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Feeling Love

My friend S came over for a couple of days because she needed to take pause. Her life has been more than usually challenging lately and not all problems can be resolved. That is a hard thing to make peace with for a person as take-charge as S. Among other things she talked about guilt over not feeling love for her mother while she was alive and not actually missing her now that she has passed. S described this void in her heart that nothing will fill - the place where that love should have been and now grief. In the absence of all that she feels as if her very humanity is challenged. This is not so uncommon a problem. 

 Comes a time in many of our lives when we grow so far apart and away from our parents that we feel no closeness. And with that comes the desire to overcompensate by frequent contact without any true feeling. Each such encounter leaves us feeling guilty - questioning why we cannot muster genuine love and care for those who gave birth to us, who raised us the best they could and without whose nurture (flawed as it may have been). we would not be here to today.

 The advice I have received from others on this issue is to put as much effort as possible to be present in the life of your elderly parents. Keep trying to feel gratitude even if anger and resentment seem to take over every time you try. Leave while you are still ahead - try not attempt more closeness than you have capacity for. Make incremental progress and try to consolidate gains.Know that you are hardly alone in this journey. Most importantly, hold yourself accountable as far as possible. I tried to pass on all my learned wisdom to S in hopes that she may be able to find peace.

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