By Cheryl Ryan
This past year, both of my husband’s parents passed away. It didn’t happen overnight, yet somehow we didn’t see it coming. Things changed for my mother-in-law when her hearing loss became more profound. We started speaking more clearly, then louder and finally less. It was frustrating for her, but I’m not sure we fully realized how hard it really was. Communication was her love language, and as much as we needed to hear her, she needed to hear us more.
As my father-in-law’s walking became increasingly unstable, we worked to introduce canes and walkers to keep him upright. He mostly rejected those, enduring many falls, but we all kept moving forward. As the changes mounted, we adjusted. Adjusted our interaction style as they adjusted their ways of staying in the game of life. Throughout all these changes, we instinctively knew they would be leaving us, but we never really knew what that would look like.
We lost our dog, Ellie, a few years ago. It was the first and only dog we’ve ever raised. I still run across pictures of her that stop me in my tracks and make me tear up. I can’t see a cavalier without running over to torture the poor owners with stories of our girl.
I’m losing an especially dear friend to memory loss. She is becoming distant in a way that no longer allows us the relationship we’ve shared for so long. She’s here physically, but we don’t laugh until we cry or know intuitively what the other is thinking. I no longer get to pick up the phone and tell my most trusted confidant all the things.
And that seems to be the kicker about loss. Whether you’ve experienced it often or only once, there is no way to know when it’s coming or what it will feel like. Each loss feels different and shows itself differently. And yet, for me anyway, loss seems to take up permanent residence in my body and psyche. It’s there, lying dormant. Coming at me when I least expect it. Sometimes, it can look like a stream of tears or a dull ache that centers in my gut. At other times, it’s simply the need to lie down, exhausted, as though it’s been there using up energy I didn’t know it was taking.
As I look towards this coming year, my parents are becoming increasingly fragile. I once again find myself in denial. Looking for solutions. Trying to find ways to fix things. I know many people who have lost much more, much sooner. What I didn’t know is that loss becomes an intrinsic part of you. Something that you didn’t have before but that you’ll never be without again. I didn’t understand that.
How to Move Forward
Many years ago, I attended a funeral. One that I’ve never forgotten, yet seems especially important now. Our friend was giving his father’s eulogy in a standing-room-only church. He said that if you were there that day, his father must’ve been important to you. Then he asked everybody to take a moment and think about a trait or behavior they most loved about him.
After a long silence, he said the best way to honor his father was to carry that trait forward in action or deed. I’ve always loved the idea of carrying someone you loved forward by modeling the best of them. Regenerating something that you most admired. And each time you do it, you remember them.
I will do this. I am doing this. And I will continue to carry those that I’ve loved forward in the best way I can.