Identity

Since my mom died, I have struggled a lot with identity.  I've always had identity issues.  I've always tried to figure out who I am and where I fit in.  With the loss of my mother, these identity issues were intensified.  Suddenly the words daughter and granddaughter (my mom and grandmother died within 35 days of each other) meant something different than they had before.  Suddenly I felt like I needed to be something different than I was before.

How I felt was like a kite whose string has been broken.  My mom anchored me in so many ways.  She guided me (usually more than I wanted her to).  She was a Grandmother in every sense of the word to my kids.  She was a tie to family history.  She was someone I could fall back on.  She was loving and hands-on with the kids.  Meanwhile my grandmother was someone with whom I'd always been extremely close, who had good advice about my kids, who shared with me many of her own joys and sorrows about life, and parenting, and growing old.  She also shaped the German side of me; because I had her, I felt truly German.  These two women shaped who I am and how I live my life.  Their presence was always there.

I guess the key is to figuring out how to still be all the things I was before without them here anymore.