Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Today marks one year since my father, my Dad, died. He was 83 years old.

I don’t know what to say, but it feels important to mark this day.

Part of me wants to share anecdotes about him,the good memories and the funny stories. Another part of me wants to continue pointing out his traumas as a caution to others not to forget the hard things.

I also feel compelled to write about a year as a person with no parents as my mother died in February 2022. While I am only 54, I’ve lost both of my parents. My father’s mother (paternal grandmother) lived until he was 78. My mother was 68 when her mum (maternal grandmother) died.

Those differences in years leave me feeling robbed of the opportunity for amends, for the unique relationship of an adult with a senior parent, robbed of the grace that might have filled those extra days.

Yet I must always emphasize that I believe my parents are freed from lifelong traumas that robbed their lives of joy and peace. I cannot regret that freedom or begrudge them whatever healing comes in the next life.

There’s a division between reflecting on their lives and pondering my own as I careen unmoored in a society defined by family structures. I’m not an orphan. I’m not married, but not divorced. I have a sibling with whom I have an ever so carefully growing communication. I have a niece and nephew I’ve never met. Yet, I have a niece and nephew I’ve known since birth who have chosen not to be part of my life. I have ex-laws and extended family, but I walk alone.

My parents couldn’t give me what I need right now – comfort and consolation – while they lived. They did love me, but they were incapable of more. If they were on this path with me, I would be struggling for comfort and consolation from them. It is like telling someone “I need a hug” so they hug you. The next time they see you, they don’t ask if you need a hug or offer a hug until you again say “I need a hug” which they dutifully offer. Over and over. Until it is just exhausting and you seek your hugs elsewhere.

Still, ah still I feel pangs when my friends talk about their own parents, parents in their 80s and 90s in various degrees of health and self-sufficiency. Exasperating, unable or unwilling to change, or sad. But here. They can take phone calls and maybe use Facebook. They are included in family functions. Their accommodations are part of any planning. Innocent comments accentuate my isolation, but that’s just part of the grief package.

My Dad was funny, smart, hardworking, and he tried. He was also broken and battered right out of the gate in 1941. He was never master of his own fate. The trauma that defined both of our lives caused painful rifts that required boundaries. I can’t regret those boundaries even though they distanced us.

But I do regret there weren’t more years to try again, especially as I work on processing my part of the trauma. I’m sad that I forget his voice, his laugh. Not completely forget, but require a half-step more to call to mind.

But I am containing this month, a month that swept my father into tumult and swept him back out again. February houses other traumas for me as well. I do not want to carry regrets into March. Or more regrets than I must.

I’ll step into March as an adult without parents. And I will walk the rest of my days with that truth. I’m afraid no one will love me again, love me enough to try even if they fail. Most of all, I am afraid I would not allow myself to let them try. Til then I walk alone.

Rest in peace, Dad.