An Age-triggered Flashback

Today I had the pleasure of doing a sweet young lady's hair for her sweet 16 birthday party.  I had the oldies station on the radio which made her mother and I reminiscent.  As we joked about my grandmother listening to the same music as me, I mentioned how young my grandmother was when I was born (35).  I talked about how glad I was to break the family tradition of young, unwed pregnancy in my family.  She shared some things about her family with me, and then headed home.

Hours later, I was headed home from the mall when I had the realization that my daughter is the same age my mother was when she was murdered.  There's no explaining when these thoughts appear.  Though I'm roughly ten years older than my grandmother was at that time,  I was overcome with how she must have felt.

Death is a hard thing to think about.  When an "old" person dies it's sad and people mourn, but there is also a sense of them being better off.  No more pain.  No more suffering from disease and/ or loneliness.  It's  almost expected.

When a young person dies, especially in a horrible way, it's almost incomprehensible.  How do we make sense of something so senseless?  I can't even begin to understand what life without my daughter would be like.  I'm sure it would be a huge, gaping hole in my life.  Forty-three years later, I still see that wound in my grandmother's heart.

She and I have handled the loss of my mother in totally different ways.  She has dived into a pit of anger, resentment, bitterness and even hate.  I won't lie.  I have experienced every single one of those emotions, plus some more.  But I have chosen to work through each and every one, and not allow the pain to eat me alive like it is her.  At the same time, though, I can't help but think I might act similarly to her if it happened to MY daughter.

I can't explain why I see there as being a difference between the two events.  Maybe because I was so young (3 years) when my mother died, and I've had 22 years with my daughter.  I guess more time means more relationship, which means a greater depth of emotion and investment.

I'm thankful that these age-related flashbacks are becoming farther and farther apart.  They're also becoming less traumatic.  I've learned how to process them in a much healthier way.  That doesn't mean the emotions are any less real, but they are less intense.

I've come so far, yet not far enough to be able to handle such a loss.  My Gram is strong; she passed that on to me. I hope to use that strength in a healthy way.