dear mom,
A college roommate of mine once said something like, "Well Amelia, you'll start relating to people as you get older and people's parents start dying too." I did not like this. It has stuck with me for years because I was so offended by it, to reduce my issue to just a dead parent and forgetting all the side effects I'm still grieving.
Many many many years later, I did have a friend who lost her dad and another, her mom, another, his dad. In between I left college and finally made close friends with divorced parents or missing parents or parents who were dead before I met them. I was struck by an element of relatability. Yes, there is a level of understanding that feels different. True, even if no words are exchanged, I imagine a sense of comraderie should I ever choose to exchange any words.
But something else I repeatedly learn about grief is that it never goes away. And I feel so alone in it every time something reminds me. My manager was out earlier this fall because his dad died. I was at the tail end of a depression cloud, and I felt at once curious, a little sympathy, but mostly awkward. I didn't know how to respond. I hate saying "I'm sorry." It feels so insincere. Eventually, a sense of jealousy set in. A company card was circulated for everyone to express their condolences, and I stared at it not knowing what I'd write, deciding to not write anything at all because anything would just sound so stupid.
Nothing anyone said to me helped when you died, mom. Nothing anyone said to me helped when I had to explain to people that you died.
I felt jealous because what I saw is that when you lose a parent as an adult, you get to be surrounded by people who know how or try to support you. You get to use your adult words to talk about it or ask for help. You get to have adult partners who can be there for you. You get to have adult sensibilities to look for resources. You get to have adult friends who can sit with you and cry with you and try to cheer you up. Maybe you get to have adult families to share memories with and hold meaningful ceremonies. It's so selfish and stupid that when I think about loss, I think about how shut off from the world I became and then no one was there to help me. I think about how I got one summer to have sleepovers with my friend and play pictionary with your family and go to camps like a normal kid... and then it felt like everyone abandoned me. Dad tried only once to talk to me after he asked if I wanted to write what I now understand was an impact statement. He took me to a therapist but when I didn't initially like it, he didn't bother trying to find another outlet for me. Your mom and older sister and brother came to stay with us, but when they went back to China, they never contacted me again. I noticed that we were invited to fewer dinner parties and then none at all. By the end of summer when I was starting the fourth grade, it was like you never existed and so you never died - but what were a bunch of 10-year-olds going to say to the girl with a dead mom anyways?
I've worked through different relationships with my grief. One therapist called it my 'friend.' They say that of course it'll never go away, it'll never grow smaller - I will simply grow around it. I've felt your absence at milestone events like graduations and first boyfriends and first jobs. But this year has showed me that maybe I haven't worked through it at all. I didn't expect to feel your loss so intensely this many years later - as if I only just lost you.
I wonder a lot what "healthy" grief might look like for me. It's hard to fathom. How can I think about you and be "at peace" with it? I wasn't ready for you to die.
I wish you could be here so I could make you these Tawiwanese noodles I got in New York. They're made with tomato powder - that's why I decided to buy them. I warmed them up with some leftover juices from red-braised trotters and a couple slices of leftover crispy pork belly. And then we could nibble on sliced persimmon while talking about the year.
I just miss you,
Amelia
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