Life brings its ups and downs. When my father passed away last year, I needed some time alone…apart from courteous “How’re you doings” and polite “You need anythings”…to process the solemn reality of it all. It was bigger than me and covered me in a cloud of moments of dark mourning, but it was small and personal enough to leave an opening for a rainbow to shine through, the hope and promise of better days. I was older when my dad died at age 92 than when my mom did. I was 19 and she was 57. He had been the parent left behind when I lost my mom. He received all the anger, teenage frustrations, disappointment, and mood changes, then later all the love and respect, honor, praise, and ongoing requests for advice an adult child can give and benefit from. After working through the problems that my mom’s sudden departure from us left behind, a huge hole in our then family of three, I came to appreciate him and understand him better. While my response to his death was the choice to be alone, my response to my mom’s death was one of profound loneliness.
Anchor and rock, she kept the family going and kept us together no matter what storms came our way. She was a protector physically and emotionally. She kept us built up. Any success either of us, me or my dad, had was due to her sacrifices, service, contributions, and selfless, bottomless love.
My young age, her sudden passing, and an unresolved final argument: hit me with a different kind of grief. If the time after my dad died has been marked with aloneness, the choice to make peace with his passing in my own way; then the time after my mom died was steeped in heavy loneliness, unchosen and unshakeable.
As an only child, I was comfortable with being alone and often chose solitary play and individual activities like reading or painting. With Mommy, the effect of her death on me was different; only child strength did me no favors.
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I separated myself from my big extended family and the community of curious visitors with their sympathy flowers and condolence casseroles. No one noticed I was in bed the entire time they were in my room, with loneliness found as their world pushed its way into mine and I cried in solitude.
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I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t ask for anything. I couldn’t help plan anything. Clueless and critical judgment from outsiders might view my solitude in the midst of mourning as “not lifting a finger to help”, but I wasn’t even able to lift my head from my bed.
They tended to my father, the newly widowed, and didn’t even think about me, the forgotten child left behind. This was when solitude became unhealthy.
But between my teenage years and young adulthood, I was caught in between worlds of expectation, and the only one I wanted to reach out to was gone forever. This is when I needed to reach out, but I’m not sure I knew how to reach past my new, confusing emotions of grief.
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Fortunately, my Aunt Virginia, one of my mom’s sisters, came to stay with us after my mom’s funeral. It was like water in the desert, but what I thought was an oasis turned out to be just a mirage.
My Aunt left after several weeks. I went to college. I left college. I lived with my mom’s sisters. I returned to college. I finished college a year later, still sad, but functioning. It took a long time to process something that big. I was grateful to have my mom’s family to reach out to and therapy years later to help make sense of it all.
Surviving in silence and failing was not a healthy choice. It’s been almost 33 years since she passed on. I hold her in my heart, thoughts, and choices. I tend to be a more solitary person who needs daily time alone to settle my spirit; and silence to hear myself think. If it were not for my fiancé, I probably would never go out. (This is proof that God blesses us with what we need.)
As long as it is a choice to be and not to isolate, being alone can be healthy. It can be a time for introspection leading to self- and other-understanding. Too much noise shatters peace of mind. Loneliness is no one’s choice, however. It is the evil twin of aloneness and the wayward child of solitude. It is also the root of losses of love, community, and other social separations.
Solitude becomes unhealthy when you realize you haven’t been choosing. You haven’t been choosing the isolation. You haven’t been choosing the lack of connection. Instead of solitude charging you up with creative ideas, you are feeling run down with hopelessness and too weary to reach out to trusted persons or professionals most capable of getting you healthy again.
Keep checking in and stop checking out before aloneness can become lonely. Build a network of supporters before you need the support. The quality counts more than the quantity. Fill the network with people who know what’s normal for you and see the signs of your solitude becoming unhealthy. Empower them with a mental health advance directive like the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) to take mutually acceptable action to restore and return them to their normal when you can and can’t reach out. Believe that hope is around the corner with the gracious goodness that you need and deserve, and you will find it. With time and help, you can rebuild your inner joy.
