 Spiritual: June 18, 2025 Issue [#13168] |
This week: Do we miss reality or imagination? Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI Magical Days!  
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| Conversations with friends and family have led me to thinking about loss, and the impact of it under different circumstances. Here are some of my personal thoughts on this. |
Dear Reader,
My Dad and I were very close to one another. We'd had seventeen years being just the two of us after Mom's death, and we'd seen each other through tough times (major surgeries for both of us many times) and had several good memories together, too. Dad's friend from the US of A, who visited us and stayed a couple of weeks, commented that he and I had a 'language' all our own.
So when Dad died on Nov. 14, 2023, people thought I would be devastated. I thought I would be, too. I'd been dreading the moment and its aftermath for months, years maybe.
But it wasn't so hard after all. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't devastating. I remember him, I miss him, I smile and I cry when the memories overwhelm me. But on the whole, I'm coping far better than I thought I would.
Now let me speak of a young lady who attended a workshop of mine on letter writing. She chose to write to her father, whom she had lost years ago, when she was 12. She didn't finish the letter, nor did she read it aloud. "I might cry," she whispered to me. Sharing of letters written was optional - while everyone else read theirs aloud, she passed her turn. She and I went for lunch after the session, and she poured out how much she missed her Dad. It sounded like she missed him a lot more than I missed my Dad.
Then it hit me.
I had had the real thing. I had actual memories, videos and photos. Plus - I had had not only the wonderful times, but the exasperating ones as well, when Dad would take extra medicines or drive me up the wall doing similar crazy stuff. So when I lost Dad, I still had something to hold, and I had lost a mixed bag - good stuff and annoying stuff. So my 'missing' was tempered with some comfort and even some relief.
She was missing what could have been.
There was an ideal 'father' in her mind, grown blurry through the haze of the years, and that meant she thought of only the wonderful, the amazing, the fantastic. There was no reality, or only vague recollections of reality, to mitigate it.
Thinking more about this, I look at myself and what I miss. I've never been married, and being brought up to be a 'good' girl, haven't had physical relations with a man. Thus my idea of this togetherness is the romanticised version I read of in books or see in movies. I'm given to understand that the reality is far removed from that. It's nice and all, they say, but not worth thinking about so much. It doesn't really matter if you've experienced it or not. I'm missing what could have been.
So - since I had my Dad for the fifty-six years of my life, and looked after him when needed and enjoyed his company whenever I could, there are no regrets. I was with him while he was on earth, and now his soul has moved on I can accept it.
I guess it's similar with people who divorce ... ? They've had the real experience and don't want it anymore and odn't miss it ... ? I don't know.
Just something to think about. And something to remember - cherish what you have while you have it, probably you'll miss it less when it's gone!
Thanks for listening
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