To remember the ghost Who exists in the past But be freed from the longing For one moment to last

 Feliz Dia De Los Muertos.

💔

I am lonely and I am sad without you. I don't know how I am expected to keep on keepin' on without you. It's not fair.

This is my  paternal grandfather. I've never met him. He died before I was born. I have been promised my entire life he would have loved me so much, that he always wanted grandchildren. I know  almost nothing about him. I am so jealous (and I rarely experience jealousy) of people who know their families. The only connection I have to him is his widow and his adult children, whom I am estranged from.

I have been trying to do the hard work of reconnection. Most important to me is to find out about who my family is. I don't want anything else. But how can you reconnect when your entire connection is through the man who raped you as a toddler and then stalked you for almost 30 years? Whose family denies that the abuse and the domestic violence ever took place?

I want to know what happened. I want to know what the truths are. Families are unreliable narrators. I don't trust anyone, because my family has shown me that no one can be trusted. I have never in my life felt safe or been made to feel safe.

I grieve a person I never met with as much sadness as my heart can stand. I grieve that my family is broken. I grieve the loss of my own identity. I grieve the loss of a life I never had.

I spent my whole life supporting everyone else, and making everyone else comfortable, and minimizing myself and then suddenly I turned around and my entire life was gone.