As you go through grief,
Certain things come up and circle back around.
For a long time,
What would circle around was the circumstances of my parents' death.
And then after that,
I would circle around the home,
You know,
Almost like their shadows,
Their imprints in the house that we live in.
After that,
For a round of my childhood of being a child with my parents.
It might circle around to things that I did like my mom or like my dad.
It would circle around to habits from my parents.
Those memories,
The photographs,
That kind of stuff.
And then for a while,
This could happen again,
Right?
This idea,
This memory of this could happen again in my life.
I could have to go through this again.
And that would circle and echo around me,
Calling,
Calling at me,
Right?
For a while,
It was a fear of death or a fear of leaving my kids.
And then I remember a period of time and every time I was around looking at something,
It was like I just wanted to share things with my parents.
I would remember sitting on the swing with my dad at like 630 in the morning and sharing our coffee together.
And we would just be talking and I would share my life.
He would share his life.
That memory of not having anyone to share my thoughts and feelings with somebody who really was open and hearing it,
That would kind of circle around.
And just I would say in the last year or two,
My grief has shifted a little bit.
If you'd seen any of these videos,
You would know that I'm now grieving versions of me when my parents were alive.
And so the grief is shifting away from my parents and back toward me.
And recently,
The memories that have been circling around,
Echoing around have been of who I was as a parent,
How I engaged my children in every way possible,
How many photographs and videos I took while my parents were alive,
How I was as a mother.
That has been echoing really,
Really strongly.
I was so involved and absolutely a hundred percent present with my parenting.
And that memory recently,
Those memories,
Those,
You know,
When you're on Facebook or something and the memories pop up,
I think,
Oh I was so good at one point.
Those memories and those words are circling around me currently.
