Parents of estranged adult children Community Group
One or more of our adult children walked out of our lives and never looked back.
over the course of the double funeral for my youngest son and his wife in 2019, i began to be haunted by the question, "which of my sons died first?" no hugs, words or even eye contact were exchanged with my still breathing son over the course of the proceedings. the only contact since has been rudely stated demands for ? ? ? need i state the obvious? yet another demand surfaced on hubby's text screen from an unidentified caller. the accusatory language of the demand was identification enough for my broken heart.
unable to shake the haunting question, i have allowed myself to grieve them both, simultaneously. while he was alive, my youngest son grieved with me. his big brother was once his hero. it feels to me like he is still grieving with me. over the five years of parenting his 3 orphan children, i feel as closer to him now than life permitted. his wife, too, but i am still not quite finding grief for losing the woman who called me, "monster-in-law." they were divorce dancing at the time of the car wreck, anyway. methinks i was already emotionally braced to lose her. perhaps she was already lost to me when she called me monster-in-law.
a gently edited warren zevon tune has been one of processing tools for this grief process. the clip on my heart tonight is
"i will hold you in my thoughts
"i will take you to my dreams
"i will touch you when you come into view
"while the fall is falling, i will watch your children grow
"and feel you right next to me." ~keep me in your heart
in 2019, this song was for my departed son. my estranged son has no children (thank god) and has expressed zero functional interest in his brother's children. taking my estranged son's bitter blame and hatred to my dreams sounds like a pre-meditated night terror. still. . . my heart craves his presence.
just sharing. . . i've heard rumors it helps. testing, 1, 2, 3. . .
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
Sharing can help us move forward, or to at least know we are not alone. And sharing also helps someone else who might come across this slow forum and read what you wrote. Who knows? But thank you.
Death is one type of grief and estrangement is another type. So to have both is especially hard in my opinion. I have met estranged parents who had their spouse or another adult son or daughter die and then have to process both the ambiguous loss for the estranged one and the death loss for the one who died. Seems to me to be especially difficult.
I believe we have souls or spirits and those live on. I believe when we think about our deceased loved ones, they are with us, close to us. Sometimes we do feel closer in some ways after the deaths. And that gal who called you monster in law had a screw loose but you know that already.
I think your son and DIL know you have the kids and come around soul to soul at times.
And those demands from the estranged are just heart tearing. I think they want us to suffer like they are suffering or they simply need someone to blame so they suffer less. I am also sorry you experience this. It ain't fun.
Hang in there, dear one.