The next step is acceptance

I’ve been spending the last week or so managing the things going on in my life right now. I recently wrote about not resisting what is, when something is not as I want it to be. The not resisting wasn’t too difficult, but the acceptance (the next part) has been a bit harder.

As I have mentioned before, I was primarily raised by my dad, along with my paternal grandmother and uncle. They were all my parents.

Grandma (left), Uncle Alvin, Donna (1st Bday), and my dad (sitting)

From one perspective, it is a blessing to have had “extra” parents. But to be honest, I have struggled with those blessings. From early on, I didn’t like that I wasn’t in a traditional family. And to make things worse, my dad moved away when I was eleven, leaving me with just my grandma and uncle. As ungrateful as it seems to me now, I used to think… Who gets raised by their grandma and uncle? I want to be like everyone else, with a mom and a dad. Even though I was spoiled by my grandma and uncle, it was still emotionally difficult for me, as I was desperate to understand why I wasn’t given the chance in this life to be “normal”.

When I was 27 (1993) my dad became ill and he wanted me to be the one to help him. I loved my dad so much that I would have done anything for him, so of course I stepped up. It was a huge heartbreak for me to watch him get sicker and then to lose him shortly after.

In a condolence card from my mom, she wrote something like… Maybe we finally know why you were raised by your dad—so that you would be close to him and would be there when he needed you. Whether or not that was true (because sometimes we, including my mom, never get the whys of life) it was like a huge weight was lifted off of me. After 27 years, I finally felt a sense of relief from my lack of understanding, as it was now replaced with a new belief of a purpose for my childhood circumstances.

It was three years later that I lost my grandma as well.

This leaves my Uncle Alvin. I’ve been sharing that he’s been sick. He’s not getting better and so now, he’s become the center of my life. Similar to my dad, my uncle also wants me to be the one to help him. And of course, I am. But I must admit it’s very difficult. I am having feelings that I don’t want to have. I get flashbacks of that teenager who thinks… Who is like me? If I would have just had a normal upbringing, then maybe I'd need to deal with two big losses (which I’ve already had so far). But now I’m going on my third! And while my mom is still young and healthy, she’s in the back of my mind as well.

Suddenly, all my extra parents don’t seem like such blessings. Isn’t that a horrible thing to say? Honestly, that sentence is not true at all. There’s just a lot of fear going on with me at the moment. I love all my parents, and I am extremely grateful for the abundance of love I have had in my life from having so many to care for me. But the anticipation of possibly more loss coming in the near future makes way for crazy thoughts.

I could easily edit what I’m writing here, but I’d rather just write honestly because I’m working on the acceptance stage for where I am with my uncle. Maybe I need to remember the possible purpose for having been raised by him—so I can be here for him now. He never married nor had any children of his own, but he freely gave all his love and attention to me. In return, he deserves all the love and caring in the world as well. This I know and so this I will give!