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Cori, when my father and mother died within three months of each other in 2012, I knew my world, as I had known it, had undergone a seismic shift. Yet others did not seem to understand; they expected that I would move ahead into my new normal and with my chin up continue on with my life. Well, it wasn't that simple - it isn't, is it - but those who had not felt this astronomic upending of "normal" life, just didn't understand. As the months passed and 2012 was coming to an end, I had the sense that 2013 would be the beginning of my new normal; 2012 was all about my parents' deaths. 2013 would not be. And, thus, when I received a call from one of my cousins very innocently asking how my year had been, I blew up. "My parents died" this year! How could my life have been anything but awful! She could not comprehend what that had meant to me. And I could not comprehend her naivete. There was a massive gap in our understanding of each other that was only bridged when she suffered the same loss. We don't know what another is feeling. We can sympathize but very rarely empathize.

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