our knowledge of the aforementioned truths we find ourselves clamoring for answers when the inevitable, inevitably occurs.  I am perplexed with the phenomenon of mourning, be it in relation to death, or to growth,  or to what can be expected from the generally accepted notion of the natural order of things.  I am not exempt from an inclination to those feelings,  the absolute contrary is true, my conundrum is the product of navigating those very things.  Why is detachment so much more difficult than attaching,  why can't the lessons we learned from our first broken heart...that whole first cut is the deepest perspective, translate to parental relationships, friendships and everything in between?  Must we really arrive at a place where rejection or abandonment is the expectation to guard our ego and when we do are we ever able to believe in love again? Or as spiritual beings and believers in a higher power should we face every encounter with fresh eyes and open hearts, isnt failing to do so  underminding our own divinity and the absolute truth of grace. Why can we not simply digest that farewell is necessary why can't we compartmentalize the difference between someone choosing a life without us and someone who has left us because there was no other choice to make.  I've come to realize that grief feels much like an extension of abandonment, I feel like this is a fair assumption, in my observation of it anyway.  I began writing this just prior to the anniversary of my husband's father's death and I'm currently revising it 6 months after my little brother's passing, which happened to occur on the anniversary of my father in laws death.  Both deaths were very different in almost every way but I've observed consistencies in relation to the grieving process.  One of the common denominators is guilt.  Unresolved issues, lack of closure...this realization delivered me to a place where I began to relate mourning to grieving.  When one mourns the loss of a relationship, guilt and self doubt is a prominent and reoccurring theme, so much so that children abandoned by their parents and spouses who feel discarded could spend a lifetime in therapy trying to recover their self worth, death seems to excuse us from some of this as there is no possibility of reconciliation, however, one finds themselves questioning the ratio of love to, well, anything not derived from love (resentment, anger, apathy, impatience) when examining their relationship to the party that left.  This is the same feeling that is generally par for the course at the end of a relationship, it doesn't matter if it's friendly, familiar, or romantic.  One initially blames circumstance, as if it will exempt them from feeling all of the trauma, but eventually, slowly and surely, the subconscious allows insecurities and doubt to dictate the narrative.  Eventually one has to consider themselves and their contributions to the relationship...this is where the end of a relationship with someone who goes on living and the end of a relationship with someone who does not can begin to resemble each other. Recognizing the idea that when someone leaves generally has very little to do with what you could have done differently and more to do with their personal experience can be very liberating.  Being left to sit with your regrets, your less than enlightening correspondence, your ego driven expectations and doubts is therapy if you choose analyze it and it draws a sort of line in the sand between life and death.  People in need if therapy for the loss of someone who is still alive should simply view it like death.  In this walk, in this reality, the connection wasn't sustainable but perhaps in a different situation things would work out in a more favorable way, or perhaps in the next realm or experience you avoid each other completely,  either way viewing it it as a loss that can't be reconciled may cause you to examine your own inner workings and the way you contribute to the world and force you to do the necessary work on yourself, all by yourself, this is the way that grieving folks have to heal. Eventually the grief stricken chalk it up to painful lessons learned and then they either move forward or they accept that a reality that doesn't include their beloved is one they'll never accept, either revelation is a decision that dictates the story of their life from that point forward. No matter what you think or how you feel about your abandonment the situation that your facing occurred despite your perceptions, it occurred despite your expectations and it occurred because you can only maintain control of your own life, no one elses.  In this way grieving truly makes you a super hero.  You learn to live without someone or something you didn't choose to live without.  Your grief brought you back to YOU.  Grief, this new enlightened state,  this new impossibility redefines what is actually possible.  It teaches us that regrets and remorse, resentment and practicality in relationships are purely a personal experience and that any perceived unity in the experience is just a contrived expectation because we want to believe we aren't alone, we don't want to be solely accountable.  Good news is, we aren't alone.  God is real and he is everywhere, he is grief he is all of the possibility encompassing the impossibility of it. Bad news is human relationships are predestined to fail. It may occur In life or in death.  No action in your lifetime will deliver you from inevitable defeat. Given this non negotiable truth, one would be well advised to treasure their time with people who enrich their life but to also be grounded in their individuality. At the end of the day you are human, your experience is fully your own, as much as you want to share it regardless if you choose very wisely those you allow your experience to run parallel to, it will always be that.  A parallel line that never intersects, you have no control over the lines running parallel to yours, you actually have only limited control of your own line. Fate controls the end of that line, not you.  It doesn't matter how that line running parallel to yours ends.  Walk the line, hold hands with folks walking next you while you have the opportunity to enduldge and or endure that connection, plant flowers of memories and trees of tradition, create new lines through legacies and celebrate the new parallel lines that are created through children and extended family because you line will end too but you can recoice in the trails you blazed prior to your departure. You can rejoice that it was  a path you laid knowing only you could leave because your line always just ran parallel even when you thought it wasn't your walk alone. Human nature will always have us wondering what we could have done differently, how we could have changed the trajectory of our relationship and we should sit with those uncomfortable questions  we, however, should seek answers to those questions with only with the intention of shaping our future, not with regret or hope of rewriting our past.