my life and losses ..

[Ross Purdy]

I don’t really know what the write…

 

Starting at age 2. I remember vaguely the phone calls my dad made to me when he was away. I remember feeling alone and wanting my mom and dad to come back. I would ask about them frequently and just told they would be back soon. Moving forward just a little I remember being at my dad’s funeral, I remember seeing him lying there in the casket, I remember asking about him and being told he is sleeping. I accepted that answer but did not understand all that was going on and being confused about the whole situation. Grandma was very sad…and angry. She would lose her temper with me often, and did not really show any true love or affection…after that we would visit my dad’s grave every one of his birthdays and Memorial Day. Moving forward to 8 years old I was spending the night at my great-grandparents house, who I stayed with often for a large portion of my early life as my grandmother was still working at the time and my mother had moved away with a new boyfriend to Indiana. I remember it being late in the night, after we had all been asleep for a while the phone rang, I would sleep in the same room as them in a cot when I would stay there and so we were all woken up, I remember them looking very concerned and talking on the phone for a long time before finally talking with me, my grandmother came over to their house during this time and eventually they just told me my mother had passed away. I was confused, I did not understand and did not talk about it, I acted like everything was the same and buried all of this for many years. Moving forward to 12 years old, I was again at my great grandparents’ house, my great grandma became ill, I remember the ambulance being called to the house that night and traveling to the hospital a while later after my grandmother had come to pick me up, we went to visit her and I yet again did not know what was going on, the next day we went to visit her and she died that night. I was very sad, but held it all in, I couldn’t show emotion, I couldn’t be weak when everyone else was crying, I just couldn’t and I suppressed it all again. We went to her funeral, this caused much more pain and sadness and anger from my grandmother, she got worse and our relationship what little we had grown more strained. My great grandfather moved into our house a few months after his wife passed away, he was suffering from cancer that was being treated with radiation but he did not want chemo and operation was too risky. Him and my grandmother’s relationship was strained as well while he lived with us. After living with us for just under a year he passed away as well, I remember the night well, he and I had on and off argued about stupid stuff and I remember going to bed angry because of our argument, I did not tell him I loved him that night, he passed away in the night..I never got to say goodbye. I remember waking up that morning to my grandmother crying, it was a school day but I stayed home as she called the people to come take him. Shortly later we went to his funeral. My great-grandparents where the single most influential people I had in my entire life growing up before moving out, I was very close to them and spent a lot of my time with them for the whole life up until they passed away…I never got to say goodbye to anyone, I never got to mourn or grieve. My grandmother after all of this loss and raising me became bitter, resentful, angry and unemotional otherwise, she mistreated me emotionally and mentally. She lied to me about how my parents passed away and only recently in the last 2 years did I find out how they truly died. My dad passed away on his 31^st birthday from a heroin overdose, which as I am finding out more may or may not have been his own doing, my mother may have done it to him to get away. She then passed away after being beaten into a coma from her boyfriend she was living with in Indiana, he was never brought to justice as there was never any proof but everyone knew what had happened. I am 26 years old and only at 24 did I find out these horrible truths. I have buried these memories and pain most of my life but cannot do so anymore. Because of everything I am an angry person with strong attachment issues, mistrust, uncaring, jaded, pessimistic, and a developing drinking problem. I am seeking help….I just hope it helps…