The Missing Years
It was just too much!
It was just too much!
I am blessed to have both my 88-year-old parents and my sister living close by. My parents are downsizing, so we spent a Saturday afternoon going through old photos, sorting them into groups, and telling the stories behind the images. I quietly pulled out all the photos of my children and put them, facedown, in a separate pile.
I went home with a stack of photos and began to clear out room for the beautiful mid-century modern wedding China my parents are passing on to me. In the process, I found a small set of my grandmother’s China that I had saved in hopes of using it for tea parties with my grandchildren. That’s when it became too much, because I will never have grandchildren. I threw out the whole box of tea party China and I gathered all the photos of my children from tabletops and shelves and shoved them under my bed. You see, I lost my youngest son when a therapist affirmed his idea that he was a woman. His brother and father also cut me out of their lives because I cannot agree that we had raised a daughter and not a son.
There are still photos of my children hanging in my entry. If I take them down it will leave a gap, not just on my wall, but in my history. Our homes are an expression of who we are. I am a dressmaker, and when my customers come to my home, they see those portraits and know I am a mother. They ask about my children. In response, I just mention the cities where they live now. That works well enough. It would not work if I began dating. So, I don’t date.
If I took all the photos down, could I forget I have children? Could I just surround myself with things from my childhood, things from my parents, the things I use now, but nothing from the 35 years when I had a husband and two sons. More than half my life is missing and I cannot pretend I am 28. Do I pretend I lived over 30 years as a single woman? That I worked in my original career as an engineer until I suddenly decided to give it up and take in sewing? Did I move and travel by myself, or have I been in my hometown all along and no one noticed?
I cannot reconstruct a life without my family. They were the heart of my life. It would be as false a depiction of my life as is my son’s reconstruction of his childhood as a girl.
So, I left the portraits hanging, even though they are too much to bear.
I am so sorry for your loss. My husband divorced me, my son told me he was trans and my daughter left to study abroad for 3 months all at the same time. I understand your feeling of loss. One minute you’re a mom with a family and the next minute you’re all alone. I always wanted to be a mom and have a family . Thankfully my daughter has stuck by me and is my rock and my dog too. I felt like my life and all the good times we had together was just gone. I can’t look at my pictures because it is to painful. I found this poster we had made of my son when he graduated from high school and he was so handsome. I miss the little boy I raised who was supposed to grow up to be a man and have a family of his own someday . The other day I was at an outside music event and there was this little boy with these big blue eyes probably around 2,and he just kept smiling at me and I started to cry, thinking of my little boy. Since I’ve been on this site and reading the painful letters I have finally been able to express how I feel and I know I’m not alone . My heart goes out to you, it’s loss we face everyday.
I hear you about pictures of kids on the wall. You said, "If I take them down it will leave a gap, not just on my wall, but in my history. Our homes are an expression of who we are."
I went through a phase where I took most of the pictures down. Then I after months of that, I went through the albums and put some of my favorites back up.
I too "cannot reconstruct a life without my family. They were the heart of my life."
It still amazes me that people support such a destructive ideology without question. I stand with you and thank you for sharing a story that is so similar to mine.