Dismantling - mutual imperfection inside genuine love

The day after my dad passed, we drove to the funeral home in the town where he lived. While we were driving, I had my head down looking at something on my phone, lost in my own quiet. I looked up just in time to see a light flash and zoom vertically moving with our car in the left lane of the highway, and then pass us, flying way ahead, and disappear.  I looked at my husband and asked if he saw that; he did.  I believe that may have been my dad’s impatient spirit! My dad did not want to stay where he was and could not wait for the mortuary transport van to get him back home in the next day or two. He couldn’t wait to be with my mom again. 

Something about losing my dad has triggered a deep dive and reflection into my current identity now that I have lost both parents and feel like an orphan. My dad and I had time together until just after he turned 92, but it was not enough. I could not get him to really understand me. I tried. I think it may be that he was from a different generation. He did not have the map to understand me. I was fully loved, but not really seen. He couldn’t say what I needed to hear; “ I see how hard your brain has to work, and I see what it costs you. I see the courage in that.” My dad was the best person ever. He was happy, always smiled, never raised his voice, loved all of his family, and was laid back. And he loved me too. He just didn’t get me.

I never felt like I measured up to my mom. She had the gift of gab and knew just how to talk to everyone. As a kid, I asked her how to do this, she said, "Just bullshit!"  As an adult, I can laugh about that now. Telling a neurodivergent child who is looking for the process and the steps for how to just bullshit leaves them with a blank look in their eyes, feeling bewildered and lost, and kind of just dumb. 

I spent much of my time with my mom growing up, as my dad was a traveling salesman and was away a lot. She would spend hours at Marshalls, shopping, her favorite activity, not mine. We once went to visit friends in Dallas, and I thought, “cool, there must be some interesting science museums to see.”    There might have been, but I’ll never know because instead of museums, we visited every Marshalls in town. 

My mom and I would go to the swim club in the summer, where she would pour baby oil on her skin and lie out in the sun. This was never an issue for her as she had dark olive skin.  I was adopted, so I was a contrast standing next to my mom with my height, my blonde hair, and my blue eyes. She was five feet and “one-half inch” tall, as she liked to emphasize.

Years later, I would come to see through my own children that I had ADHD, which had resulted in many challenges for me. I struggled and felt alone. My peers did not understand me, and I can understand that now as an adult. My mom shaped me, but never really got to see me become me. She passed of late stage Ovarian cancer when I was 28. It was quick; about 8 weeks from start to finish. After that, it was just my dad and me for my primary family. We leaned on each other and became close; closer than we were before.  

My mother gave me a gift.  I did not see it then, and I did not see it until just recently. She gave me my father twice, once by building the family, and once again with her passing. I was never really close with my dad growing up because he was away so much. When she passed, we got to know each other better and hung out together more than before. That was my parting gift from my mom; it was my dad. I had to lose my mother to find my father. If my mom had lived, would I have had the same relationship with my dad? 

I think I carry a grief from growing up misunderstood. No one understood, not the educators in school, not the variety of professionals at the swim club with whom we mingled, and not my parents.  I didn't know I had ADHD. I just thought I was doing everything wrong.

My brain was just wired differently than the world expected, and I didn't have the scaffolding I needed to navigate. I experienced so many challenges - social stumbles, poor performance in college, and post-college jobs that did not really match me.  I had impulsivity without an understanding that it was there or why it was there. It presented me as the weird kid at fault for odd behavior. Nobody said, "Oh, that's a neurological timing issue between thought and action, not disruption". The world didn’t have a label for ADHD when I was a kid.

I always wanted to be understood by my parents deep down. I wanted them to see the landscape of neurodivergent ADHD. I tried many times to get them to see, but was not able to. With the loss of my parents, I didn't just lose them; I lost possibility. There is the grief of losing them, but also the grief of losing the possibility of being understood and validated. 

Acceptance without resolution. The way it was then shaped the person who I am now. If I could go back and change things, make things better for that little girl, convey knowledge and bring understanding, would I even have ended up in the same place that I am in now? Probably not, and I have made peace with this. It is not a tidy bow. But it's true.