When I was very young, I had a family. They weren't a perfect family; they had their problems, like all families do. But they were not so bad, and they were there, and there was a kind of love and security, and I was a relatively happy child. I had grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all in the same area, so that we all saw each other all the time, for holidays and birthday parties and just because, and other cousins of various relations and degrees further away in the country, whom we saw less frequently but with greater anticipation, and overall it was pretty good. But then I lost them. Divorce, then moving away to another state, then another country, and life just never took me back there.
When I was a little older, but still quite young, I tried to start a new family. It was flawed from the beginning, and got worse with time, but I loved them, deeply and truly, especially my children. Then I lost them too. Another divorce, the kids came and went, then grew up, then grew away, and I never got that thing that I'd always wanted and imagined, being the patriarch with all of them and their good and loving spouses and the grandkids all around. And then I really lost one of them.
A few times, here and there, as I traveled around the world and back again, and moved from place to place, I thought I'd found a community and friends. But I always lost them too. The last two times, you know too much about already. But the last one was the worst, because it was where I thought I'd finally found a place I really belonged, and would stay. But of course, I lost it.
Not so long ago, there was someone who loved me, but...well, you know.
I try to get on with my life. I try to go about my days without letting it overwhelm me or be the defining factor of my life. But every once in a while, it just hits me, and the profound and crushing sense of loss literally takes my breath away. And in those moments I realize what the thing is that is always there, in the corners and shadows, pulling me down, holding me back, weighing on me like I'm carrying a mountain up another. In my old house I never "got around" to hanging family pictures, and I always kind of half-consciously wondered why. Here I did, and now I know why. How is one supposed to bear this much loss and still keep on going?
