Who Loves You?
Someone in the women’s dialogue I belong to made a suggestion of an exercise we could do in between our monthly meet-ups: make a list of 20 people that have loved you. Not necessarily the ones you know love you, but the ones you have felt loved by. 
I quickly, mentally ticked off the obvious handful of people, feeling blessed to have known the adoring love of my children when they were little, to have found the love of my life in my second marriage, to have received the sense of wonder that my father had for me and each of his children, and to receive the joy of my grandsons today when they run squealing into my arms, But how would I get to twenty? That’s a lot of people.
It wasn’t until the following day that an old memory resurfaced. My cousin Ann was an older teenager when I was a four-year old girl. She carried me around, bought me ice cream and took me to Paragon Amusement Park in a new red dress. She basically made a big deal out of me, which was a big deal because I came from a family of nine kids (there were five us of at the time) where it was easy to get lost in the shuffle.
My standards may be high, but after Ann made the list, I got stuck again. I was asking the hard questions. Who did I feel seen by? Who showed me their love and loved me purely?
And then it hit me hard, and was as if I had awakened to a whole forgotten portion of my life. The mother of my first husband, the grandmother of my sons was like a second mother and a girlfriend all wrapped in one. She died in the summer of 2011.
I cared and I cried when she died, but I had not fully grieved the loss of her. I didn’t want to. I grieved extensively when I lost my brothers, Jim and Dan, in 2001. I knew how hard it was and that it wouldn’t change the outcome. I didn’t want to pull out the photos albums or pour over our old letters. I didn’t want to remember how foundational she was in my life. How I cried in her arms when we left Texas and moved to Virginia and she thought it meant I had changed my mind. How, when we both lived in Massachusetts, she bought me a fancy dress because I only wore jeans then. How she taught me about peat moss, how to cut up a chicken and the right way to make tea. She took me on my first “nature walk,” opening up a new way to see the world that became a tradition I passed on.
So I spent the day bawling as memories (and a poem) came forth. I felt the painful fact that my place in her life changed over time after the break up of my marriage. I felt intense gratefulness remembering how she (and my former father-in-law) drove my family members back and forth from the Texas airport in 2001 when my brother Danny, who lived in Texas, was dying.
I don’t like crying, although I did feel better when it finally subsided. I don’t know how I will get through the rest of the exercise. I’ve put it on hold, thinking maybe the benefit has already been met. Maybe it’s time for me to ponder something different, like ‘who have I loved that purely?’
February 19th, 2013 1:52 pm
I am working and took a break and decided to check out your blog. Mainly because I haven’t recently. But am bawling too. Pat was a wonderful person and a Mother all the way!! Great post. I will have to try this exercise another day though!
February 19th, 2013 3:40 pm
What an interesting exercise….I can see how it might certainly open up the floodgates—which I love. For me, crying is so cleansing and I find great relief in truly letting go fully….Like laughing, it feels really good, to me. I may just do this exercise….!
February 19th, 2013 8:33 pm
I came back to visit, since I am finished with work. I wanted to also say……I love the last picture. Was that in Marshfield when the Copus’s had a boat?
February 19th, 2013 8:45 pm
What a powerful exercise. I’m glad you finally grieved the loss of a woman who clearly meant so much to you. <3
February 19th, 2013 10:46 pm
I read that poem, now I read this. Moving on many levels. Am glad to have been given the opportunity.
Sounds like a letter to friends, that we should all write but send it to our self. We spend so much time trying to explain to others how we see or interrupt but we forget to explain to our self the why part -if that makes any sense at all.
February 20th, 2013 1:00 am
The last picture was taken in Bacliff Texas where Pat and John lived. They flew me and the kids there once, sometime around 1987.
February 20th, 2013 5:31 pm
I felt loved by Ann too. She was special that way.
And…
I would have bawled too, at the memories that surfaced in you about Pat. I knew her and loved what I knew of her but I only knew a tad compared to you. That’s all it takes sometimes though with people like her. She could make you feel special too. And yes, she did love you.
That picture of her at the other link is gorgeous.
Do you think you’ll get to 20 at some time?
February 20th, 2013 6:44 pm
I don’t think there are any more big memories to come forth in line with this exercise. But who knows? I feel lucky to have named and/or remembered the ones I have already.
Although, my grief for the loss of Pat is complicated by the fact that John, (her husband/my son’s grandfather) died just months after her. xo
February 20th, 2013 6:49 pm
A very good exercise and I think it will be good to turn it around and ponder who you have loved.
February 20th, 2013 8:53 pm
Thanks for writing this Colleen. We miss our mum very much. She was a classy lady thru and thru. It’s great to see that she had such an impact on you.
February 20th, 2013 9:19 pm
Colleen
Super memories. Thanks for sharing. She was one of a kind. I too felt the love.
February 20th, 2013 9:39 pm
So much more could be said. This just scratches the surface. I am still very emotional. My deepest condolences go out to all her family members. xo
February 23rd, 2013 3:28 pm
I had a hard time when Caitlin showed me this early today, I burst out crying and Jim and She looked at me when I said “I miss my Mom.” I still haven’t fully grieved for her, or for my Dad… I just dread when the full realization comes to me.
February 23rd, 2013 4:32 pm
Well said about full realization Gail. We protect ourselves for a reason, grieve in stages or sometimes have delayed grief. With Jim and Dan I practiced active grieving. Using writing as my therapy, I wasn’t happy until I hit a nerve most days while writing. I explored it as if I was in a different country. Believe it or not it was a way to have controlled grieving. But the wound eventually closes and you don’t want to pick at it or open it up again. I thought hard about posting this because I didn’t want to stir your (and others) grief, but in the end I really wanted to acknowledge how special your mum was and what she meant to me.