2015 and Grief

I'm long overdue for another post. There were a lot of changes back in America for me in 2015, and it never felt like the right time to talk about anything. I don't think that's changed, but it's getting easier to talk about.

This summer my family had to sell our beautiful lake-front cabin in north Idaho. It needed to happen because it was not practical to keep such a remote property that we could only manage to use a few times a year. It was the right and necessary thing, but it's still surprisingly hard to let go. And being so far away, we couldn't make one last visit.

After the cabin sold, a very dear family member got sick with incurable cancer. This was a person I've felt close to and admired all my life, even though we didn't communicate often. We didn't attend the funeral.

Then my stepfather was told he had blood cancer and a few months to live. My mother was a champion, and her family swooped in like superheroes to help out. The timeline they gave him was pretty close. I think he made it a week or two beyond what they said, and then he was gone. He was my first dance partner. I don't think we could have been farther apart politically, socially, environmentally, religiously, or any other -ally out there. But it didn't matter. We talked. He cheered me on and made me feel talented and smart, and we respected each other. And I was on the other side of the world when he died.

So, that's the thing that you can't prepare yourself for when you relocate: how much stuff of life happens back in your old life that you just can't be involved in because of distance. Big changes.

I still wouldn't change our decision to move to Japan. I always would have wondered and regretted, if we had decided not to come. Part of me knew that we might miss out on big things at home. Weddings happen, babies are born, and there are tragedies. And we miss out on being involved in those things, and others miss out on things here. There really isn't a fix for that, so we have to accept and adjust and find new ways to grieve from afar. And make up for as much as we can during the visits we are fortunate enough to have.