The Orphan

I'm not proud of this, but it doesn't make it any less true. 

 

I abhor weakness. 

 

In myself and in others. 

 

I don't like for people to see me cry (though I am more tolerant of the actual tears of others than I am of perceived prolonged weakness).

 

I was raised to be strong and independent.  Both of my parents were, and that was and is the expectation for me.  No whining, no excuses, and unless you are bleeding from your eyes, you show up - to work, to school, to team practice, whatever - you show up. 

 

As a result of that, or of my own unreasonable thinking, I am not proud to admit that when grown people whine over things that *I* consider to be small things, I feel, in my gut, some level of contempt. 

 

Stop whining!  You're not bleeding from your eyes, are you?  Butch up, Shirley!*

*Again - I'm not proud of this, but there it is.

One of the most difficult things about the profound sadness of having lost my father, and my mother before is that I feel angry at myself for feeling sorry for myself. 

I mean really, how in the world could a forty-something year old woman feel like she NEEDS a daddy?  Seriously?  Did I think he was going to take me to the zoo?  Tie my shoes?  Teach me to ride a bike again? 

Butch up, Leslie.  Get over it. 

Are you even sure this is a real problem?  There are children starving to death in their mothers' arms in Africa and ISIS are cutting the heads off of humans in Iraq and Syria, and you want to be sad because you, a grown woman, don't have a daddy? 

Boo Freaking Hoo.

But still I am sad.  And I'm angry at my own weakness which allows the sadness.

And then I watched (by accident - I didn't know what it was about or I wouldn't have watched) Billy Crystal's "700 Sundays" which chronicles the approximately 700 Sundays that he'd had with his father, who died suddenly when Billy was 15, and his mother, when Billy was 53 years old.  Billy was happily married with children, and grandchildren even.  Yet, he summed up his thoughts with this: 

"So now, I'm an orphan. I'm just not tethered to the earth in quite the same way."

And it stopped me in my tracks.  A successful man.  Older than me, considerable success, a father himself  - self-identified as an orphan and very accurately described my loss of the sense of being grounded.  I am not alone in my aloneness after all.

Apparently, without knowing it, I needed validation from Billy Crystal.  Who knew?

So now that I am learning that it might be all right to feel sorry for myself (is that what grief is, after all is said and done?  feeling sorry for ourselves?) what do I do with this?

I don't have the answer yet.