| My mom died of an aneurysm when I was eight, she was in a coma for the days before she died and I will never forget those days I spent by her side just holding and kissing her hand and stroking her hair and touching her face and telling her how much I love her and that I will never be bad ever again when she got better. I am almost 18 now, but a part of me is still and will forever be stuck at eight years old. I don't know what your family believes, but it's in times like these that you realize what you think matters in life really doesn't matter. And it's in times like these when there is absolutely no hope that you can realize that hope is really the only thing there is. If you cry out with an honest and broken heart I promise He will answer.
Things are obviously different when you're eight years old and lose a parent and when you're in college facing that possibility. When you're eight your parents are your life, when you're in college you're finally starting to build your own. But a child is still a child, and there is nothing that can replace the last moments you spend with your parents, even if it's just watching them breathe on a hospital bed.
The guilt you carry when your parent dies is immeasurable. And no matter how much you know that nothing is your fault, that you have nothing to be guilty about, it still haunts you. I think your daughter is torn between wanting to do the “right” and noble thing and stay at school, to believe that that is what her father would want her to do, to fulfill those expectations he had of her. She closes up because she doesn’t want you to see her pain, she wants you believe, to make herself believe, that she is fine. But she is distressed and obviously not fine. I never got to grieve the loss of my mother because I instantly became the strong one for my family, I did the “right” and noble thing and held it together. I didn’t want to be selfish and let myself fall apart when everything else around me, my family, was falling apart too. The effects of this have echoed throughout my life, in ways I could never have imagined. Deep rooted issues is all that can come of it. I know things are more intense for me because I was so young and it completely shaped my entire character, but when you don’t get to properly mourn, pain that you can never let go of becomes etched as a part of you. Tell her that you want her home, because you need her there. Because you miss her and you want to spend time with her. Let her be a hero in disguise. No matter what your daughter says, I would say, baby, you’re coming home.
Let it be a blessing. Let your daughter have time, not to wait around and fret, but to love and reflect. Let her find herself in the midst of her family, where she belongs, not at school in another country. Don’t let her get lost, in her school work, in her guilt, in her pain, because if she stays at school that will be the only way for her to cope and carry on. Let her be selfish in her pain when you’re allowed to be, when you’re supposed to be, so that she can properly mourn, properly build herself up again. Otherwise, years down the road, she’ll find herself wanting to be selfish in her pain and carrying it forever like I do.
You can be victorious, even in death. Life is beautiful that way. |