Who am I without him?

I was a bicycle with one wheel.  My childhood, which was archived in black and white photos of the two of us didn't seem real anymore.  I was a sister and more than that I was a sister who protected him and tried to raise his spirits when he was down.  Who was I now? 

I was still a sister but my surviving brother hadn't shared our childhood.  We were teenagers when he was born so he didn't know us as children.  He was raised like an only child.  I was still a wife and mother and grandmother but none of those titles meant anything at the time.  I didn't want to be any of those things. I just wanted to go and be with him and protect him from what had already taken him. I wanted time to move backward and if given that impossible trick I would do better. I would be the best protective sister ever.  He would never be so impossibly sad that he would feel death was better than life.  Like the mermaids calling to the sailors his death called to me and I wanted to go.

Our father had passed away several months before Ken's suicide.  Our mother had suffered two unimaginable losses but her illness (borderline personality disorder) prevented her from seeing that I was coming apart. As is the nature of her illness she saw it only as it pertained to her. After several very bad experiences being the target of her rage I moved away.  The move probably saved my life.

Every square inch of my home had held a memory.  The front door ws where he had said his last "goodbye".  The swimming pool was a place he spent a lot of time that last visit.  There was no escape from the sadness until I put miles between me and the house.

In 2008 we moved and I reinvented myself.  I got back to my artwork and found that there was joy in my heart. Ken was still in my heart as well but not in a way that brought tears.  I had brought him along with me to this new place and together we had left behind the yearning to relive the last phone call, the last swim, the last time he walked out of my door.  We, the two of us, had a new beginning and we were free.

A few years later I moved back to the area where I had lived when he died.  Time had changed me.  I was stronger.  The distance had taught me how to be in the presense of our mother without taking her moods personally.  A healthier, more balanced me had emerged from the wreckage.  It had taken ten years to get to that point.

1. Do you fear forgetting your loved one?  Are there things you can write about that will help keep their memory strong in your mind?

2. Have you found it difficult to define who you are without the person you have lost? 

3.Can you imagine coming out of the other end feeling stronger than ever before?  What lessons are you learning that may help you redefine who you are without them?