Wow, it has been a year since I lost my dog partner, Partner. In some ways it seems like just yesterday, yet in others it seems like a life time ago. The distant memories seem like they belong to someone else. I have been trying to understand why that is, to make sure these memories remain mine. I feel like they were lived by someone else. When I try to place myself back into the memories, I feel tears start to well up, so I quickly try to reverse the thought process. My loss was so intense that I don't want to relive the loss, but I do want to relive the moments. I am sure some psychological study would have a name for this, I don't know what it is, I haven't studied these distant reactions to loss. I just know what I feel. I lost my Mom 13 years ago last month. I still want to pick up the phone on Sunday afternoons to chat with her, those were the most likely times to find us both home. I lost my Dad 35 years ago and what I wouldn't give for an afternoon with him. I often find myself imagining a lengthy show and tell with him, showing him how the world has changed, how technology has entered every man's every day life. The awe that I feel about the world, my life, how I want to catch him up on all these changes. I imagine he would be awe struck and so excited about Everything! I miss his approval of my choices. I miss his silent smiles as I use to chat, at length, on and on, a youngster, filling the time in the car together. He seemed to enjoy how I could just talk and talk to him about a child's, teen's view of the world. That was all I got with him. He died on the last day of my teen years, the eve of my 20th birthday. We arrived home from the hospital at just midnight of my birthday, so the day of my 20th was spent calling relatives, making funeral arrangements, realizing the shock of what had just happened. I wish I had had an adult relationship with him, I would love one now. I often say I married a man just like my dad, or at least the Dad I knew. I have two sisters and they have husbands, all very different men in personality, from my husband. Yet, when we asked each other, once, we all agreed that we had all married "men like our father." So when we got down to details, we all had different views, memories of what our Dad was like. One of us married an intellectual, reserved man. A man who doesn't share much, makes decisions and expects them to be agreed with. A man who wants a home, headed up by a wife, who raises the child. Not a romantic, but yet loves his family. The other of us married an adventurous, religious man who is the chore of the church and the home. A man who is a good role model but yet has a bit of fight in him. One you wouldn't cross but on any given day is romantic and loving. I married the salt of the earth. An old soul, quiet, adores his wife, his life, his "kids" (dogs in our case) and is completely mold able to his wife's will. He makes our life possible. Each of us feels that our husbands are completely different men. We each see our Father differently, too. I can't completely speak for my sisters, but my Dad was loving, adored his youngest child (me) and I idealized him. My husband is loving, adores his wife (me) and I idealize him. How can one man, my Dad, be three different dads. It fascinates me. I feel as if I missed so much, not getting to know him while I have been older. I really miss that my husband never got to meet him, too. I truly feel they would have been friends. Of course my husband always says that my Dad would have shot him on sight, some unworthy man trying to steal his baby girl. So where do these memories, that are so palpable, live? They mold who we are, what we become, how we view our lives. Sure, I have had days go by now, that I don't think of or dwell on my losses. Yet there they are, always just below the surface. I guess they enrich my life, who I am. Not the loss of these loved ones, but the loved ones themselves. And having lost them, makes me a more dimensional person. I cherish the people in my life so much more deeply, having lost loved ones before. So in a way, I still feel close to those I have lost. The fact that their loss is so quickly felt, so therefore, is their impact on my life so often felt; keeping my wrapped and safe in their memories. I like that. So maybe the reason I quickly want to reverse the tears is because I would rather feel the warmth of these memories.
