I'm wondering if my daughter has any feelings!
By Carol O'Dell, Caring.com contributing editor
I recently lost my only son, who was also my youngest child. He wasn't even 30. Of course I'm devastated. Right after he died, my oldest daughter came to visit. I guess she was trying to help, but she seemed incredibly selfish and uncaring. All she could think about was when she was hungry and when she was tired of visitors coming to wish me well. Just last week she said to me, "You've got to get on with your life -- you're acting even worse than when Dad died."
This daughter is single, has no children of her own, and has never wanted any. I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with her feelings, or if I'm the one who's not normal.
My heart breaks for you over the loss of your son. As a mother, I believe there's nothing more heartbreaking than to lose a child. You're still in shock and will be for quite a while -- and no, there's nothing wrong with you or how you're reacting.
I know you love your daughter, but what you're experiencing as a mother is profound -- in many ways, much more so than what a sibling might experience. I know from watching a friend go through a similar tragic experience that your reaction is absolutely normal. Actually, normal isn't really a good word to use, because grief takes you to the most not normal place there can ever be. Nothing is "normal" about losing your child. And grief is the closest we ever come to losing our grip on reality.
You have an extremely long road to walk, and I hope you find dear friends, good doctors, and a therapist to help you heal. You may need to use antidepressants or medication for anxiety for a time. If you do, I urge you to couple medication with therapy. You need to avoid simply becoming a zombie. Feeling all this and working through your grief, while painful, is necessary, and I believe that talking to a bereavement counselor is crucial now. You may also find healing through joining or remaining active with a church, synagogue, or other spiritual community.
In regard to your daughter, I hope that you can simply "love what is," as author Byron Katie puts it. It won't do any good for you to lose yet another child, even symbolically. In her book Loving What Is, Katie reminds us that we invite pain when we try to force people or life to fit into our image of what they should be. I know your daughter's words and attitude don't make any sense to you, but some really good people are lousy under stress -- and she has her own healing to do, even if it doesn't look like it.
Try to view her words and attitude from a different perspective: She doesn't know how to care for you, how to love you, how to feel the loss of her brother. And while it's true that people grieve differently, I suspect that something is blocking her emotions and her ability to empathize with you. She really doesn't know how. Being aware of that allows you to love her right where she is, not as she "should" be. Yes, you may have to protect your heart and love her from a healthy emotional distance, and that's sad. But you can't allow her to mess with your head and heart right now.
You need calm. You need support. You need people who will help you get to a place of peace. Your daughter might not be capable of being there for you, so surround yourself with nurturing caregivers who can walk this path of grieving and healing with you.
We lost my younger brother-in-law 23 years ago in an industrial accident. He was 38 and left a wife and two very young children. Until her death, my mother-in-law used to say that there was nothing worse in life than a mother burying her son. Of course, this woman is normal; the daughter should show more consideration. After all, he was he brother! May the Lord giver them comfort.
Hugs Queen B
To all of you who have lost a child like myself; I share your pain. wish I had the wisdom to say something that has helped me. Truth is there is no cure for this. I weep for all of you and ask God to give us the strength to somehow keep going. Everyday that passes is a day we will be closer to those who went before us & before their time.
