oliviatamccue

It has been months of emotional turmoil.  If someone told me that in 2016, Federer, the tennis GOAT, would suffer a major injury and fall out of top 10, I would not have believed.  If someone told me that I would have 5 international trips and 3 domestic trips, I would not have understood.  If someone told me that I would lose my parent-in-laws, a cousin and more bad news, I would have tried hard to stop time.  Or that I would spend weeks of effort for a 20,000 character-long job promotion request.  Or that I would visit 4 new countries.  Or that I would be sad on my birthday.  Or that my daughter and I become friends as much as family.  Such is the character of the year with losses and burdens intertwined with comfort and new experience.

One cannot practice experiencing losses. One cannot imagine the mental stress of consecutive losses.  One cannot predict deaths, as inevitable as they are.  These losses of closed ones take part of us away and replace it with our new awareness of how we deal with losses. It is a grief with a strange sense of blunt sadness after years of knowing how the abilities of our parents/relatives are taken away by simple aging and illness.   Our sense of loss is related to both the physical proximity as much as closeness of the relationship.  The physical remoteness creates a blunted grief that drips rather than pours.  The bad news hit in the evening, midnight, often over the phone and at times a whatsapp update.

Many caring friends would pray for us in these difficult moments.  What would the prayers be?  For the recovery? For the postponement of the inevitables?  For a no-pain and fast pass away?  For the strength of those who need to go through the difficult times?  I am at a loss of what to pray for.  I experience the confusion of loss while living my life in the same way as if nothing has happened.  I would relive the moment of togetherness, and hope for “what if we can be together for another moment again to do ordinary things and have ordinary conversations with our closed ones?”.  I hope the memories would show up in the dream.  It is not so easy to let go and accept.  I have to constantly remember to be thankful for what we have, at good or bad times.

Posted in Dear Diary