Empathy

Things have been very tense between my daughter and myself for over a year.  For the first time in over 50 years, I have not laid eyes on her in fourteen months.  I have had little choice but to just leave her alone and let her deal with whatever issues that she has on her own.  I apparently was only making things worse.

Today in confiding to a friend my deep pain over the deterioration of my family and the losses that continue to pile higher I sat trying to explain to her how this could even happen between two people that used to be so close and instead of whining and relating my hurt over all of it I found myself explaining it "from my daughter's point of view".  A view I had been too hurt and too devastated to see.  What I realized was that while I was drowning in the overwhelming sorrow of losing my child, grandchild and daughter in law she too had a huge parade of losses.

My friend asked about her friends and her support system outside of her immediately family.

"She pretty much has none." I answered.  "She doesn't make friends easily and her one and only real friend since she married let her down over and over, used her and then totally abandoned her after the loss of Brian."

Then she asked if she and my other son were close.

"No." I answered.  "They never have been.  She was always very close to Brian --but of course she lost him."

"So she has had no friends?" my friend asked.

"Well, yes, she and Kara were very close --but she lost Kara too."

"But you guys were close at one time?"

"Yes, until I moved."

And that's when it hit me.  She had lost almost everyone outside her immediate family that she cared about and then I left her too.

I felt awful.

I have prayed to be able to see her side of this, for me to have God's heart for understanding her and to be able to put myself and my hurt aside and walk in her shoes and feel what she feels.  Today I did just that.  And my heart broke for her.

It's not like I intended to be selfish and just abandon her or my son and not acknowledge their pain I have just been so all consumed with just trying to survive this until I couldn't see past my own pain I guess.  I of course knew we all had loss.  My son has had much the same.  He lost his half-brother because he abandoned him much like my daughter's friend did - after Brian died.  He has also lost a good friend to death that he has known for many years.  He too was close only to Brian and he lost him.  They were both always close to my brother and they now have no relationship with him either.  All of our lives have been impacted in ways we never could have imagined.  All of us lost our entire support systems outside of our spouses.  On top of the catastrophic loss we suffered on August 23rd 2014 we have all also lost friends, co-workers, relatives --and sadly, each other.

I know nothing can bring back Brian and his family but I do pray that God will see fit to restore the relationship I once had with my other two children.  It is heartbreak on top of devastating heartbreak and I just don't know how much more loss I can survive and stay sane.