Hugs Queen B
My oldest child, daughter who is 34, married with two beautiful children and a husband who adores her, is, bascially a very self absorbed person. I hate to say this, but her father also is the same way. We are divorced, since 1988. My mother, too, has a similar personality. It is always about her. This daughter is much admired, I think, by a lot of her friends. And she has a very wide social circle. She is quite known for her taste in decorating, her appearance, her beautiful children, and her outrageously big personality. She is tall and blond and very eye catching, wears clothes well. And she will put on high heels even though she is already 5'10". She then towers above a lot of people around her, including her husband, and she seems to like it that way. It has been mentioned to me by someone who has known her very well for a long time that she displays traits of Borderline Personality Disorder. I can see that, and all of her life I really just thought she was this very forceful, independent person whose 'gifts' could be channeled. This came from the fact that my mother, who interestingly is very much like my daughter, was never nice to me, told me I was "so stinking independent no man will ever want you" (this was when I was a young teenager), she told me once that she "never really bonded" with me. I felt unloved and not what they wanted, so I never wanted my daughter to feel like I did. Inferior, unloved. After a major family blow up during a holiday that she caused, we did not speak and she began a campaign to keep me from her children and also involve her sister who wasn't even here. She has removed me from her family pictures on her social networking and now her dad, who she claimed to despise and who never paid her any attention, and she are thick as theives. HE is the grandparent she makes sure her kids see, he is the one has has 'empathy' for. And she simply lies which I know, because things have come back to me from various other family members about things she has said to them. Worse, I think she rewrites her reality and believes her lies. I love her but I really see no hope in repairing this relationship. She has proactively and vindictively destroyed it. I am very close to my son, who is a grateful and kind individual. He is 31 and recently married. The sincerity and love of the friends and family that attended and his beautiful choice of a woman cemented those opinions of both of them. He has Type 1 diabetes and was diagnossed 9 years ago, at 22. We have almost lost him several times when he has had a "low" episode. He also built a career and moved several times so many times I have been worried about him, he has been living alone, out of town and with frequent moves, not a lot of people near him who would be there in an emergency. He has also at times, fallen backwards, not eating correctly or missing meals, having a drink when he shouldn't have, going on a long, strenuous run and gotten too low too fast. But he mostly has managed a difficult transition into living with a terrible chronic disease and grown into a wonderful man and now husband. My daughter was always judgemental and cold when he would have issues with his diabetes, saying that I needed to not show him any sympathy if he had a problem because this was controllable and this was basically therefore his fault. I thought that she really cared for him and this is her way of showing her concern - getting "mad" when he had an ER visit or hit his head and passed out, etc. Now I really do think, in retrospect, that she was JEALOUS of the attention he got for being ill. Only YOU know if you child is selfish and/or not quite right in the head OR if "this is just her way of greiving". I feel I have greived many times at the prospect of losing my son, as he has come very close to death due to this illness. We have discussed that if his kidneys ever failed he would not want to live with dialysis or non rejection drugs for a transplant and he wrote a will when he was only 22, something many young people never have to think about when they are newly graduated from college and starting life. He also quit football which provided a scholarship to pay for school in his Sr. year, not knowing what was wrong, before his diagnosis. He was just too sick to continue playing. And after losing his dad after we divorced, really all he felt he had was his athletic ability and his strength and health. And then that seemed ripped from him too. He had a lot of reasons to feel hopeless for a while, but he came through it. And his sister seems to want to punish him for his faults and make him feel bad that he confided in me rather than in HER. I have had to let go of her. There is not much I see left to build with her because she is in a word, treacherous. I pray for her, I still deeply love her. Yet she keeps her children from me, she has lied and badmouthed me to family members and to her sister, my 3rd child, who I have a strained relationship with now as well. She told me that she realizes that "she can't be close to me when she knows that I am not close to her sister". And that her sister has "opened her eyes" as to how much I "abused" her. She also claims I did nothing to help her financially through college - not true. It goes on and on. Sad.
Everyone accepts things in their own way. I to lost my only son & that was in '04' he was barely 18. I cannot tell you of the pain in my heart & soul, this is everyday. It never lessens for me. My daughter handles this in her own way, I guess. She has only been to his gravesite a couple of times. She has 4 beautiful babies. It only helps me a tiny bit, too think that God needed him more than I did. BUT, I still do not understand why. I was in a bad car acc. in '03' & wish that God would've taken me instead. I lived my life, raised my 2 babies & was good with that. My son was just starting his life. Had 1 babie girl already & another on the way, that he never got too meet. Really, it's not fair if you ask me. If your a mother & read this, my heart, love & BIG hugs go out to you. Be blessed as always...
Hugs gadfly
Some of the words on here are truly good. I also have a daughter whom I tried to love her as she is, but that was very hard and she will not even speak to me anymore. She is 43 years old and cannot accept me as I am. She tried to change me and how I think. She is very controlling. Her father passed away 3 years ago. She has only been to my home 2 twice since then. I continue to send birthday cards and such to her and her husband and my 2 grandsons, hoping she will realize what she is doing to our family. Everyone says she will be sorry for what she is doing but, it may not come soon enough.